Addressing the symptoms, not causes, in Aceh

Addressing the symptoms, not causes, in Aceh

Damien Kingsbury, Head of Philosophical, Political and International
Studies, Deakin University, Melbourne

The arrest of three women -- two of them foreigners -- in Aceh
last week has raised questions about what they were doing in the
province, and about police procedure.

The women are Lesley McCulloch, a British national resident in
Australia, Joy-Lee Sadler, a American nurse, and Fitrah bin Amin,
a student, who was their translator.

The three were taken into custody by police at a road block in
South Aceh on Wednesday, Sept. 11, and taken to Tapak Tuan where
they were detained, so far for six days without formal contact.

Despite police saying the three were not detained, brief calls
made by mobile phone by Sadler and McCulloch said they were being
held against their will.

Under Indonesian law, people detained must be charged within
24 hours. However, the three have still not been charged with any
offenses, although it is now almost a week after their arrest.
More importantly, requests by a lawyer to see them in Tapak Tuan
were refused by local police, while British and U.S. consular
staff have also been misled as to their whereabouts.

Police in Aceh have consistently provided misleading
information as to the location of the three, saying variously
they had left Tapak Tuan on Saturday (they had not), that they
were in Medan (they were not) and they were being sent to Banda
Aceh (where it seems they are finally being sent).

Sadler said via phone that she had been beaten, and McCulloch
said she had been forced to sign a statement against her will.
So, it seems that the police had been holding the three in order
to have more time to extract information from them, in the hope
of finding 'evidence'.

So, what were the three doing in South Aceh to start with?
Sadler was delivering medical supplies to refugees. Although this
is not strictly within the ambit of her tourist visa, delivering
medicine is of itself not a crime. And the refugees are the
innocent victims of a brutal conflict. Sadler should not have
been arrested, but thanked.

McCulloch was also in Aceh on a tourist visa, but was in the
process of applying for a longer-term visa. She had registered
with the camat (district head) in her district where she was
staying in Banda Aceh, and was transparent about her interests,
which have in the past included writing on the political
situation there.

Fitrah bin Amin is a student and the pair's translator, and in
this case is an innocent person who has been caught in troubling
circumstances. This is so often the case in Aceh.

Police allege that the three had visited a Free Aceh Movement
(GAM) area in South Aceh. At this stage, there has been no
evidence produced to establish this allegation. And frankly,
given that so much of Aceh is controlled by GAM -- despite what
police and the Indonesian Military (TNI) claim -- it is difficult
to travel anywhere in the province, other than in towns or on the
highway from Banda Aceh to Medan, and not enter GAM-held
territory.

To date, it is also not illegal to actually travel in Aceh, so
this appears to be a thin allegation against the three.

Of course, what this situation is really about is the TNI's
frustration in not being able to successfully prosecute its war
in Aceh against GAM. Despite threats from various leaders that if
GAM does not accept the special autonomy status they will launch
an all-out attack, the reality seems to be that the TNI is doing
as much as it possibly can now.

While the TNI is not losing control of its one highway and the
towns, it is not gaining any territory, either.

In response to the arrest of the three women, the TNI have
launched an attack against villages in South Aceh. The people of
these villages had nothing to do with the three women, or with
GAM. But the destruction of their homes is now likely to push the
villagers into the arms of GAM.

So the TNI is not only failing to win territory, it is also
failing to win the hearts and minds of the Acehnese people.

It is attacks against ordinary villagers that continues to
lose Aceh to the cause of Indonesian nationalism, a cause that in
this place may already be lost.

Arresting foreign non-combatants, without charges and refusing
representation, is an exercise in official frustration. It is not
an exercise in law.

It seems that the Indonesian government, and the TNI, have a
long way to go before they understand the difference.