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.