Civilian resistance movements take up arms against GAM

The Jakarta Post, Takengon, Aceh

Marsito Mertoredja, a 69-year-old retired civil servant, should have been enjoying his pension and playing with his grandchildren. Instead, he led villagers in a war against Acehnese separatists that should have been fought by the Indonesian Military (TNI).

"Life is not about having fun -- it's about taking responsibility," he said at his house in the lakeside town of Takengon, the capital of Central Aceh regency.

Clad in a turban and wearing red sunglasses, Marsito is the founder of the Puja Kesumah Tanoh Gayo organization, a local resistance movement pitted against the rebels, which was once a forum for Javanese living in Central Aceh like himself.

From Central Aceh, the current war against the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) stands in contrast to the picture of the war that has unfolded in the rest of the province.

"News from here has often been misleading," Marsito said.

As most Acehnese relished the December peace agreement with GAM, Takengon was the location where a mob assaulted peace observers earlier this year. The peace deal eventually collapsed in May, five months after it was signed.

Reports of militia groups in Takengon came as an eerie reminder of the TNI-supported East Timor militias, who allegedly killed thousands when the people voted overwhelmingly for the former province's independence in 1999.

Here in Central Aceh, affinity for the unitary state of Indonesia is strong. Worn-out Indonesian flags decorate homes and shops along Takengon's streets.

A few cities in Aceh offer the same sight. In GAM-controlled regencies such as Bireuen and Pidie, flag vendors appear to be doing a brisk trade after four weeks of military operations have delivered more areas into the hands of the TNI.

The military operation was launched on May 19 when final efforts in Tokyo to save the five-month-old peace accord collapsed.

"What good was the peace deal for us?" asked Warsito, who supports the war. "GAM personnel entered our villages with their weapons in full view, extorting money from everyone, while the TNI did nothing to stop them."

Just as the TNI is often accused of committing rights abuses against civilians in GAM-controlled areas, the rebels are notorious for doing the same thing in Central Aceh.

Marsito said the abuses began in late 1999, when an intensified military operation flushed out the rebels from their strongholds in Bireuen and North Aceh into Central Aceh, located south of the two coastal regencies.

"They targeted Javanese villages, burning their houses and killing the people," he said.

Around 30 percent of the 237,000 people in the regency are Javanese, many of whom have settled here since the Dutch era. The local Gayo population amounts to just 60 percent, while the remainder consist of settlers from the surrounding Aceh areas and other ethnic groups, such as Minangkabau of West Sumatra, Bataks and ethnic Chinese.

At that time, his Puja Kesumah group was meant only to represent the Javanese community in Central Aceh, but Marsito realized that asking the police and TNI to protect the Javanese from GAM was not enough.

Once recruited by the TNI to help fight the DI/TII rebels in the 1950s, Marsito said he ordered the villagers to make weapons. These were spears and swords at first, but some of the former DI/TII rebels in Central Aceh made use of their experience to produce homemade guns and rifles.

He set up Puja Kesumah, comprising villagers, to protect their homes, requiring them to hold night vigils regularly.

The villagers' greatest asset had to be their sheer number, Marsito explained.

He said that hundreds could be called upon to confront the handful of rebels who often raided their villages. Over time, GAM avoided the Javanese villagers and turned their attention to other communities, including the local Gayo community, to seek money.

"I told other villages that sought help to form their own Puja Kesumah," he said.

According to him, Puja Kesumah has thousands of members. The forum's name now means "praising peace in the land of Gayo", dissolving any reference to the Javanese community it once represented.

Central Aceh Military Command chief Lt. Col. Amrin acknowledged the effectiveness of the local resistance movement.

"It really does help us in our job," he said.

Asked about TNI and the movements' relationship, he said it was restricted to providing them moral support.

"They may give us information on GAM members when they see them," he said, but the rest was left up to the soldiers.