For aggrieved Aceh people Jakarta has not changed

For aggrieved Aceh people Jakarta has not changed

Aguswandi, Post Graduate Student, International Politics,
London Metropolitan University, agus_smur@hotmail.com

The current military operation in Aceh, now almost four weeks
old, shows one thing to the Acehnese -- that Jakarta has not
changed.

The military approach has constantly been taken in Aceh. For
the Acehnese, Jakarta under President Megawati Soekarnoputri is
the same as Jakarta under the Soeharto regime, under B.J. Habibie
and under Abdurrahman Wahid (Gus Dur) -- slightly different but
not very different; many changes have been promised, but in
reality, nothing has changed significantly.

In Aceh today, there are raids and road blocks. Civilians are
killed, people arrested, schools have been burned and human
rights activists cannot continue their work. There is no freedom
of expression. Many residents are becoming internally displaced
persons. The Indonesian Military (TNI) is everywhere and running
the province. Information is restricted. All of this, in the name
of eliminating the Free Aceh Movement (GAM).

But what is new for the Acehnese? In the previous political
eras and regimes, civilians were killed, road blocks were also
prominent and freedom of expression did not exist. People also
fled their villages. Military troops were deployed en masse and
ruled Aceh. All of this was also in the name of destroying GAM.

So what has changed?

Nothing -- except the name of the operation. Under Soeharto's
New Order regime, it was called Jaring Merah, or the Red Net
Operation, and the period of the military operation was commonly
known as DOM. Under Habibie, the operation was called the Wibawa
operation, and even Gus Dur authorized an operation under
Presidential Instruction No. IV/2000. Now, in the Megawati era,
it is a "military emergency".

But the operation today is the same as the operations launched
by Jakarta of bygone eras under different names. Each one is
reminiscent of the one preceding it.

The Acehnese are starting to say that they are under a second
DOM, or even worse. They are learning that Jakarta has not
changed, and they are beginning to believe that it never will,
because it seems Jakarta always takes the same militaristic path
in responding to the Aceh issue.

Many in the government argue that this new operation is
different, as GAM's popularity has increased. It is also said GAM
controls many areas in Aceh, so the present military operation is
necessary to take control of the province and wipe out GAM.

But hasn't GAM been there all along? And there have been many
different military operations launched to eliminate them. So what
was the purpose of all the previous military operations? Why has
GAM, in fact, become more popular after so many years of
operations?

GAM was supported by only 100 Acehnese or so when Hassan Tiro
proclaimed Aceh as an independent state in 1976, and their
popularity only grew after over 26 years of military presence in
Aceh. The problem is that Jakarta does not want to admit that the
past military solutions for Aceh has only produced a new
generation of GAM.

It is said that the present operation is also different from
those past, because this time it comes with a legitimate
political stamp. For once, the military are making war in Aceh
with the full consent and support of the Indonesian government.

But what difference does this make to ordinary Acehnese?
Sending troops to flood Aceh was the same decision taken by
Soeharto, and the same solution taken by his successors. In war-
torn Aceh, nothing has changed. Once, its violent fate was
decided by a single powerful person in Jakarta; now, it is the
decision of many powerful people.

Still others say that the military has changed, and that this
operation will be different from those in the past -- it will be
selective and only target the rebels. But can we really believe
this, when the police and military are still famous as "bad boys"
in many other areas throughout Indonesia?

Impunity is the enduring feature of the human rights problem
in Indonesia.

Currently, the official line on the situation in Aceh is fed
by Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin, a TNI spokesperson, who was allegedly
involved in the kidnapping of activists in 1998, but never tried.

This operation, the government assures us, will respect human
rights. An odd claim, when nearly all the military commanders
accused of human rights violations in East Timor have proudly
walked free. Some of these very same people are now allegedly
orchestrating the war in Aceh, and we are being persuaded that
they will respect human rights. We have learned from East Timor
that they will never be held accountable for their alleged
crimes.

Jakarta tells us the current operation is a success, with only
a few civilian casualties. It is also reported that nearly
everyone killed was connected to GAM. This is simply a one-sided
claim with journalists embedded with the TNI, and human rights
activists being arrested or ordered to stop their work in
monitoring the situation.

The New Order regime said the same thing during the DOM era --
nothing is amiss in Aceh. Later, it was revealed that they had
deceived all Indonesians. The Megawati administration is playing
the same game with only a slightly more sophisticated hand.
Jakarta is once again obscuring the real problems, intimidating
journalists and swamping the media with its own version of the
situation in Aceh.

Nevertheless, no words can hide the reality of Jakarta's
militarism from the ordinary Acehnese who live in the line of
fire. The ordinary Acehnese are seeing how the war has been
fueled by deception. As is always the case, only half of the
story about Aceh is told and as a result, the story of civilian
casualties, for example, can be found only in foreign media
reports.

Jakarta has consistently underestimated those ordinary people
who change with the times. The Acehnese have learned that Jakarta
is, and always will be, Jakarta. Strangely enough, whereas the
Acehnese have changed, Jakarta remains the same -- it speaks more
and listens less.

Albert Einstein once said everything in the world has changed
except our thinking. If I may rephrase Einstein, I would say that
everything in Aceh has changed except Jakarta's thinking.

The writer is an Acehnese human rights activist.