Free Aceh unthinkable

Free Aceh unthinkable

Secessionist movements are strange affairs. They are nothing if not local. The grievances that cause them are local; their partisans are rooted to the soil; and they seek to affirm a local identity by detaching themselves from a larger entity. However, the success of those movements depends as much on external responses as on internal factors.

Even if a part of a country secedes by force, after a successful separatist war, this is no guarantee that it will succeed as an independent state. To do so, it would require the recognition and support of other states, and if those are not forthcoming, independence would represent little more than a Pyrrhic victory.

So it is for Indonesia's province of Aceh. Those who are determined to settle for nothing less than its independence might well reflect substantial sentiments on the ground, but it is unclear whether they appreciate the international context of their actions.

Indonesia's hostility -- given that it has ruled out the option of independence through a referendum -- can be taken for granted. Without the support of Southeast Asian nations, the United States, China and Russia, an independent Aceh would be a stillborn country.

-- The Straits Times, Singapore