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