Honored guests that threw the party into disarray

Text by Pandaya, photos by Arief Suhardiman

LHOKSEUMAWE, Aceh (JP): The Armed Forces combat troops were treated like special guests when they arrived in Aceh in 1991 but seen off like unwelcomed monsters for the atrocities they allegedly committed in the province.

At the start of the troops' withdrawal from Aceh on Aug. 20, Bukit Barisan Regional military command chief Maj. Gen. Ismed Yusairi said the Armed Forces (ABRI) had three combat battalions of 2,172 personnel.

Although the troops deployed here consisted of personnel from different units, many Aceh people who suffered under the Red Net Operation, launched in 1991, laid the blame for the atrocities largely on the Army's Special Force (Kopassus) soldiers.

The National Commission on Human Rights, which twice sent a fact-finding team to the province, did not point its finger at any particular unit in the Armed Forces, and only attributed the atrocities to the state "apparatus".

It was the then Aceh governor, Ibrahim Hasan, who asked for the elite red berets following escalating armed Free Aceh Movement rebellions between 1989, when the territory was declared a Military Operation Area, and 1991, after the insurgents killed 20 soldiers and seized 21 assault rifles.

"I have invited the country's best sons and daughters from Jakarta to help restore order in Aceh," he said at the time, calling on Acehnese to serve their "guests" properly.

"Give them rice when they are hungry and coconut water when thirsty," said Ibrahim, who also served as agriculture minister in the authoritarian Soeharto's regime. "Just like in a grand party, it would certainly be acceptable if one or two dozen plates and cups are broken."

The supposedly respectable special guests turned nasty. Not only did the guests smash plates and cups without reasons but allegedly also harassed, killed and raped the hosts.

Activists and politicians recently pressured Jakarta to stop the "party", which has turned out to be intolerably expensive, with thousands of people believed to have died and too many "plates and cups" broken beyond repair.

What did Ibrahim have to say after the "party" was abruptly stopped? "Many people have been killed because ABRI was there for too long," he said in an interview with Republika daily.

Led by Hasan Tiro from Pidie, the Free Aceh Movement armed rebellion started in 1978. An insurgency that was aimed at turning Aceh into an Islamic state symbolized the locals' rejection of Jakarta's unjust policy on the province. The people charged that Jakarta plundered their natural wealth and left them to live in poverty.

ABRI managed to suppress the uprising. Tiro, now in his 80s, and his key followers, fled to Europe.

There are different versions concerning his whereabouts, with some saying he is in Sweden and others saying he is in Austria. He retains his command and leads the secessionist activity from exile. Tiro has reportedly broadened his command base to include Europe, Middle East and Malaysia.

But some critics doubt Tiro's role in the insurgency because he never appears in any public forum on Aceh.

"His name may have been used to justify the military operations in Aceh," said one observer.

Free Aceh Movement rebels stepped up their activities in 1989, and only after bringing in a large number of troops could ABRI quash the guerrillas it believed were trained and obtained arms overseas.

According to Amnesty International, about 2,000 people were killed between 1989 and 1991.

The movement suffered a major blow in 1990, when Yusuf A.B., its Pasai governor, was killed in northern Aceh. It received another defeat in 1993 when Kopassus troops shot and killed Umar Ibrahim, chief of the movement's Free Aceh Islamic State command center.

In the subsequent mopping up operations, thousands of proindependent activists and people suspected of supporting the movement were arrested, killed or went missing, human rights groups said.

Among the well-known political prisoners is Nurdin Abdurrachman, a lecturer at Banda Aceh's Syah Kuala University. He was arrested in 1990, and in the following year, sentenced to 13 years in jail for subversion.

His fellow teacher, Hasbi Abdullah, was also arrested in 1990 and put in jail for 20 years on the same charges. Serambi Indonesia journalist Adnan Beuransyah got nine year in 1990 on charges of "collecting information" for the movement.

In the same year, food vendor Imran Hasan was sent to jail for seven years on charges of making his coffee stall available for movement sympathizers to discuss their plans.

At present, about 50 suspected Free Aceh Movement activists are in jail. They were sentenced to between eight years and 20 years for their political belief.

Human rights groups said they were checking into reports that dozens of villagers suspected of supporting the movement are still held in detention centers in hot spot areas such as Lhokseumawe, despite the fact that Kopassus has been (partly) withdrawn.

Common people in Aceh said they welcomed the government's recent announcement to lift the Military Operation Area status but they want to see if Jakarta is sincere or if the military oppression remains.

"Now we can do our daily routines and openly discuss the atrocities without fear," said Thalib, a farmer among thousands of villagers who witnessed the excavation of a mass grave in Pidie.

"In the past," he said with a smile, pointing at a deserted mansion formerly used as a detention center, "your life may have ended in a painful death in that rumoh geudong if you dared to speak of repression."