Honored guests that threw the party into disarray

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."