Is anybody really in charge in Aceh?

Is anybody really in charge in Aceh?

Saiful Mahdi, Banda Aceh

Preliminary survey results by Unifem (United Nations
Development Fund for Women) involving around 6,500 Acehnese
women, survivors of the tsunami, indicated that almost 70 percent
of them make decisions on their own. Important decisions the
survivors make range from simple daily choices, to livelihood
options, to whether they want to return to their original
villages, relocate, or stay in temporary shelters.

The remarkably high percentage has at least two
interpretations. One might infer that Acehnese tsunami survivors,
especially women, are very independent and self-resilient. They
do not wait for the government to come along and tell them what
to do. They also do not make decisions based on input from NGOs
or UN agencies. Indeed, many who have been to Aceh's tsunami-
affected areas have witnessed a rise in people's independence and
resilience since the emergency period.

On the other hand, one can critically ask: Why do the
survivors have to make most, if not all, decisions on their own?
Where is the government? Where are the policymakers? Who is, and
who should be, in charge of leading the rehabilitation and
reconstruction of Aceh? Is the Aceh Rehabilitation and
Reconstruction Agency (BRR) in charge? Or is it the "local
government"? And who exactly is the local government?

It has been reported that many government offices did not
function normally in many areas in Aceh during the conflict
period, and also during the emergency period in the aftermath
of the Dec. 24, 2004 earthquake and tsunami.

The problem with government in Aceh is not even a question of
small or big government. It is a more basic question of whether
people can really feel the presence -- other than the military --
of the government, and how much it supports this devastated
society.

When the earthquake and tsunami happened, Aceh was still under
a state of civil emergency. Amidst the great need for clear
coordination and leadership to cope with a challenging
humanitarian situation, Aceh witnessed a vacuum of local
leadership on the one hand, and on the other, an ad-hoc,
sometimes mutually exclusive, emergency response from the
national authorities, international agencies and NGOs.

Based on the civil emergency status, it was the Aceh Police
chief who was the highest-ranking local government official in
Aceh. Despite the governor being in jail for corruption, the
local civilian government, of which vice governor was the highest
ranked official, was officially there too.

The military commanders, who gave up their official power role
as martial law authorities in November 2005, are still very much
active. Worst of all, there are the chronic overlapping
responsibilities between the local government apparatus, the
police and military, and central government instrumentalities,
including the Finance Ministry, Immigration Office, the State
Secretariat, Foreign Affairs Ministry, and even intelligence
agencies -- to name just a few.

All are only concerned with protecting their bureaucratic
turf, and have almost no concept of working together in the
interests of the people of Aceh much less the nation as a whole.
Only with strong, credible leadership from within Aceh itself can
there be any hope of whipping this bureaucratic malaise into
shape.

One might argue that ACeh was confronted with an emergency
situation that no-one had ever been exposed to. The leadership
failure and vacuum in Aceh, however, can be traced back to the
conflict. Local leadership, be it formal or informal, was
effectively put into dormancy -- allegedly on purpose -- by the
warring parties in Aceh. The politics of antagonism -- "you are
with us, or with the enemy" -- has destroyed once-vibrant local
leadership.

Weak leadership and unclear authority continue to slow down
the rehabilitation and reconstruction efforts in Aceh.

There was a glimpse of hope when the BRR was installed in Aceh
in March 2005. And Kuntoro Mangkubroto was right to ask for
ministerial-level authority for his position as the director of
BRR. He was applauded for his quick and decisive moves to be on
the survivors side of the rehabilitation and reconstruction
efforts. He let the people choose whether they wanted to return
to their villages or not. He fast-tracked approval of all the
projects from national and international agencies.

Kuntoro, however, was challenged in various ways by Jakarta's
technical ministries and legislatures. He reportedly had to go
back and forth in order to convince the House of Representatives
(DPR) to disburse the allocated tsunami budget accordingly.

BRR did not receive any funds until June 2005, when the House
approved the disbursement, and some donor countries realized part
of their pledges following the positive results of the Helsinki
talks.

The peace deal between the Indonesian government and the Free
Aceh Movement (GAM) signed on Aug. 15, 2005, in Helsinki has of
course brought optimism to the Acehnese. One of the points of
agreement was that GAM could place members to oversee the
rehabilitation and reconstruction process. And yet, somehow, this
seems to have slowed down Kuntoro and his team.

Kuntoro was in a supposedly strong position as the director of
BRR; a ministerial-level position. However, he does not have
enough authority and machinery to direct all the rehabilitation
and reconstruction processes. It is said that the BRR is a
coordinating agency, not an implementing actor.

Another problem that needs immediate clarification is the
relationship between BRR and the local government of Aceh,
especially after the forthcoming direct elections.

Clear and decisive government is critical after the Helsinki
peace accord. The presence of the Aceh Monitoring Mission (AMM)
has been significant in maintaining the peace in Aceh.

Meanwhile, an Aceh Governance Bill (UUPA) is being drafted.
The bill, expected to be decreed by Jakarta in April 2006 at the
latest, will spell out, among other things, direct elections for
the governor, mayors and regents.

Unless a popular leadership is elected directly and
democratically at the earliest possible time, Aceh will always
have ambiguous leadership. UN agencies, national, private and
international institutions will then have to continue struggling
to find and choose their counterparts for better coordination in
the reconstruction of Aceh.

The writer is the coordinator of The Aceh Institute, and is a
Ph.D student in planning at Cornell University in the U.S. He
can be reached at saiful.mahdi@acehinstitute.org.