JP/7/DAWN26
Showdown in Aceh
The Dawn Asia News Network Karachi
The Indonesian army's full-scale offensive against the rebel Free Aceh Movement (GAM) fighting a guerrilla war against Jakarta for 26 years, is not a good omen for Indonesia or the world at large.
The oil-rich province of Aceh is home to some four-and-a-half million people, many with conservative Islamist leanings. The provincial administration, responding to the popular demand, enforced the sharia last year but failed to rein in the separatists, who refused to disarm under a Japan-brokered peace deal with Jakarta in December last. The Indonesian army also refused to move back to peacetime positions, effectively stalling the implementation of the peace accord.
President Megawati Soekarnoputri's decision to resort to military action now is least likely to invite much foreign criticism, as she has linked the action in Aceh with her government's intention to wipe out terrorists who last struck in Bali.
Given America's "war on terror" and the obtaining global situation in its wake, this gives Megawati and her generals just the right opportunity to quell the Aceh rebellion.
The rebels may have their own ideas about an Islamic system, but the lack of its enforcement under a largely secular Indonesian constitution is not their main grievance against Jakarta. The GAM-led insurgency began as a result of popular discontent over the Indonesian army's abuse of power and what the rebels call the plunder of Aceh's natural resources.
A movement for a return to an independent Aceh headed by a sultan -- Aceh used to be a sultanate in the 19th century -- was thus born. Later on, the rebels unfolded a bizarre vision of a resurrected sultanate saying it would, over time, unite parts of Malaysia and Muslim-majority islands of the Philippines in a loose federation. This is an absurd idea in this day and age, and unlike East Timor, has little historical, legal or moral justification.
The Aceh rebels seemed to know as much but used the idea as a lever to gain greater political and financial autonomy. The peace deal hammered out in Tokyo last year, which promised the Acehnese 70 per cent of the revenue generated by the province's rich oil and gas deposits as a major concession by Jakarta, was a proper accord. The stumbling block, however, remained a lack of confidence between the two sides.
The peace accord fell through because neither side fulfilled its obligations, and because the chief Aceh leader, Mahmood Malik, continued to command the loyalty of guerrillas from self- imposed exile in Sweden insisting that the Indonesian army must pull out before the rebels disarmed.
The best course for the Aceh rebels and Jakarta would be to call an immediate end to hostilities as a first confidence- building measure and give peace a fair chance. Indonesia is a democracy, and while remaining within the constitutional framework that calls for the country's integrity, grievances can be addressed.
A united Indonesia is in the best interest of all. The country has vast natural and human resources and a growing potential for becoming a model modern Muslim nation. As for the Acehnese people, they have had enough of being caught in the crossfire between the rebels and the security forces over the last 26 years. The on-going military action and the rebels' threat of launching counter-attacks will only add to the misery of the Acehnese people.