JP/7/DAWN26

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.