On war against GAM

On war against GAM

The Jakarta Post on April 13 published an article that said
religious leaders and Muslim scholars were urging the government
to leave the Aceh question to civilians in order to avoid war
between the Indonesian military and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM).

The call from these prominent people surprises me and makes me
wonder about the motive for the call.

In my opinion this call is completely pointless because our
Republic, since its establishment in 1945, has been a civilian
republic and not a military state and never will be one.

Everything is decided by civilians, the government is
civilian, the House of Representatives and the People's
Consultative Assembly are civilian organizations, and they are
the ones who map out the road to be followed by the country.

Given this, why is it so urgent to urge the government to
leave Aceh to civilians. The military is only carrying out orders
and has to obey what is decided by the civilians.

In this era of reform, the military has been put back in its
place as a professional organization banned from playing
politics. So what is the urgency of the call from religious
leaders and Muslim scholars urging the government to leave Aceh
to civilians? Are the civilians reluctant to bear the
responsibility of all the failures Indonesia has experienced in
Aceh for the last 30 years, and therefore want to blame the
military?

This conclusion is based on the reasoning expressed by these
leaders. They say they want to avoid a war between the military
and GAM.

Take the Middle East as an example. I think that we all know
that what is happening at this moment in the Middle East is a war
between the U.S. and Iraq and not a war between the U.S. armed
forces and the Iraqi army, or between the Australian armed forces
and the Iraqi army.

Likewise, the demonstrations all over the world are not
criticizing the coalition military. The demonstrators are
carrying statues of George Bush leading a dog with the face of
John Howard, not statues of the generals leading the soldiers in
the real war.

If the government decides to stop the military operations,
then the military will stop fighting and the civilians can
continue their dialog. But do not forget what GAM said about
their fight for independence and most importantly how the
Acehnese are suffering.

SOEGIH ARTO, Jakarta