Reigning in the military

Normalcy is a luxury for most Acehnese. Their province has practically been in a perpetual state of war for as long as most people can remember. War after war has been waged and fought between the Indonesian Military and the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM), with the civilian population caught squarely in the middle.

After a series of military operations mounted by Jakarta under various kinds of legal umbrella -- take your pick: military operations area (DOM), martial law or a state of civil emergency -- the government finally decided last week to grant the Acehnese a whiff of freedom -- at least on paper -- when it resolved not to renew the state of civil emergency when it ends this Wednesday.

This decision will doubtless be viewed as a boon by the Acehnese, who have suffered not only from war but also as a result of the Boxing Day tsunami that wiped out most of the towns and villages along Aceh's western coast. The new approach should also help the Executing Agency for the Rehabilitation and Reconstruction of Aceh and Nias, which has been given the huge task of rebuilding Aceh's devastated infrastructure.

However, the decision not to renew the emergency is far, far from being enough. It must be followed up by real action on the ground. It is pointless just to lift the emergency if the military remains the de facto power in the field, if the military retains all of its combatants in Aceh, and if the military has an undisclosed and unaccounted budget to spend.

But judging from past experience, and also from the statements emanating from the military, there is faint hope that the lifting of the emergency will bring any real improvement to the lives of the Acehnese or the return of the normalcy enjoyed by their fellow citizens in most other parts of the country.

Following the ending of the earlier military operations area (DOM) policy, the Indonesian Military (TNI) was supposed to reduce its presence in Aceh. On the contrary, however, it actually strengthened its presence there and even revived the Iskandar Muda territorial military command for Aceh -- justified by the imposition of martial law on the province on May 18, 2003, following the collapse of peace talks between the government and GAM.

And now, after the government has decided not to renew the emergency, the TNI says that it will not reduce the number of its troops in Aceh. What a contradiction. We can only hope that this TNI statement is meant solely to serve as a bargaining chip to strengthen the government's hand in the current peace talks with GAM. The issue of security arrangements in Aceh has apparently been a sticking point during the current talks. Some even worry that this issue could stall the talks altogether. But we hope the government and GAM will be able to find enough common ground to resolve this issue.

Whatever the results of the peace talks, we are of the opinion that the military's presence in Aceh must be reduced, simply because there is so much resentment against the military in the province. There are abundant stories, and even jokes, among the Acehnese testifying to the true nature of the Indonesian Military. To restore law and order, the government should entrust the task to the police -- with better preparation, of course, so that they can truly win the trust of the Acehnese.

Also, the military has been less than transparent as regards the funding of its operations in conflict areas, including Aceh. The military spends vast amounts of money in such areas, while the tales of malfeasance are legion, and yet we rarely see any prosecutions for graft being brought against military officers. Civilian officials may similarly be corrupt, but at least we can prosecute them and send them to jail. The corruption prosecution and jailing of Abdullah Puteh, the governor of Aceh, is a case in point.

We have all heard news reports that just days after the tsunami, a business group close to the military was asked to plan the reconstruction of the town of Meulaboh in Aceh. Luckily, this news appeared early enough to arouse public concern. However, this does not guarantee that such deals are not at this very moment being sealed in back rooms or will not take place in the future, especially if the military continues to wield power in Aceh. This would, obviously, hamper the reconstruction agency in successfully fulfilling its mandate in the province.

It is essential for the government to ensure that the reconstruction agency can work independently to ensure that no corruption, collusion, nepotism and, equally importantly, no blackmail occurs in the management of the Aceh rebuilding funds, which are made up mostly of foreign money. Once corruption, or worse blackmail, starts to rear its ugly head, foreign donors will hold on to their money, and this will hurt the Acehnese more than anyone else.

Nevertheless, we sincerely hope that all of these worries, especially those about the ever-dominant role of the military in Aceh, will turn out to be unwarranted. We hope that the military itself will do its best for the country by facilitating civilian rule in Aceh and the reconstruction agency in carrying out its duty of serving the long-suffering Acehnese.