Searching the past for future peace in Aceh

Searching the past for future peace in Aceh

Benny YP Siahaan, Jakarta

Initially, many quarters have been pessimistic about the
prospects of any peace dialog between the Indonesian government
and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) after the collapse of cessation
of hostilities agreement (CoHA) in 2003, which was followed by
martial law and then a state of civil emergency.

Indeed, after the breakdown of the CoHA the government has
successfully undermined GAM's military strength through a massive
military operation. Thus it is understandable if the government
is not interested in future negotiations since they are on the
"winning" side.

Surprisingly, as reported by the media, informal contacts
between GAM and the government have been established since
November 2004. However, at that time it was not clear in what
direction such discreet talks might lead.

The tsunami catastrophe in late December last year has changed
the situation. The government and GAM renewed peace talks in
Helsinki last week. The government side has sent high-level
officials.

If we look from this perspective there has been a change in
the nature of the talks, since this is the strongest delegation
that Jakarta has ever sent for talks with GAM. The previous
delegations were led by a former diplomat, Wiryono S. However.
There is little clue about the reason for changing the approach.
Nevertheless, this has already raised concern, especially among
nationalists, that the new talks will only raise GAM's
international stature.

What remains the same from the current talks is that both
sides are still using a foreign non-governmental organization as
a mediator. Crisis Management Initiative (CMI), led by former
Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari, is acting as the mediator in
the current talks. So we should learn from past experiences of
using an NGO as a mediator.

Many critics would say that the Henry Dunant Centre (HDC)
itself was partly responsible for the failure of the CoHA, mainly
because of its inexperience. This factor can be regarded as the
less-credibility factor, a factor generated from the HDC's
inexperience and lack of trust by the two sides. The HDC was a
relatively new organization when appointed mediator in 2000.

The spoiler factor in the CoHA should not be overlooked.
According to Stephen Stedman, spoilers are leaders and parties
who believe that peace emerging for negotiations threatens their
power, worldview and interests, and use violence to undermine
attempts to achieve peace. In the CoHA, GAM and the Indonesian
Military (TNI) could be considered spoilers.

Another thing that can be learned from the HDC's experience is
that the mediator should posses the ability to bridge the
dividing issues. Scholars of ethnic conflict have argued that the
success or failure of peace negotiations also depends on how easy
the combatants divide the stakes over which they are fighting.
Thus, it is argued that the more divisible the stakes over which
the combatants are fighting the more likely the war is to end in
a negotiated settlement.

The failure of the CoHA is also said by many to have been
caused by the lack of involvement of civil society throughout the
peace process. Indeed, GAM is not the only group that is
legitimate in representing the Acehnese.

For GAM, the exclusion or limited involvement of civil society
is important since it is afraid other groups from civil society
in Aceh would erode GAM's role and recognition during the
negotiation process. For the government of Indonesia, the
exclusion or limited participation of Aceh civil groups is
obvious since the government, especially the military, has a bad
image among the Acehnese.

Indeed, there was a big problem of involving civil society,
especially in selecting which groups would be eligible to be
involved in the negotiation process. In mid-2001 a task force of
civil society was formed and consisted mainly of NGO leaders and
academics. It was led by Imam Syuja, a widely respected ulema.
However, the task force was never effective.

Despite that, however, the involvement of civil society is
fairly important in the next phase of negotiations. But there
should be a fair mechanism accepted by all elements in Aceh civil
society in selecting which groups are eligible to represent the
Acehnese since it is impossible to include all groups or
organizations.

Thus, the fate of the CMI as a mediator will depend on how
well it learns from the experience of the HDC.

The writer is an alumnus of Tsukuba University in Japan.