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.