Security approach?

Security approach?

In Irian Jaya, people get shot at for raising the separatist
flag. In Aceh, they get shot at for trying to join a rally
calling for a referendum on self-determination. One would have
thought that peaceful methods of political expression were part
of the freedom of expression and speech which are guaranteed in a
democracy.

Welcome to Indonesia, where some things just don't change in
spite of all the promises of reform, democracy and respect for
human rights. Many of the people's inalienable rights which had
been violated for 30 years by the Soeharto regime are still not
being fully respected under President Abdurrahman Wahid,
Indonesia's first ever democratically elected president.

Ask any Acehnese or Irianese who has been at the wrong end of
the government's wrath. They will tell you that today, as in
Soeharto's era, people are still being killed or harrassed for
trying to express their political opinions peacefully.

In Wamena, a hillside town in Irian Jaya, six Papuans died
last month in clashes with the police, who resorted to force in
pulling down the Morning Star separatist flag. That event sparked
bloody unrest targeted at migrants in Wamena, leaving 22 of them
dead. Instead of mending its ways, the government has taken the
shortcut of outlawing the separatist flag altogether. This gives
police a legal cover to shoot Papuans trying to raise the flag.
Brace for more violence when proindependence Papuans hold a major
demonstration throughout the province on Dec. 1.

In Aceh, at least 22 people died in clashes with security
forces last week in the run-up to Saturday's rally to call for a
referendum of self-determination in the province. Police blocked
all entrances to Banda Aceh to prevent people from other towns
from joining the rally. In most instances, police shot and
punctured tires of the buses and trucks transporting people from
other towns. In other instances, however, confrontations turned
into ugly and fatal clashes.

The referendum rally went ahead on Saturday, with a turnout of
about 50,000 people, producing a loud enough message to Jakarta
and the world of their aspirations for self-determination. Thanks
to repressive measures by the police, however, the number was
nowhere near the one million people who assembled in Aceh just
over a year ago to press their demand for a referendum.

The government, which has been waging a propaganda war against
the proindependence movement in Aceh, may bask in glory for
deflating the rally's turnout and its political significance. But
if it is a victory, it will be a short-lived one. The death of
the 22 Acehnese in clashes with police have further undermined
whatever little trust and goodwill the Acehnese people had toward
the government.

The police's use of force may even have driven more people to
take up arms. After Saturday's rally, many Acehnese must feel
that they can no longer express their aspirations by peaceful
means without risking their lives. They may as well join the
armed Free Aceh Movement (GAM) and press their demand by force.

Whether in Aceh or Irian Jaya, the government seems to have
returned to the old ways of dealing with regional independence
aspirations: with force. Methods of the old "security approach"
of the Soeharto era have crept back into government policies in
dealing with Aceh and Irian Jaya.

This was the approach widely favored by the military during
the Soeharto era, for it was quick and effective in ensuring
national security -- the regime's overriding and probably only
concern. But the "security approach" exacted a high political
price on the government: its credibility. This approach, which
put human lives and human rights subservient to national security
concerns, cost Indonesia East Timor.

The government's credibility is not exactly high either in
Aceh and Irian Jaya, two provinces which bore the brunt of the
government's high-handed security approach of the past. Recent
events in Irian Jaya and Aceh tell us that by resorting to the
old repressive ways, the government has squandered whatever
goodwill and trust it had regained from the people in these two
provinces over the past year. One would have expected President
Abdurrahman Wahid to show more wisdom than this. Looking at Aceh
and Irian Jaya, that seems not to be the case.