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.