Soeharto legacy fans separatism in Aceh

Soeharto legacy fans separatism in Aceh

By Terry Friel

LHOKSEUMAWE, Aceh (Reuters): The old man pulled on the rope and bucket and dumped another load of putrid salt-water over his body for his morning bath.

He is angry, his voice heavy with bitterness as he gestures at the dormant petrochemical plant on the outskirts of this gas- producing center of Lhokseumawe in restive Aceh province.

"That factory is on my land. That factory is on the land where my village used to be," he told Reuters. "When they took it, we couldn't do anything."

The man, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisal, was paid $20 in the late 1970s for his 240 sq. meters of land. It was grabbed so a company owned by then-President Soeharto's youngest son, Hutomo Mandala Putra, better known as Tommy, could build the plant.

But the factory now stands silent, a victim of the economic crisis that hit Indonesia in 1997 and the separatist violence which has paralyzed the economy of this resource-rich territory on the northern tip of Sumatra island.

Once relatively comfortable landowners, the man and his family are now squatting on a small patch of land in the shadow of the plant, living in a wooden shack and tending their prawn ponds to earn about Rp 2 million ($230), before costs, over a three-month cycle.

Land-grabbing by the powerful was commonplace under Soeharto's 32-year, army-backed rule, when the country became a byword for corruption.

It also stoked Acehnese resentment at the siphoning off of the province's vast natural resources by the distant central government in Jakarta.

Clashes between the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) rebels and government soldiers and police are frequent around Lhokseumawe, where support for independence is strong.

Security fears for Exxon Mobil Indonesia, a unit of U.S.-based giant Exxon Mobil Corp., to close its gas fields in the area for five months and costing the company about $350 million, according to industry estimates.

In a bid to appease separatist passions and prevent Aceh breaking away, which many Indonesians fear could ultimately trigger the break-up of the world's fourth most-populous nation, new President Megawati Soekarnoputri has granted it more autonomy.

It now has a greater say over its own affairs and a bigger share of the wealth generated by its resources, including the gas fields around Lhokseumawe.

But that is not enough for the prawn farmer and thousands more like him in the fertile province, scarred by years of murder and other abuses by the military and dishonored promises from Jakarta.