The Acehnese deserve better from us

Anthony Reid, The Straits Times, Asia News Network, Singapore

The magnitude of the devastation visited on Aceh on Dec. 26 is almost beyond comprehension. No natural disaster in Indonesian, or indeed Southeast Asian, history comes close to the mounting toll of death and destruction of this undersea earthquake and tsunamis. The whole thickly populated coastal strip from Lhokseumawe in the east to Meulaboh in the west appears to have been devastated.

In the district of West Aceh, where communication is very difficult at the best of times, life appears to have almost vanished from all the coastal towns and villages, normally home to about 200,000 people. Only 200 living people were found by the first relief unit to be able to land in Meulaboh, its capital, from a pre-tsunami population of about 60,000. While one hopes that many were able to flee inland, they will face mounting difficulties to stay alive as unwanted guests of the scattered hill villages.

The provincial capital, Banda Aceh, normally home to 200,000 people and to most of the military and civilian infrastructure, has been devastated. The Indonesian disaster response has been tragically slow, but little more could be expected given the disruption to military and civilian facilities. Although the military has 30,000 men on a war footing in Aceh, it appears to have been largely incapacitated by the disaster. Reportedly, only one of its helicopters in the province survived.

Even worse is likely to come, as the lack of clean water and adequate food and shelter takes its toll on the survivors. Those bringing international aid encounter disorganization, demoralization and distrust between the military and people. They need clarity as to who is in charge.

This appalling disaster comes after more than a century of misery for the stoic people of this richly endowed region. Aceh has had only a few decades of peace since being invaded by the Dutch in 1873 with very little warning. Forty years of bitter resistance to Dutch occupation lost Aceh perhaps a fifth of its population and transformed it from one of Southeast Asia's more prosperous and strategically important centers to an embittered backwater.

Aceh was effectively under military occupation by the Dutch until 1942 and the Japanese until 1945. After a brief experience of running its own show in 1945 to 1951, it was again under military occupation in 1953 to 1962, during the Daud Beureu'eh rebellion, and in 1989 to 1998, when then president Soeharto's army sought to suppress the Aceh independence movement (GAM) of Hasan di Tiro. Still, GAM became very popular under democratic conditions after Soeharto's fall.

Finally, since May 2003, a military solution has again been attempted, and thousands more people have been killed in military offensives and punitive actions, without notably removing the core of resistance.

Throughout this emergency period, foreign journalists, aid workers and others have been excluded from the province, as the government sought to remove Aceh from international headlines.

Having suffered the brutal militarization of its institutions and its society for over a century, now Aceh has been hit by a colossal natural disaster, the losses of which on a single day dwarf even the tens of thousands that the region has lost to warfare.

To its credit, the international community has also responded in an unprecedented way. The military forces of Singapore, the United States and Australia are already in Aceh dispensing desperately needed supplies, and US$2 billion (S$3.3 billion) has been pledged in aid to the affected regions, of which at least half should in fairness be destined for Aceh. The aid givers have their first chance at the Jakarta summit on Thursday to try to ensure that Aceh's poisonous politics do not again negate all efforts for assistance.

In catastrophes such as this, military forces are best able to deliver aid quickly, and the foreign military units naturally look to their local counterparts to guide and direct. But in Aceh, the military has been the major part of the problem, not the solution.

Over the past 50 years it has killed and rendered homeless too many Acehnese for there to be trust between people and army. The carefully constructed reform legislation to give the widest possible autonomy to Aceh (the Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam or NAD law of 2001) has been completely vitiated by military control of all the levers of power since May 2003.

The need for the underfunded military to raise money from various business and protection rackets has ensured that little of Aceh's wealth has yet benefited its people.

The foreign aid, in other words, must be delivered to the people who need it as directly as possible, without the mediation of the Indonesian military. The best way to ensure this would be for the summit meeting to endorse and carry forward the ceasefire that both GAM and President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono have said they favor. TNI units on the ground in Aceh have been quoted as ignoring this ceasefire, and the higher command needs encouragement in its resolve to bring them into line.

Both TNI and GAM need to be disarmed during the long process of reconstruction, with law enforcement becoming the responsibility of Aceh police stiffened by international police units under United Nations' responsibility.

Both TNI and GAM forces may be able to assist in the reconstruction of areas where they are strong, but only if they are disarmed while doing so, and thereby unable to continue the division and brutalization of the populace.

The Susilo government has, to its credit, declared open access to Aceh for international aid givers. This runs counter to the instincts of the local military, and again the international community will need to be clear about permanently full access, not just for aid givers, but for the journalists who will sustain global interest in the problem.

The government of former president Megawati Soekarnoputri, in which Susilo was largely responsible for Aceh policy, had allowed international peace monitors (from Thailand and the Philippines) during the peace agreement of 2002 to 2003.

This crisis demands an even more generous response towards accepting the internationalization of Aceh's reconstruction. The UN needs to assume authority for the international aid effort, in cooperation with Alwi Shihab, the civilian minister President Susilo has placed in charge. Only the demilitarization of Aceh under some form of international guarantee can make possible the full implementation of the NAD autonomy law and the emergence through elections of a leadership Acehnese can trust.

Acehnese have suffered enough. They deserve this.

The writer is director of the Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore and the author of three books on Aceh's history.