The Indonesian corps that can do no wrong

By Aboeprijadi Santoso

BANDA ACEH (JP): The mayhem occurring in Aceh, Irian Jaya and the former Indonesian province of East Timor stems a great deal from violence and oppression.

Economic exploitation aside, violence is seen as the identity of the state the regions are supposed to belong to. With violence continuing in Aceh and Irian Jaya, the Army has apparently not learned much from its past discourse and the resulting trend of disintegration.

Military officers are simply politicians and the corps remain a political force -- a quasi-political party -- no matter what they claim, as long as they refuse to accept the civilian supremacy in a democratically elected government.

In Indonesia, the military politicians justify their discourse by defining their corps' missions and changing interests from time to time.

In the 1940s, as the people's armies helped end Dutch rule, the Army posed as the agency who delivered the independence of the nation. By the late 1950s, it managed to build some economic bases. Next, when political polarization heightened and was resolved in the mid-1960s, it claimed to have saved the nation from communism.

Under the New Order, it built privileges as a self-proclaimed sociopolitical force by imposing stability and claiming to be the guarantor of progress and development.

Most problematic is its fourth mission, that is, to keep the Republic, from Aceh to Irian Jaya, united. This has basically failed since it was pursued by victimizing local societies, which generated trends of disintegration.

That, however, did not occur earlier when the Army terminated the Darul Islam and regional rebellions of the late 1950s. In this respect as well as in the West Irian campaign in 1962-1963, it performed a great service to the nation.

But things changed after the bloodbath in the mid-1960s occurred. For the first time, the Army achieved its political objective through mass violence -- partly an orchestrated civil war -- that was generally condoned by the greater part of society. Violence became "less problematic" if only because it tended to be taken for granted.

In 1983, then president Soeharto instructed -- and the middle classes again tolerated -- another "legitimate massacre", now of petty criminals.

The cycle of violence continued with the occupation of East Timor and the suppression of separatist rebellions in Aceh and Irian Jaya, turning the regions increasingly restive. In East Timor, it began in the mid-1970s and culminated in brutal wars in the Ramelau mountains in the late-1970s and in last year's mayhem.

In Aceh it also started in the mid-1970s, but escalated in Pidie in the late 1980s and spread to all districts in recent years. In Irian Jaya, military violence erupted following the Manokwari rebellion in 1965, but intensified in the 1980s, resulting in refugees and many other incidents. Roughly, more than 200,000 people died in the three regions, mostly in East Timor.

As Pandora's box was opened in 1998, it became clear that the political maps had radically changed. In just a little over a decade -- each region in a different period -- resistance movements, with varying strengths and support, had taken root.

In East Timor, Fretilin with Falintil guerrillas were sustained by a substantial part of local society almost since the beginning (1974).

In Aceh, the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), with the Army of the Free Aceh Movement (AGAM) guerrillas, did so only since 1998. And in Irian Jaya, the Papua Presidium Council emerged from public deliberations only last year as the Free Papua Movement (OPM) guerrillas (founded in 1965) weakened and recognized the leadership of the council's presidium.

For the first time since the Dutch broke resistance in Aceh, Bali and Lombok a 100 years ago, serious challenges were emerging in the regions.

Violence had kept the dynamics of disintegration moving -- rather than the other way around -- to ensure control of resources. No local uprisings, however big, could permanently provoke Jakarta's "security approach".

Brutality came from both sides of the conflict, but as the encroaching military authorities intruded, public life and the counterinsurgency actions deeply affected local societies, the Army basically accelerated the process it claimed to prevent. Partly driven by its own interests, it negated its claim as a unifying force.

This is what makes Indonesia distinct from the Balkans, where fragmentation and civil wars are rooted in a different history and weapons are spread across the ethnic melting pot of Bosnia- Herzegovina.

Seen from the regions, the New Order Army appeared as a "killing machine". Joao de Jesus, an East Timorese student, witnessed his father's slow death. "A Kopassus (the Army's Special Force) soldier hit his stomach very quickly. That's a skill to kill without a weapon!" he yelled in anger and disgust.

Many suffered even more through the war and inside "houses of torture" and changed radically. East Timor's case basically suggests that human sufferings, when accumulated, can become a powerful political motive.

The case of Tengku Abdullah, a peasant of Pidie, is even more telling. "I have been living for years in fear. I was afraid of GPK (the government's reference for GAM). Then came ABRI (the former name of the Indonesian Military). My life has since changed. Each time an Army unit patrols, I run to the rice field to hide." Like many villagers in Aceh, Tengku is tired of being an internally displaced person.

Years of unrest and violence provoking sweeps mean that life in Aceh cannot be lived normally and religious tasks and rituals cannot be observed properly. Alleged rapes, lies and false promises compound the issue. Even when GAM was involved in extortion and manipulated some refugees, people like Tengku could only recall the past with bitterness and dream of an "Aceh without ABRI".

After 1998, the dream was quickly translated into aspirations of independence. For many Acehnese, that seems to be the only way to redress the pain and humiliation and to get justice and freedom once and for all.

So they demand an East Timor-style referendum. With the humanitarian pause agreed by the GAM rebels and Jakarta, both sides have consolidated their positions. Yet to regain trust, Jakarta will at least have to withdraw its nonorganic armed units.

The fact that students took over GAM's demands may indicate that Jakarta has lost much credit among the local civil society and the grass roots mainstream.

In Irian Jaya as well, the burden of violence has been deeply felt. However, only in Irian Jaya was there an occurrence of refugees so massive, numbering in the tens of thousands, in the early 1980s.

Lacking worldwide support, experienced guerrillas and a strong civil society, Irian Jaya is a unique, peaceful and, perhaps, patient model of self-determination.

The Papua Presidium Council has so far significantly halted the activities of local guerrillas and embarked on a peaceful dialog with Jakarta, although this has largely gone unnoticed.

Based on the Papua People's Congress last May, it sets out to rectify history -- the dubious UN plebiscite of 1969 -- in an attempt to build a new platform to demand the Act of Free Choice.

Unfortunately, President Abdurrahman Wahid's honeymoon with Irianese leaders has apparently ended. Under pressure from the Army, he has backtracked and banned the Morning Star flag.

"We feel like we have been cheated. We are disappointed, but the people are determined to fly our flag," Theys Eluay, the Irianese leader, said.

After years of repression and discrimination, arrogance has slapped the symbol that expresses Irianese consciousness.

Instead of Balkanization analogy, lessons should be learned from the Army's discourse in the three regions. While B.J. Habibie began a democratic reform that included a breakthrough for East Timor, he let the military remain fully intact; whereas Abdurrahman, having started military reform, is challenged, partly for that reason, by the Army and some civilian politicians.

More fundamentally, the military remains dogmatically obsessed with the paramount importance of unity rather than diversity; with the values of the state rather than respecting those of various societies; with its missions rather than with people's lives; and with territorial integrity rather than human dignity of those affected.

National interests have gone beyond and against societies' needs and interests.

The unquestioned paradigm encourages centrifugal trends. Any of the Army's alleged wrongdoings have either been reduced to acts of a few "rogue elements", suggesting that the line of command remains effective, or to an irrelevant truism that not all of its members are bad, implying that only human factors matter.

Above all, impunity continues despite its past human rights records. Inevitably, the message seems to be that the corps can do no wrong. And that creates a deep and painful sense of injustice for the regions.

Meanwhile, the bloody events in Wamena last October and around Banda Aceh on Nov. 10, pointedly suggest that the high-handed approach is back again.

Besieged by their own crisis, the security administration it seems, has reasserted itself, making the government appear like an iron fist in a velvet glove, making the problems even worse for the third millennium.

The writer is a journalist. He visited the three regions in recent years.