The plight of refugees from troubled Aceh province

By Elizabeth Fuller Collins

MEDAN, North Sumatra (JP): Refugees are everyday news in Indonesia now. The most recent group are Javanese fleeing West and East Aceh. On Sunday, Nov. 28, I was in Medan for a conference on the role of the student movement in Indonesia's new democracy.

On the front page of Medan's morning paper was an article about growing tensions surrounding the exodus of Javanese. That afternoon with Imam Prasodjo, Professor of Sociology at the University of Indonesia, I visited a refugee center located in the Medan Transmigration Office. Approximately 600 refugees were housed there; there were many more in Belawan, about 25 km from Medan.

The refugees said that they had fled when their houses were burned down and they were told by GAM (Gerakan Aceh Merdeka, the separatist Free Aceh Movement) that they should leave Aceh before Nov. 30 or they would be killed. One articulate woman said that she told the men from GAM that her husband was sick and she could not leave the next day. She was granted a few days to dismantle her house and sell what belongings she could. Most of her neighbors found a way to leave for Medan the next day.

None of the refugees I saw seem to have been able to bring many belongings when they fled. The ones in Medan are still there because they do not have enough money to buy their passage on a bus back to Java.

They said that they planned to return to villages in Java that they had left in 1986 as part of a transmigration project. With the orange trees and palm oil they had planted bearing crops and a hectare of sawah, they had attained a fragile security. Now they must start over again.

Unlike the refugees who fled from Ambon in January 1999, whom I saw in Buton at the beginning of this year, the Javanese fleeing Aceh are not traumatized victims of violence. However, they are too frightened to even consider returning to Aceh, and they do not expect to recover their homes and small plots of land.

Unlike the angry refugees in Buton, they seemed resigned to their fate. Nevertheless, the violence that has wracked Indonesia producing wave after wave of refugees makes this latest exodus of refugees ominous for the future of democracy. The idea of ethnic cleansing -- of Aceh for the Acehnese and Kalimantan for Dayaks and Malays -- appears to be spreading. In this instance, GAM's aim seems to be to force Javanese transmigrants to leave the province before the referendum that they hope will bring Acehnese independence.

Over the last two years of political upheaval, rumors about unnamed elites manipulating events have flourished in Jakarta. Some foreign observers have become skeptical of such reports, which generally are not backed up by evidence. The rumors appear to allow people to dismiss the deep tensions that built up under the orderly surface of the New Order.

In Medan, however, I did find evidence that someone is trying to provoke further interethnic strife. An Acehnese lecturer at the Medan Islamic University (IAIN), who is married to a Batak, showed us a letter that had been left at his house one night when he was out. The typed letterhead announced the sender as Forum Solidaritas Putra Jawa Kelahiran Sumatera (Pujakesuma) Medan, or the Medan Branch of the Solidarity Forum of Sons of Java Born in Sumatra.

The Forum claimed to control Medan and the surrounding area and said that it would take revenge on Acehnese in Medan for the oppression of Javanese in Aceh. Acehnese in Medan were warned to return to Aceh by Nov. 20, 1999, because they no longer loved their homeland of Indonesia.

The pseudo-patriotism of this missive reminded me of the rhetoric of Pemuda Pancasila, the thug organization of the New Order, which is strong in Medan. After investigation, the lecturer said he had concluded that the signature on the threatening letter was bogus.

When I showed a copy of the letter to people at the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute, I was told that it was letters like this one that had set off the recent violence in Ternate. Who is behind such efforts to ignite interethnic and inter-religious conflicts?

GAM has announced it will celebrate the anniversary of its founding on Dec. 4. Although the foreign minister who represents an Acehnese government in exile has announced that he is ready to engage Abdurrahman Wahid, Indonesia's new president, in a dialogue, the younger generation of GAM leaders seem eager for a fight. They have accused the foreign minister of selling out. The Indonesian Army (TNI) also seems ready for a fight. A civil war against a separatist movement holds the promise of bringing back the 50s, when the TNI defended the Republic against internal enemies who wanted to divide the nation. General Sudrajat has threatened deadly reprisals should GAM supporters attempt to take down the Indonesian flag on Dec. 4th.

The end of the New Order brings with it the hope that the days of repression will rapidly become part of the past. The exodus of non-Acehnese from Aceh has the potential to ignite negative sentiments toward the Acehnese people in general, and everyone, including the Acehnese leaders, should be aware of this danger and seek to prevent the propagation of such feelings. Imam Prasodjo and others plead with them to join the struggle to reform the institutions of the New Order and create a more just and free nation for all Indonesians, regardless of ethnicity, race or religion.

In this time of difficulty caused by the injustices of the past regime, solidarity in purpose is essential and cooperation between groups in a spirit of togetherness is imperative if Indonesia is to alleviate the suffering of all of her people.

The writer is the Director of South East Asian Studies Program at the Ohio State University, the United States.