They could have been best friends

They could have been best friends

Adeline M.T., Contributor, Jakarta

The night was dark, and rain started to pour down heavily. We
heard earlier that a tropical storm might be heading to the
coastal area of Greater Aceh. Lighter than a tsunami, certainly,
but still a storm.

Driving in the rain out of Banda Aceh, we went looking for a
village where we were supposed to meet and interview Teungku
Mucksalmina. We were not really sure where it was.

I have covered news in this war-torn province several times
before, but this would be the first time that I would interview a
GAM (Free Aceh Movement) representative in person.

An exclusive interview with GAM is an Indonesian journalist's
dream. However, "safety" has many different shades of meaning.
Having worked as a fixer for several different foreign media
organizations, I discovered that most foreign journalists in Aceh
keep the dream as a dream. "Covering both sides of the story is
very important, but the safety of our crew is also very
important," said a TV producer.

It was different this time. Besides the fact that Aceh was no
longer under martial law that restricted journalists from
covering both sides, the Canadian journalist I worked with,
Stepphen Puddicombe from CBC Radio, was a rare kind of person who
would go the extra mile.

"It's always about the people; not numbers, not press
conferences, not dignitaries, not me, not us the reporters; it is
about the people!" he kept telling me. He and his colleague
Sylvain Desjardins from the Francophone Radio Canada jumped at
the chance to cover both sides of the story.

"We had heard complaints about both sides; about TNI and GAM
disrupting relief efforts after the tsunami. How do people on the
other side of the world decide who is telling the truth?" was the
question Stephen asked to both Mucksalmina and, later, a TNI
Lieutenant. As a fellow journalist, I could not think of a better
question, or of a better reason to go to the villages and take
the risk.

We made contact and exchanged text messages with Mucksalmina
over a couple of days. "I'll look for a safe place to meet. The
military campaign has been more aggressive these last few days,"
he answered.

One afternoon, he suddenly gave us the green light. "I'm up on
a hill and will come down to meet you. I am concerned about
journalists' safety, so I'll look for a safe place to meet later
today," his text message said. So we prepared ourselves for a
trip to who-knows-where.

Later that evening a text message came, "Call me." We called
the guy; he asked how many of us would be coming, what type of
car we would be driving, and asked for the car's license plate
number. He told us to wait in a village in Greater Aceh. We took
off immediately.

We drove to the place, not telling the local driver who we
were meeting. As the driver asked people where the village was, a
man came up to our car and asked me through the window, "Are you
looking for 'the man'?" By the way he talked and looked at me, I
knew who he meant. I said "yes". He got into our car, and we
drove a few hundred meters and he told us to wait in a small
coffee shop. The man vanished into the night.

We waited there for almost an hour, not knowing what to do,
who would come out and meet us, or what would happen next.
Meanwhile, villagers came and gathered around us, asking who we
were. Children giggled at the sight of two awkward foreigners and
a woman without a head scarf.

Then, suddenly, everybody disappeared, except for a teenage
boy. The lady of the house closed the coffee shop's front door;
and the boy told us, "Come with me."

We went out into the dark through a back door. "No light
please," said a voice which seemed to come out of nowhere. As our
eyes got used to the darkness, we saw figures of men carrying
guns. AK-47s and Indonesian-made SS1s.

There were at least three men. They took our hands and led us
into the forest. "Don't be afraid, I've got your hand. You are
safe," said a voice, as I felt a hand holding mine. We walked a
while and stopped. In the moonlight we saw people carrying sacks
of rice, water and other supplies. "They have to go back and
forth at night to bring supplies to us," said my armed guide.

I could not tell for how long or far we walked. All I could
think about was keeping an eye on my guide and my two colleagues
with their guides.

We stopped abruptly in the middle of nowhere. We saw a small
hut in front of us. Our guides invited us to come in and lit some
candles. A few minutes later there entered a man in uniform --
exactly the same kind of uniform worn by the Indonesian military.
He was in his thirties and obviously the leader of the other ten
people accompanying him. He greeted us, "Welcome to Aceh." He was
Teungku Mucksalmina.

"You can use any lighting, cameras, and record everything,"
Mucksalmina said. We shared cigarettes, and so the recorded
interview began.

"Thank you for coming to Aceh. With the presence of
international media, people can see what is really happening in
Aceh. We have experienced not only natural disaster, but also
political disaster. Since the imposition of martial law, the
Indonesian emergency authority here has forbade the presence of
human right bodies or NGOs to cover news on the practice of
killings by the TNI in Aceh," Mucksalmina proclaimed.

Mucksalmina answered all questions without hesitation, even
when asked, "Have you or your men ever had to kill?" However, he
hesitated when Stephen pointed to the teenager who had brought us
there, and asked, "I know you would die if you had to in
defending your homeland. But ... look at this kid ... how old is
he? Are you willing to see this kid die?"

Two weeks later, through a text message, one of the armed men
who guided us all the way to the hut said, "Actually, I think
children like him should not fight with guns. But what can we do?
He had a very strong will to fight for his homeland; but don't
worry, we take care of our little brothers."

Mucksalmina answered the question, "We want to defend our land
from Indonesian-Javanese colonialism. What my generation went
through, the colonialism, we hope will never have to be
experienced by next generations. People of my age will keep on
fighting for independence. We don't want him to suffer as we did.
Therefore, we fight. We are fighting for his future."

The interview lasted about 50 minutes. Before escorting us
back, Mucksalmina and his men allowed us to take pictures. He
then shook our hands. To Stephen and Sylvain, he said solemnly,
"I hope we meet again in different circumstances. When we have
our independence, you will be the first Canadians we'll invite to
sit with us and celebrate."

We said goodbye and walked back to the village where our
driver waited fearfully -- later he said that some people had
threatened him. Half way down, the hand that held mine changed.
When we arrived at the village, the armed uniformed men had
vanished into the dark. The hand that held mine turned out to be
the 13-year-old boy's hand.

We had also intended to follow the TNI into villages, for they
had two different kinds of tasks to handle: humanitarian aid, as
well as fighting rebels. However, covering both sides of a story
is never an easy task.

Over the days that followed, we tried to contact TNI
spokesperson Maj. Gen. Bambang Dharmono, however it turned out
that he was in Jakarta. We later managed to contact Col. Ahmad
Yani Basuki. Yani Basuki admitted that along the west coast,
where Army and Marines are beavering away to repair the Banda
Aceh-Meulaboh road, security disturbances had been occurring.
However, he did not have exact data. "Just go there and see for
yourself; the soldiers are working hard and doing great work. The
road will be ready by March 26," he said.

We did not get a chance to follow any troops along the west
coast. So instead, we headed east and met Second Lieutenant
Nasrokin of the Army's 8th Cavalry Battalion in Krueng Manee,
North Aceh. As the company's commander, Nasrokin allowed us to
have a closer look, inviting us on a night patrol and a road
sweeping exercise.

After a briefing and a prayer, we departed an hour before
midnight in a TNI armored personnel carrier.

Along the way, Nasrokin and his men told us about their
previous assignments in a nearby village in Piddie. "We were
attacked in Piddie once. Some of our men were wounded, but we
captured four rebels."

We stopped for a while on the main road to undertake a road
sweeping operation. It was a routine check. "There are also
special sweepings in which we already have information that there
is something suspicious in a certain car. We once found a gun
underneath a car seat and found weapons underneath a truck full
of vegetables," Nasrokin said.

The road sweep took about an hour. Busses and private cars on
the Banda Aceh-Medan road were stopped, passengers lined up and
their ID cards checked.

Asked the same question about how Nasrokin would feel if one
of his men was killed, he answered with conviction, "When signing
on to the Indonesian Army, we signed a contract for life. So we
are all ready to give our lives for this cause. But thank God, my
battalion -- we have been assigned here for eight months -- has
never lost anyone. There have been gun fights, we have been shot
at, one of my men was wounded badly, but he survived. And I hope
that I'll never lose any of my men."

The night patrol ended at two in the morning. Stephen and I
were exhausted, but Nasrokin and his men still have to continue
their duties guarding an IDP (internally displaced persons) camp
near their post.

On our way back to our hotel, we were silent -- tired and
absorbed in our thoughts. Stephen, my boss and colleague said,
"Did you feel his dedication? If it wasn't because of this war,
Nasrokin and Mucksalmina could have been best friends."