What Aceh really needs

What Aceh really needs

On the face of it, things seem to be going rather well in
Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam. Why else would the government decide to
revoke martial law over this westernmost Indonesian province and
institute a civil emergency? In terms of timing, of course, the
decision is quite appropriate. Martial law was imposed on the
restive province on May 19 last year to enable the military to do
what was needed to quash the decades-old insurgency, led by the
Free Aceh Movement, or GAM.

The central government in Jakarta initially intended to impose
martial law for period of six months, in the expectation that
within that time the province would have been secure enough to
enable the civil administration to resume functioning. As it
turned out, more time was needed to quell the insurgency
movement, so martial law was extended for another six months,
which means martial law in Aceh will formally end on May 19 next
week.

Which begs the question: Has the imposition of martial law
over the past year truly and effectively put an end to the
separatist movement? To some extent, it seems, the answer would
be yes. In most areas of the war-torn province, peace has been
sufficiently restored to enable local administrations to resume
functioning and schools to be reopened.

Yet, the continued existence of pockets of GAM resistance in
several of the province's more remote and inaccessible areas
clearly point to the fact that all is not quite well in Aceh.
Only earlier this week, for example, media reports mentioned GAM
taking seven more Indonesian journalists hostage, even as it
released one Jakarta-based television cameraman, together with
some 150 other civilians who have been held by the insurgents for
many months.

Precisely how weak -- or strong -- the decades of military
operations have left the movement is of course difficult to say.
But if the most recent abductions and the continued presence of
Indonesian military personnel is anything to go by, the most
probable answer would be: Strong enough for Jakarta to remain on
guard. Indeed, overall it can be said that the "military
solution" to the Aceh problem has been a total failure.

In 1989, for example, when the Soeharto regime declared the
province a military operation zone (DOM), official estimates put
GAM's strength at about 500 men and women. At the end of
President Soeharto's rule in 1998, their numbers have grown to an
estimated 3,000 -- surely a sign of failure by any measure. The
reasons for such a phenomenal growth vary from economic injustice
to the harsh repression of dissent, to kidnaping and arbitrary
killing of civilians by the military. An estimated 10,000
Acehnese civilians were killed and thousands of others were
displaced in that period, with many living in appalling
conditions in refugee camps even today.

Soeharto's successors, from presidents B.J. Habibie and
Abdurrahman Wahid to President Megawati Soekarnoputri, sought for
a brief time to accommodate the Acehnese people's aspirations for
justice and self-rule in the form of the granting full regional
autonomy to Aceh, but in the face of the continuing unrest in the
province, eventually resorted once again to military operations
with the imposition of martial law last year.

Now, with "some 50 percent to 60 percent" of GAM's fighters
incapacitated, in the words of the ad interim coordinating
minister of political and security affairs Hari Sabarno, the
government deems it timely to revoke martial law in most of the
province, although that status will be maintained in the few
remaining GAM strongholds, while the "integrated operations" to
provide social and humanitarian assistance besides conducting
military operations would also be continued throughout the
province.

It remains to be seen if the measure will yield the "positive
political consequences, particularly in the international
community" that Hari Sabarno expects. As we see it, however, any
operation, "integrated" or otherwise, is doomed to fail as long
as it fails to address what the Acehnese people really want. What
they want is first and foremost fair treatment and justice,
economic and otherwise, accountability for the human rights
violations committed during the past decades and recognition of
their rights and dignity as citizens of this republic.

These are aspects of life that no military operation can
provide. Indeed, too much damage has already been done by
military action over the years. Instead, Aceh's civil society
must be empowered so that the Acehnese can decide for themselves
what they want and how they intend to go about fulfilling those
needs. Until this is understood in Jakarta, peace in Aceh will
continue to remain an ephemeral ideal at best.