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.