Friday, June 25, 1999
Indonesia Struggles To Tame Aceh
Restive province puts national unity at risk
BY MARK MCDONALD
Mercury News SE Asia Bureau
BANDA ACEH, Indonesia -- The killings seem to come every other day now, soldiers ambushed and thrown into the jungle, villagers mowed down by jittery riot police, plus all the bus hijackings, school burnings, bank robberies and kidnappings, the terrorized refugees, convoys of commandos, all of it creating the high anxiety of a country at war.
This is the tense and angry province of Aceh, a spit of land about the size of Yugoslavia that might some day trigger a breakup of Indonesia, the fourth-most-populous country in the world and a strategic archipelago for the Pacific Rim. If an independence movement takes hold here, on the northern tip of Sumatra, some analysts believe it would embolden similar separatist stirrings in other regions such as Irian Jaya and Kalimantan.
No matter who becomes Indonesia's next president, taming Aceh will be paramount. Megawati Sukarnoputri, the leading presidential candidate, has sworn to keep the nation united and secular, a position that rankles many Acehnese who would like to see their province become an autonomous state with a heavy overlay of Islam.
But at this point, even a referendum appears to be a long shot, according to Darmen Syah, editor of Serambi Indonesia, the one daily newspaper in Aceh (pronounced AH-chay).
``The outcome of the election is really not a big factor for Aceh,'' he says, noting that Aceh's turnout for the recent national election -- between 35 percent and 48 percent -- was among the lowest in Indonesia. ``Aceh is very Islamic and always ends up on the side of the opposition. We're pure opposition here.''
A green and steamy place, Aceh is heavily jungled, mountainous, spangled with lakes, a place of devout Muslims and proud fighters. They're especially proud that they were never conquered by the Dutch, who colonized virtually all of what is now Indonesia.
Descendants of those long-ago freedom fighters have formed themselves into a ragtag but resolute band of rebels that is calling for the withdrawal of the Indonesian military and for independence. Known locally as Aceh Merdeka, or the Free Aceh Movement, the group was founded in 1976 by an Acehnese prince named Hasan Muhamad de Tiro.
Mythic figure Rebel leader resides in exile in Sweden
Hasan, 75, an almost mythic figure in Aceh, is a former international lawyer who was schooled at Columbia and Fordham universities in New York and now lives in self-exile in a suburb of Stockholm, Sweden. Hasan fled Aceh under military pressure in 1979, and President Suharto's government virtually declared war on his remaining followers in 1989.
Soon after Suharto resigned last year, the government withdrew the most brutal and notorious of its military units, known as Kopassus, which finally gave the rebels some breathing room. Showing a new boldness in recent weeks, the Free Aceh guerrillas have begun to emerge from their mountain hideouts, picking off Indonesian soldiers while preaching the politics of separatism to Aceh's farmers, villagers and schoolchildren.
``We feel very threatened these days,'' an Indonesian army lieutenant said as he and his men -- more than 50 of them, heavily armed and wearing black ski masks -- staged a midnight roadblock in a search for contraband and rebels.
Abdullah Syafii, 43, the Free Aceh military boss in the violent Pidie region, says some of his troops have trained in Libya and that they can buy automatic weapons ``as easily as buying a pack of cigarettes.'' Syafii and the group's political spokesman, a wiry young fellow named Ismail who sports an LAPD baseball cap, are No. 1 and No. 2 on the Indonesian military's most-wanted list.
``The commander is the one I most want to get,'' says Col. Ridhwan Karim, head of a 1,200-member contingent of PPRM, or elite riot troops, that Jakarta has dispatched to the province. ``These wild disrupter groups are not very organized, but they're hard to catch. They know their way around very well and they use hit-and-run tactics against us.''
``We shoot the Indonesian soldiers because we're at war,'' Ismail says during an interview that is arranged only after a series of whispered phone calls made in the Acehnese language and numerous passages through rural security checkpoints.
``We're not Islamic fundamentalists or extremists. Our struggle is for national liberation. The military has come here to colonize us. We just want our country back.''
Aceh, with a population of 4.1 million, is on the other side of the equator from Jakarta, and for many Acehnese the Indonesian capital might as well be on the other side of the planet. Besides imposing a decade of iron-fisted military occupation, the central government has annually kept 98 percent of the revenues from Aceh's rich resources -- particularly gold, copper, timber and natural gas.
The province is home to the world's largest natural-gas facility, a venture among Mobil, the state oil company Pertamina and a Japanese consortium. There is also a huge, export-oriented fertilizer plant nearby, with private housing estates and a golf course for expatriate and Javanese managers. Ismail, the Free Aceh spokesman, said his group sent a letter to Mobil asking for $5 million a year in taxes, but the company returned the letter with no reply. Ismail said the rebels would not target Mobil, the gas plant or any other corporations in the province. Last week, however, police said they suspect some rebels stole a car that a Mobil executive had rented.
Grinding poverty Acehnese remain among nation's poorest
Meanwhile, despite the natural wealth of their province, the Acehnese remain among Indonesia's poorest citizens. The infrastructure is in shambles and there's not a single air-conditioned classroom in the entire province. Air conditioning is an amenity widely found throughout Java, for example.
Two recently passed laws will allow Aceh to keep 30 percent of its tax revenues, however, and the annual windfall is estimated at 3 trillion rupiah ($400 million). That's a 15-fold increase for the provincial budget.
``It's a token gesture, insulting,'' says Syah, the newspaper editor. ``We don't care as much about revenue sharing as we do about getting respect from Jakarta.''
Jakarta has made other overtures. In March, Indonesian President B.J. Habibie, Suharto's protege and successor, publicly apologized for past military atrocities in Aceh. Defense Minister Wiranto, commander of the Indonesian armed forces, also traveled to Aceh to publicly apologize. When he arrived for Friday afternoon prayers at the Grand Mosque in Banda Aceh, he appeared in a batik shirt rather than his general's uniform.
Wiranto's rebel counterpart calls the apologies ``just theater, pure drama.''
``We want the Indonesian military out of Aceh,'' Syafii says during an interview at his remote base camp. ``We consider them war criminals, absolutely, and they should be tried under international law. We want the world community to come here and see the atrocities in every village. Our men have been killed. Our women have been raped.''
No one disputes the horrors in Aceh. Even the regional governor, a solid member of the Indonesian political establishment, refers to the Kopassus brigades as ``a killing machine.''
``So many Acehnese have been killed -- who knows how many thousand -- but no one in the government ever took it seriously,'' says Jusuf Wanandi, a nationally respected political scientist in Jakarta. ``When Habibie went there to say he was sorry, while he was inside (the mosque) apologizing, the soldiers were outside clobbering the students.''
University students have called for a referendum to decide Aceh's future political status, but the guerrillas aren't waiting on the politicians to give their approval.
``Jakarta has done `ethnic cleansing' to our people here,'' says one guerrilla, waving a locked and loaded AK-47 in the direction of a small camp of refugees. ``We have asked the government to investigate, but they never do, so we must take the law into our own hands.''
Indonesian military leaders in the province say they are keeping a lower profile on orders from Jakarta.
``We are acting more under the law and not so directly,'' says Col. Ridhwan. ``The paradigm is changing.''
Nevertheless, daily reports of beatings, torture and disappearances continue to come out of villages in North Aceh, East Aceh and Pidie.
``There's nothing we can't handle,'' says Col. Johnny Wahab, Indonesia's top military man in the province, who was rotated out last week.
Military sweeps Roundups send 50,000 into refugee camps
Recent military sweeps of suspected rebel villages have sent an estimated 50,000 refugees streaming into foul and crowded camps along the main road between Banda Aceh and Lhokseumawe, Aceh's two principal cities.
``People are very afraid, and thousands more come every day,'' says Haji Idris Abdullah, a local building contractor who has volunteered to work at a camp in the Ulee Glee district. The muddy camp, Abdullah says, has more than 23,000 refugees, and he wonders how he can find 5 1/2 tons of rice for tomorrow's one meal.
``Aceh is very mixed up now,'' says editor Syah. ``There are so many overlapping interests -- the government, the military, the Free Aceh Movement, the students, plus provocateurs and regular criminals. It's very confusing.''
Syah says most people in Aceh have no idea what the term ``referendum'' means, despite the thousands of signs proclaiming ``referendum'' that have been painted on bridges, roads, shops, schools, tree trunks, even government offices.
``For Jakarta, it's final and decided: Aceh is part of Indonesia and will remain that way,'' says Syah. ``And as long as Jakarta can show its respect for Aceh, I don't think it will be such a big thing to remain part of the republic.
``But there's really only one thing that's certain about our future -- more disorder.''
Copyright © San Jose Mercury News [US]
