frontline 10
Aceh Fights Back
Lesley McCulloch is a Scots born academic based in Australia. She hit the headlines recently when she was imprisoned for several months by the Indonesian authorities on charges of contacting resistance fighters in Aceh.
Bulldozers moving bodies into mass graves, gangs of militia working with the Indonesian military, killing, torture and rape of innocent civilians including women and children; looting of property; and the burning of houses, schools and health clinics. This was East Timor in the wake of the 1999 referendum. On the opposite side of Indonesia's vast archipelago - in the west - this is Aceh today.
On 19 May this year, the Indonesia government declared martial law in Aceh, and so began the biggest Indonesian military operation since the invasion of East Timor in 1975. As part of this offensive, British supplied Scorpion tanks and Hawk aircraft to attack civilian targets. The result has been the death of hundreds of women, children and innocent civilians. In Aceh, a struggle for independence has been raging, with varying degrees of intensity for almost thirty years. More than 85 percent of Aceh's 4.5 million population support the local separatist movement Garekan Aceh Merdeka (GAM).
The international community is complicit in the problems in Aceh and in the human rights abuses taking place there. Most governments have been overtly supportive of the Indonesian's desire to maintain the unity of the world's largest archipelago. And some, for example the British government, has inadvertently given material support for the conflict: by supplying some of the hardware that is now causing so much destruction to life and property.
Indonesia has many pressing problems that are actually causing the political and economic disintegration of the state more quickly than the issue of Aceh. For example, an economy already in an advanced state of collapse due largely to corruption and economic mismanagement; a judicial system that acquits the guilty, convicts the innocent, and affords protection to members of the security forces against whom there is quite clear evidence of human rights abuses; military and police forces that lack professionalism, and a civilian president who cannot see that those around her continue to strip her beloved country of its economic and other assets, just as previous president Suharto did, while at the same time relieving her of most of her power.
Rather than putting its limited resources into addressing the above, the Indonesian government has instead chosen to specialize in dirty little wars against dissenting voices from one end of the archipelago to the other. The Acehnese are but one of these groups.
RICH RESOURCES
The province of Aceh in Indonesia's far northwest corner has a wealth of natural resources, manufacturing and agricultural capacity. Oil resources have dwindled in significance in recent years, but the gas, particularly LNG, remains highly profitable. In addition, there are fertiliser and cement plants; the forests harbour valuable wood, and the coastal waters are rich fisheries. The province is very fertile, and commercial crops such as palm oil, rubber, coconuts and coffee grow with ease. But many Acehnese are poor: they feel their right to benefit from these riches has been denied - by the Jakarta based government, and also by the locally stationed military and police who are involved in extortion and bribery in every sector of the economy. The result has been that around two thirds of Acehnese are officially recognised as living in poverty. With the imposition of martial law, the situation has worsened as thousand have fled from their homes and can no longer grow food for their own subsistence.
If local NGO reports are to be believed, in the seven weeks since the imposition of martial law, more than 600 civilians including women and children have been killed. In at least three areas massacres have taken place where at least 100 civilians have been killed. Several mass graves have already been uncovered; others have been reported but the security forces have prevented attempts to exhume bodies. Independent verification of information is problematic, but the exact number is relatively unimportant. Of one thing we can be sure; that something is awry in Aceh that has resulted in many hundreds of innocents being killed.
The GAM military spokesperson, Sofyan Dawod, said in a telephone interview 'when we, the armed members of GAM die in battle, it is right that the international community remains silent. We are soldiers. But when the Indonesian military and police are killing the innocent civilians, the governments of the world must break that silence.'
Aceh has been effectively closed to outsiders; lack of independently verified information is allowing the international community to remain conveniently oblivious to the scale of atrocities in Aceh.
ATROCITIES
In a tactic drawn from the US led coalition assault on Iraq, the Indonesian government is allowing only those journalists embedded with the military to report on the war, and has threatened to imprison journalists and take action against media that carries news ostensibly damaging to the war effort. Martial law administrator Major General Endang Suwarya, who also heads the military command, has ordered that all news published must contain the spirit of nationalism. Suwarya also declared that 'reports covering the comments of both sides, or neutrality, cannot be permitted...' There can be 'no quoting, interviewing or writing about the rebels' he said.
Some embedded journalists have reported threats of violence if they publish information about atrocities perpetrated by the Indonesian security forces, such as the summary execution of unarmed civilians, rape and torture.
Most of the information now received on the civilian casualties of the military campaign in Aceh is delivered by text messages, but much of Aceh has no mobile phone network. In addition, the distribution of recharge mobile phone cards has been limited in some places to police stations. The postal service in the province has also been halted. International governments have been able to hide behind the cloak of secrecy imposed on this dirty little war and claim the sporadic information received from within Aceh may simply be GAM's propaganda.
Restrictions on media coverage have been codified into law by Presidential decree 43/2003, dated 16 June. Local journalists must obtain written authority from military emergency authorities in Aceh to report on the conflict, the decree restricts their movements and dictates that all sources must be disclosed. Foreign journalists must get permission from Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jakarta. These restrictions have made it all but impossible for any but embedded journalists to work.
Even before martial law in Aceh, human right's defenders and political activists became targets of the authorities with many being arrested, detained and some simply disappearing. In January this year as demonstrations against the government became more frequent, Megawati said 'I look at my pictures - and I actually look pretty there - and see people stomping on them, I feel like I want to throw up . . . like a volcano about to explode.' Several activists have received prison sentences for simply defacing photographs of Megawati and he has also ordered that those who criticize the government be dealt with harshly.
The latest victim of her 'zero tolerance' policy is Muhammad Nazar, who on July 1 was sentenced to five years in jail for speaking out against the cessations of hostilities agreement that was signed on 9 December 2000. The agreement had some fundamental flaws and weaknesses and was never fully implemented, it collapsed on 18 May.
The conflict is causing destruction not only of life, but of infrastructure: Aceh is being systematically destroyed. Since May, more that 500 schools have been destroyed by groups of 'unknown' armed thugs. Of course, the Indonesians blame GAM. Dawod however accuses the Indonesian military and militia of the destruction of schools, houses, clinics and other infrastructure. Indeed such destruction was one of the hallmarks of the military and their militia proxies in East Timor. Given that it is the same military that is now in operation in Aceh as was in East Timor, it is not unreasonable to assume that they are operating in the same way.
OCCUPATION
For many years, the presence of militia in Aceh was denied. Almost 18 months ago, while on a research trip in Aceh, a visit to two coffee plantations in Central Aceh gave quite clear evidence that militia were in fact working with the Indonesian military. These groups of thugs have been recruited, armed and trained by the security forces. The coffee plantations had been taken over by the military; the owners and workers forced to flee. These coffee plantations in the rugged and remote mountains of central Aceh now serve a dual purpose: as a source of revenue for the cash-strapped Indonesian military, and as training camps.
President Megawati Sukarnoputri said recently that Indonesia's unity 'is, for me, not bargainable or negotiable, and cannot be changed or erased.' And in a televised statement to the police in early July, she said that armed groups of civilians should be set up because the police could not The question is 'how many lives is she prepared to see sacrificed in order to secure the unity of the state?' Megawati has in the past recognized, and apologized for, the atrocities perpetrated by the security forces in Aceh. She vowed to solve the problem without further bloodshed. Says Dawod 'Megawati has a short memory. It is time the international community reminded her of the promise she made to the people.'
Megawati is obviously prepared to pay a high price. The human cost of the conflict in Aceh is growing with every day. Said Dawod, 'the Acehnese have already paid the price for freedom, it is only a matter of time. '
When asked if he had a message for the British government, Dawod replied simply 'I want the people of Britain to know that the tanks and planes your government provided are killing the women and children of Aceh.'
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