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The
Tsunami and Military Rule
Aceh's Dual Disasters
By JOHN ROOSA
On December 25, 2004, one day before Aceh was devastated
by an earthquake-driven tsunami, the Indonesian military
(TNI) announced that it had just killed eighteen guerrillas
in the province.[1] Such news had long since become routine.
A week earlier, the TNI killed five.[2] TNI chief Gen. Endriartono
Sutarto stated in early December that his men had killed
3,216 Acehnese since martial law was imposed upon the province
in May 2003.[3] In all these reported armed clashes, very
few Indonesian soldiers died. The war was lopsided, with
Acehnese, especially civilians (posthumously labeled "rebels"
by the TNI), bearing nearly all the casualties. Aceh was
already a killing field before the Indian Ocean wreaked
havoc on the land.
Under martial law, the military became the government. The
military stationed nearly 40,000 security personnel in the
province (about one soldier or policeman for every 100 civilians),
replaced many civilian officials (such as district heads)
with military personnel, banned foreigners, issued new identification
cards, forced Acehnese to attend public ceremonies at which
they pledged loyalty to the Indonesian state, and set up
countless checkpoints on the roads. The transition from
martial law to 'civil emergency' in May 2004 was a cosmetic
change; the 40,000 troops remained and the killings continued.
The seawater was one of the few things the military did
not try to control.
One should not imagine that the severity of the tsunami
in Aceh (the latest estimate is more than 100,000 dead)
renders this history of military rule irrelevant. The Indonesian
government is now using the military as its primary coordinator
of relief aid. Worse, the military is still waging war on
the pro-independence Free Aceh Movement (GAM). Mother nature
inflicted enormous damage on Aceh but did not fundamentally
alter the pre-existing social institutions. The TNI remains
intact (with claimed losses so far of about 500 personnel),
as does GAM, whose guerrillas are mostly in the hills. The
war between them has been remarkably perdurable; it has
lasted on and off since the late 1970s, through the collapse
of President Suharto's dictatorship, through the tenures
of three post-Suharto presidents, foreign mediation, peace
talks, and cease-fires.
The Indonesian military has been waging a counterinsurgency
war against GAM. As in all such wars, including the one
the Dutch fought in Aceh during the last thirty years of
the nineteenth century, the military's goal has been to
terrorize civilians so that they will not support the guerrillas.
The Suharto regime, after very limited hostilities with
GAM in the late 1970s, turned Aceh into a free-fire zone
in 1990. The terror has been fairly constant since then.
The only let-up (and that only partial) was in 1998-99 when
the nation's political system was in crisis after Suharto's
fall. During that brief reformist pause, the government
sanctioned a human rights investigation that conservatively
estimated that the military had killed about 2,000 to 4,000
people from 1990 to 1998.[4]
As part of the counterinsurgency war, the military indiscriminately
rounded up civilians for interrogations that invariably
involved torture. Mutilated corpses were left by roadsides
in the 1990s as a form of what the military called "shock
therapy." The civilians at whom this 'therapeutic'
practice was directed did not respond like good patients
and retreat into a collective catatonic state. At the start
of large-scale military operations in 1990, GAM consisted
of several hundred armed guerrillas. It did not have mass
support. Most Acehnese were as integrated into Indonesia
as any other ethnic group. It was the military's manner
of suppressing the rebels that fueled the revolt. Human
rights activist Muhammad Isa noted last year that "when
Aceh was declared a military operations zone, there were
only a few hundred GAM insurgents in Pidie, North Aceh and
East Aceh. Now, there are a lot more throughout Aceh."
[5] Indonesia specialist Edward Aspinall wrote: "Many
journalists and others who interviewed new GAM recruits
in rural Aceh in 1999 noted that many of them were motivated
by a desire to exact revenge for family members who had
been killed, tortured or sexually abused by security forces
earlier in the decade." [6]
In a remarkable demonstration of public opinion, nearly
a million people (one quarter of the population) attended
a rally in 1999 calling for a referendum on independence.
After nearly a decade of counterinsurgency warfare, the
military had made succession mainstream opinion. Today,
it nevertheless stoically persists in its Sisyphus-like
labor, creating enemies in the process of killing them.
Not all Acehnese, on coming to hate the military for its
atrocities, have turned to GAM as an alternative. GAM has
not articulated a coherent political program (its founder
wishes to revive a monarchical form of government) and has
not always followed the Geneva Conventions (it has, for
instance, frequently taken Indonesian civilians as hostages).
The military's repression of all forms of political dissent
in Aceh has made it nearly impossible for any resistance
to be waged except armed resistance. Acehnese who have tried
to resist in civil fashion have been denounced as GAM members
in disguise and have either been jailed, killed, or forced
into exile. Tens of thousands of Acehnese have fled to other
parts of Indonesia or foreign countries.
The refrain one often hears from Acehnese is that the military
has never bothered to distinguish GAM members from non-combatants.
TNI troops view all Acehnese with suspicion. The main English
daily newspaper in Indonesia, The Jakarta Post, in a rare
moment of candid reporting, noted last month that a frequent
remark by soldiers at the checkpoints was "Are you
Acehnese? Then you must be GAM." Human rights campaigner
Munir was not being hyperbolic when he stated last year
that "ninety-nine percent of those detained are non-combatants,
not GAM but NGO people, local politicians, students."
[7]
For the Acehnese, the tens of thousands of soldiers in the
province are not a source of security; they are equivalent
to a plague of locusts. The troops are expected to earn
their own money, as the government covers only a part of
their expenses. Thus, checkpoints have become moneymaking
franchises; soldiers shakedown passing truckers, motorists,
and motorcyclists. Many journalists have written about this
practice since it is carried out so openly. Other fundraising
methods are less obvious. It is unknown how much the military
receives from the ExxonMobil natural gas plant in Aceh (which
was unaffected by the tsunami). ExxonMobil pays the military
to guard its enclave and, like all other businesses in Indonesia,
must pony up money to meet periodic TNI requests for funds.
This plant is a sore point for Acehnese. The Indonesian
government earns about $1.2 billion annually from it but
the Acehnese people see very little of that money. Most
of the profits are pocketed by officials in Jakarta.
Jakarta would like to use the tsunami as a means of wiping
the slate of history clean. In the Indonesian media, officials
frequently comment that they hope the tragedy will prompt
Acehnese to put aside their comparatively petty political
concerns and cooperate with the Indonesian government in
the common struggle against nature. If the military suddenly
abandoned its ingrained, institutional ethos of treating
all Acehnese as subversives, ended its corruption, and began
to selflessly assist in Aceh's recovery, then perhaps Jakarta's
hopes will be fulfilled. This tiger, however, is not likely
to change its stripes.
Reports by Indonesian volunteers and journalists in Aceh
indicate that the military has not changed even in the midst
of such staggering devastation. Consider the following account
written by a wealthy Indonesian woman who flew to Aceh with
her mother to carry some medical supplies. Within her narrative
(which she wrote in English and circulated on an email list),
she describes an encounter with a military checkpoint on
December 31 while driving out of the capital city of Banda
Aceh. The city was in ruins, but the soldiers still practiced
their customary shakedowns at checkpoints:
"As we reached the outskirts of the city we were stopped
by military with rifles in hand. They initially blocked
the way and refused to allow us to continue driving along
the coast. They checked all of our boxes and asked us to
hand over the goods to them. We knew that if we gave them
the goods that they would never be distributed so a friend
lobbied until we were able to pass in exchange for some
women's underwear that we had brought. We are still puzzled
by that one, but it was a small price to pay."
When she returned to the city she brought with her several
starving villagers who approached a colonel at the military
headquarters, the center for the distribution of relief
aid: "When one of the villagers explained to him that
his village was in desperate need of food aid the colonel
started interrogating and giving him a hard time. My mother
and I listened on incredulously as he began asking for proof
that there were indeed 300 hundred survivors and he said
that he had a hard time believing that there were even that
many survivors. Again with a friend's persuasion, the villagers
were finally able to convince the colonel to give in and
allow them to take 50 boxes of supermie [instant noodles]
and a few hundred kilos of rice. We couldn't believe our
eyes that this man was giving these villagers such a hard
time as all around us there were hundreds of boxes of aid
in the form of food, chainsaws, generators, pipes, buckets,
you name it, piled high against the walls. My mother and
I were even offered to help ourselves to a buffet of food
that was laid out on two big tables. It dawned on us that
the military was controlling all of the incoming domestic
and foreign aid and that there had been little done to distribute
any of it! Apparently they were expecting the villagers
to come to the posko [command post] or refugee camps in
Banda Aceh, which was unlikely since a lot of these stranded
survivors were just too far away, not to mention some severely
wounded, with no means of transport to get themselves there.
We also discovered that the military was afraid that the
aid would come into the hands of GAM rebels, which seemed
to us such a minor problem in the face of such a catastrophe."
The Jakarta government took the very positive step of allowing
foreign journalists, relief workers, and military personnel
into Aceh. Reports indicate that the military is no longer
trying to monopolize aid distribution; though they are selling
some aid that should be distributed freely, including food.
But with foreigners inside Aceh, the military is worried,
that the unaccountability it has enjoyed for 19 months may
be coming to an end.
Journalists are reporting that the military still checks
Acehnese for their identity cards. Soldiers try to determine
a person's political loyalty before handing out aid. Soldiers
are weeding out people at the refugee camps and taking suspected
GAM supporters into detention. The military is being stingy
with its aid since it wants to ensure that not a grain of
rice winds up in the hands of GAM. Any person carrying more
than he or she can immediately consume is suspected of carrying
goods for GAM. One journalist, reporting on January 7, observed
soldiers at a checkpoint 40 kilometers outside of Banda
Aceh: "All morning, troops wearing combat kit had been
stopping those heading south, accusing them of forming new
supply lines for rebels in the hills." [8]
Most of the some $4 billion that has been raised worldwide
for tsunami relief will likely be devoted to Aceh. The only
other country that needs a large amount of aid is Sri Lanka.
Both Thailand and India have stated they do not need foreign
aid. This means that Indonesia's military in Aceh is now
under an international microscope. There is no reason to
believe, however, that this will guarantee better behavior.
The last time the whole world was watching, in East Timor
in 1999, the military laid a country to waste, accomplishing
a level of destruction to rival a tsunami. The TNI worried
little about international opinion during that September
1999 scorched earth campaign. It burned down 70% of East
Timor's buildings, looted much of the country's wealth,
killed hundreds, if not thousands, and forcibly deported
about 250,000 people -- all while in the international spotlight.
The generals responsible for those atrocities have enjoyed
impunity; there has been no international tribunal. The
general first appointed to head up Indonesia's
Aceh relief effort was Adam Damiri, one of the key commanders
responsible for
the 1999 destruction of East Timor. The military high command
replaced him at the last moment to avoid causing any friction
with other governments.
Although foreigners are now in Aceh, one should not believe
that they are immune from eviction. Jakarta allowed in international
observers in December 2002 after it signed a peace agreement
with GAM. It then sent them packing only five months later
when martial law was declared. Morever, the military high
command, especially under the army chief of staff Gen. Ryacudu,
has cultivated a paranoiac attitude towards foreign governments,
arguing that they are fomenting internal unrest in a conspiracy
to break up Indonesia.[9]
Acehnese attitudes concerning independence will probably
not change even with the remarkable outpouring of sympathy
from Indonesian civilians, who have volunteered to serve
as relief workers and contributed large sums of money. The
Acehnese have never had major problems with Indonesian civilians;
their problems have been with the military. Only if Indonesian
civilians in Java and the rest of the archipelago are able
to appreciate what Acehnese suffered prior to the tsunami
and work to restrain military operations will there be a
possibility for true rapprochement with Acehnese. But substantive
military reform appears a distant goal, especially with
a former general just voted in as president.
It is obvious that immediate relief work and long-term reconstruction
can not proceed if Aceh is a warzone. Foreign governments
and international agencies need to pressure Jakarta to resume
negotiations with GAM so that a cease-fire can be established.
Both sides say they would like a cease-fire and that they
are only carrying out defensive actions. But both blame
the other for not reciprocating. Without negotiations to
iron out the details and relieve the atmosphere of tension
the armed clashes will continue.
Jakarta has been quick to blame GAM for any gunfire (such
as a shooting near the UN compound on January 8 which some
Indonesian officials now say was done by a stressed-out
soldier) or accident (such as the crash of a US navy helicopter
that cabinet minister Alwi Shihab suggested was the work
of GAM). A journalist has noted that Jakarta wishes to make
foreign relief workers frightened of GAM as "gun-toting
killers who are attacking aid convoys and using survivor
camps as hideouts." [10] GAM, meanwhile, has issued
statements assuring relief workers that it will neither
attack them nor interfere with the aid distribution.
SIRA, the leading popular organization supporting a referendum
on the region's political future, has called for international
mediation in the war: "A political resolution between
Indonesia and GAM must be found immediately at the international
negotiating tables and the war must end for the sake of
humanitarian aid, peaceful development, and the long-term
liberty of the Acehnese people. If a peace process is not
immediately conducted then the suffering and oppression
of the Acehnese people will be compounded in the aftermath
of the tsunami disaster." [11]
John Roosa, Assistant Professor of History at the University
of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, is co-editor of
The Year that Never Ended: Understanding the Experiences
of the Victims of 1965: Oral History Essays (Jakarta: Elsam,
2004).
Notes:
1. Agence France Press (AFP), December 25, 2004.
2. AFP, December 17, 2004.
3. Jakarta Post, December 3, 2004.
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