Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, July/August 2003, pages 28-29

Islam and the Middle East in the Far East

 

Bitter Conflict in Aceh Following Breakdown of Talks

 

By John Gee

The 26-year-old war in Aceh resumed with a dramatic flourish on May 19, as 400 Indonesian troops parachuted into fields near the province's capital, Banda Aceh. While it provided striking newsreel and photographic images for the world's media, the significance of this demonstration of military prowess probably eluded most observers. After all, the Indonesian army already was present in Aceh in force: 40,000 troops were based there, to be exact. It controlled the province's major cities, including Banda Aceh and its Iskandar Muda airport, which happens to be just a few miles from the parachutists' drop site. They easily could have been flown in and landed in the conventional manner, but—as George W. Bush knows—that would have looked less impressive.

For the most part, this has been a war in which Indonesia has not welcomed media attention—but nor has the foreign media shown much interest in finding out about what was going on. Aceh, in the north of the island of Sumatra, is the most westerly point in Indonesia. Its people have the reputation of being devout Muslims, and the conflict between the Acehnese and the Indonesian central government is consequently often reduced by outside commentators to being one between religious zealots and a secular regime. That, however, is a misrepresentation which, in the West, tends to work to the advantage of the government.

The Acehnese have a sense of being a distinct people, with their own history. In the 16th and 17th centuries Aceh was a regional power which had a diplomatic representative to the Ottoman Empire in Istanbul. Its sultan proudly informed Elizabeth I of England: "I am the ruler of the regions below the wind who holds sway over the land of Aceh and over the land of Sumatra and over all the lands tributary to Aceh, which stretch from the sunrise to the sunset."

In 1619 the Dutch seized Jakarta, which became the seat of their power in the East. However, they were not able to bring Aceh fully under their rule until the early 20th century, following a 35-year war (1873-1908)—one of the longest in Dutch history—which took the lives of over 100,000 Acehnese. Following Indonesia's independence in 1949, Aceh had a troubled relationship with the central government. In 1950, Jakarta incorporated it into the province of North Sumatra and, three years later, Daoud Beurueuh, the leader of an Islamic party, launched an armed rebellion. He declared his support for the revolt of the Java-based Darul Islam movement, which sought to turn Indonesia into an Islamic state. Significantly, elsewhere the Darul Islam revolt proved easier for the Sukarno government to put down than the Aceh movement. That was only defeated after the government had given Aceh a special status within Indonesia, allowing it more autonomy in cultural and religious affairs than other parts of the country. In 1976, the Free Aceh Movement (or GAM, its Indonesian acronym) was established, with independence as its aim. It was quickly suppressed, but reemerged from underground organizing activity to stage a series of attacks on Indonesian soldiers and police in 1988.

The leadership of the Indonesian army has always favored resolving the conflict in Aceh by force, and this view hardened following the success of the liberation struggle of East Timor, which ended with the army's withdrawal. Both Presidents Abdurrahman Wahid and Megawati Sukarnoputri declared themselves in favor of a negotiated solution, but insisted that they could not accept Aceh's secession. GAM's leadership, on the other hand, was not prepared to accept less. The latest attempt at negotiating a peace settlement broke down on May 12, when the government's deadline for GAM to start surrendering its arms and to give up its demand for independence expired.

In the months leading up to the breakdown, both sides had taken actions that had indicated a less than whole-hearted commitment to the negotiating process. Having taken a battering in recent years, GAM saw the fragile cease-fire as an opportunity to strengthen its forces, while the army, for its part, continued a low level campaign of harassment and attacks against suspected centers of support for the independence movement. President Megawati strengthened her own position by agreeing to negotiate with GAM. She could be seen internationally as a leader standing up to army hard-liners who rejected any negotiations with the rebel movement. Then, when efforts at a settlement broke down, she would be viewed as one who only turned to war when there was no other choice. Thus she would go into a renewed conflict with not only the full support of most Indonesians, but without significant international opposition.

Days before the cease-fire ended, the U.S., European Union and Japan issued a joint statement urging Indonesia not to launch a military offensive in Aceh—but they also called upon GAM to state its unconditional support for a peaceful solution to the conflict and to demilitarize. They were not expected to act quickly and firmly to stop the war once it broke out.

Over the past two years the Indonesian government has tried to woo Acehnese with concessions. Autonomy legislation came into effect on Jan. 1, 2002, and syaria (shariah) law began to be implemented the following March. Although autonomy should have brought Acehnese a larger share of the proceeds from the natural resources of their land, so far they have seen no obvious sign of that occurring. Acehnese make up only 2 percent of Indonesia's population, but Aceh contributes 11 percent of Indonesia's national revenues, chiefly from the province's oil production, in which Exxon Mobil has a large stake.

The reform measures seem not to have won over most Acehnese. Nevertheless, they still hoped that a return to warfare, which has cost the lives of 12,000 people since 1976, somehow would be avoided.

In the countdown to the expiration of the Indonesian government's deadline, cease-fire monitors from the Philippines, Thailand and Norway were flown out. Fearful villagers in northern Aceh fled to the outskirts of the capital to escape the anticipated army offensive, gathering in makeshift camps. Shops were cleared of food, as people stocked up in advance of the renewed warfare.

The Indonesian army adopted a "media-friendly" approach at the outset of the campaign; it gives daily briefings and has "embedded" 50 local journalists with its units, while seeking to curtail contacts with ordinary Acehnese. In earlier phases of this conflict, a few dedicated human rights monitors tried to report what was going on in Aceh. They revealed military practices which included the destruction of houses and villages in the course of raids, arrests and assassinations carried out by soldiers out of uniform, and the killing of people merely suspected of being GAM sympathizers. The monitors themselves were the target of threats and murder. There is every reason to expect that the latest phase of armed conflict will be more brutal than those that preceded it, but, by veiling what is happening from the outside world, the Indonesian authorities believe that they can keep international protest to a minimum.

As of May 19, martial law was imposed for six months, although this can easily be extended. Six months was the time period in which army leaders have claimed they can crush GAM, which has around 5,000 fighters. According to "Aceh Ablaze," a report by Robert Go in the May 25 Straits Times, Gen. Endriartono Sutarto told troops, "Hunt them down and exterminate them. You are trained to kill. This is the end of the story. Finish them off."

 

/nproved WMD Claims Embarrass U.S. Iraq Allies

Singapore and the Philippines were among the countries that eventually ended up on Washington's "Coalition of the Willing" list (though Singapore prefers "Coalition to Disarm Iraq") as it geared up for its war on Iraq. Their governments' decisions to lend their support were not popular: such polls as were carried out indicated that the majority of people in both countries were anti-war.

While it is certain that business considerations played a large part in the two governments' decisions, the prime reason each offered to their people in their public statements on the war was that Iraq threatened the rest of the world through its possession of weapons of mass destruction. This was certainly the position taken by Foreign Minister S. Jayakumar when he delivered a statement of the government's policy to Singapore's parliament on March 14.

Since the collapse of Saddam Hussain's regime in April, neither government has had much to say about the war. Philippines President Gloria Arroyo paints the Iraq conflict as part of the "war against terrorism," in which she wants U.S. support against both the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the terrorist Abu Sayyaf group, both based in the southern Philippines. Singaporean leaders have tended to make fairly general statements about Singapore's national self-interest. Both are evidently embarrassed by the failure of the U.S. and British forces in Iraq to find the weapons of mass destruction that this war was supposed to be about.

There are those in the U.S. and Britain who think that it does not matter if no such weapons show up. Their governments point out that Saddam Hussain's regime was extremely brutal and that the Iraqi people are glad to be rid of it. That is true, but regime change was not the declared reason for going to war—even if it was the real central one. Both Washington and London claimed to be acting upon the authority of a succession of U.N. resolutions, culminating in Security Council Resolution 1441, which called upon Iraq to get rid of the weapons of mass destruction that it was said to possess. It was that claim which they pressed all those leaders who signed up to the "Coalition of the Willing" to endorse. Perhaps some signed with their eyes wide open, knowing that they were endorsing a lie. Most, however, believed in the existence of the menacing Iraqi weaponry, and, though they do not voice such views in public, there are signs that some now feel let down and even deceived by the powers for whom they stuck out their necks.

After the war was launched, I took a call on a television talk show from a listener who asked, "Do you think that those who supported this war will be embarrassed when it turns out that Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction?" I replied that some certainly would—not only worldwide, but even within the U.S. and British governments. But among those neo-conservative hawks who pushed hardest for war, I doubted that there would be such feelings: "They don't know embarrassment."

I felt like kicking myself afterwards for not having added that they know no shame, either.

 

Malaysian Version of Al-Jazeera?

Following the publication of an article in The Economist magazine that annoyed the Malaysian government with its harsh criticisms of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, there has been talk of setting up new media networks to counter alleged bias.

In the past, Malaysian leaders have aired the idea of establishing a news service run by Third World countries. Now Information Minister Khalil Yaakob has told the Malaysian daily the New Straits Times that the government would like to set up a television news service similar to the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera satellite network.

During the Iraq war, most Malaysians considered Al-Jazeera to be a more credible source of information than CNN or the BBC. More than half a million of them could view over eight hours per day of the channel's news broadcasts on Malaysia's Astro satellite TV network, which dubs them from Arabic into Malay.

It seems that all the minister sees is that Al-Jazeera provides a news service that is an alternative to the Western giants. That, however, is not the sole, or even the main, reason for its popularity with Arabic-speaking viewers—or with the Malaysians who watch its programs. The channel is also lively and independent: it does not bore its viewers by leading its news stories with long reports on what the head of state has done that day; and, to the chagrin of various Arab states beyond its home base of Qatar, it gives an opportunity to people holding widely differing views on the politics of their home countries to speak. Can this really be what the minister has in mind for Southeast Asia?

John Gee is a free-lance journalist based in Singapore and the author of Unequal Conflict: The Palestinians and Israel, available from the AET Book Club.

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