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Al-Ahram Weekly 18 - 24 November 1999 Issue No. 456 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 18 - 24 November 1999 Issue No. 456
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Special Profile Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Cry freedom in Aceh
By Faiza RadyWhile Indonesia's brand-new president Abdurrahman Wahid was meeting with US President Bill Clinton and International Monetary Fund (IMF) officials in Washington last week to discuss the country's massive debt, an estimated crowd of 1.5 million people rallied in Aceh province, northern Sumatra, demanding self-determination to the rhythmic chant of "Freedom!". Staging the largest independence march to date, a powerful medley of workers, farmers and students, men and women, the old and the young -- many wearing red headbands with the inscription "referendum" -- defiantly marched on Banda Aceh, the provincial capital on the northern tip of Sumatra island.
"We call on the Indonesian government to give us a chance for a referendum with two options, independence or special autonomy," said Muhammad Nazar, the chairman of the rally's organising committee.
Wahid seems to have been disturbed by the Acehnese people's show of force coming so early in his political honeymoon, and responded with conflicting signals. Having dropped a bombshell at a 4 November press conference in Jakarta when he recognised the province's right to self-determination, the president was quick to censor his initial statement after the Aceh rally. Casually dismissing all evidence to the contrary, a jovial Wahid told an audience of businessmen and academics in Washington that he believed "the Acehnese have no wish for independence", according to the Indonesian daily Tempo.
Some political analysts believe that Wahid's initial euphoric liberalisation drive has been quickly tempered by the powerful Indonesian brass.
In an effort to further ingratiate himself with the armed forces, Wahid, who had been a virulent critic of Suharto during his presidency, dropped another bombshell by declaring that he would pardon his predecessor if he were to be found guilty of embezzling billions of dollars from state funds. Although admitting that Suharto was "richer even than the state," Wahid bluntly conceded that he was caving in to the combined pressure of the military and the country's economic elite. "Suharto's major followers might try to topple the cart," he explained, in a clear reference to the former dictator's gang of "crony capitalists".
As Wahid attempted to juggle his way around Indonesia's centres of power, some analysts believe that he may have overstepped his boundaries. The Free Aceh Movement, along with workers, human rights activists and the powerful student movement, will not readily accept these sudden volte-faces on crucial issues such as independence or impunity for Suharto.
Universally abhorred for its legacy, the Suharto dictatorship made history by accumulating a truly staggering record of human rights violations since it was installed by a US-backed military coup in 1965. Backed by the Americans and effectively given licence to murder under the banner of "the struggle against communism", Suharto and his clique went on a deadly rampage -- killing an estimated one million civilians in the 1965-66 period alone.
Besides having won a place in history as one of our century's major genocide-perpetrators, Suharto's early strategy also set the pattern for his remaining years in power. Eliminating political dissent through execution was established as a central tool of government. "The slaughter which followed the 1965 coup appears to have established a precedent for dealing with political opponents," in the words of the London-based human rights organisation Amnesty International.
Some of the worst abuses took place in the recently liberated island of East Timor, which Suharto invaded in 1975 and illegally annexed to Indonesia the following year. Commenting on the systematic decimation of the East Timorese people over the past two and a half decades -- which left 200,000 dead out of a population of 800,000 -- prominent linguist and political writer Noam Chomsky has consistently denounced "the worst slaughter relative to population since the Holocaust", aided and abetted by "the support of the US and UK (helped by others to be sure), including diplomatic support, crucial military aid, and equally crucial falsification and denial [of facts]."
Of course, Suharto's regime, like the hand-picked Habibie administration which succeeded it, had no reason to limit its activities to East Timor. Following the massive 1965-66 massacres, similar carnage was periodically visited upon the rest of the archipelago, albeit on a smaller scale. "Throughout the country, serious human rights violations have been part of the official response to political opposition and 'disorder', and the means of removing perceived obstacles to economic policies," said Amnesty, adding that so-called "counter-insurgency" operations were especially brutal in Aceh and Irian Jaya.
A province of four million people with a long history of resistance to Dutch colonialism, Aceh fought against Suharto's iron rule for much of his 32-year-long regime.
As a result, martial law was imposed there from 1989 to 1998, declaring the province an "Area of Military Operations" (Daerah Operasi Militer, DOM), where the Indonesian National Army (TNI) was given a free hand against the secessionist liberation army of the Free Aceh Movement (Gerakan Aceh Merdeka, GAM). Amnesty documents the way such operations routinely included systematic extra-judicial executions, "disappearances", torture, rape, imprisonment of peaceful activists and unfair political trials.
In the wake of the Indonesian people's militant uprising in the spring of 1998 which led to the ouster of Suharto in May, it seemed as though things would finally change in Aceh.
Following intense popular pressure to democratise and lift the 10-year long state of siege, then President Habibie revoked Aceh's DOM status in August, and some troops effectively started leaving the province. Recognising that they had to make at least nominal amends for their mentor's rule of terror, both Habibie and then chief of the armed forces, General Wiranto, publicly apologised for massive human rights violations under DOM.
Yet in December, the TNI was back with a vengeance. Flanked by a newly-created riot control police unit, the PPRM (Petugas Penindak Rusuh Massa), they set about stifling GAM's call for independence.
Among a long list of recent TNI "activities" in the province, Amnesty documents the 3 May 1999 slaughter of up to 41 people -- including seven children -- in Kreung Geukuh, North Aceh District. Eye-witnesses testified that the victims were executed for participating in a peaceful demonstration to protest the army's excessive use of force against civilians. Most of them were shot in the back as they were fleeing for their lives from the troops' gun-fire. A similar massacre took place on 23 July, in Beutong, West Aceh. On that day, the army summarily executed at least 40 unarmed civilians, and possibly as many as 70 according to eye-witness accounts.
The Indonesian government's historical repression of Aceh's struggle for self-determination should be put in the context of the province's wealth. Aceh is, in effect, considered crucial to the development and growth of the national economy because of its rich natural resource base, which includes oil, natural gas and timber. "Aceh's gas exports alone accounted for $ 1.3 billion last year," reported the Far Eastern Economic Review.
While Jakarta has milked the province for its riches, little wealth accrued to the Acehnese who -- like the majority of the Indonesian people -- had to bear the costs of social service slashes, creeping poverty and high unemployment in the aftermath of the 1997 stock market crash. Over the years, Jakarta has heavily exploited the province in order to fund expensive real estate ventures and to subsidise the private banking system, which is still in the hands of the Suharto clan and their clique of billionaire cronies. As long as they stay in control of Indonesia's finances, Aceh's bid for independence is destined to remain on hold.
