by Eriko Uchida
29 September 1999
The clampdown by the Indonesian military in Indonesia's Aceh Province in the north of Sumatera continued well into September. The fight against separatist forces includes a continued ethnic cleansing of the Acehnese people through massacres, tortures, and burning of villages by the security forces. Supported by the United States and Britain's multinational corporate entities, the activities are having a devastating effect on the people of Aceh. Internaitonal Petroleum companies, particularly Mobil Oil, are directly supporting Indonesia's military by providing logistics, ammunition, food, vehicles and communications equipment.
Two soldiers killed in restive Aceh province
Two soldiers were stabbed to death by unidentified assailants during the first week of September 1999 in Indonesia's restive province of Aceh, police officials said on September 2. Colonel Bahrumsyah, Aceh's police chief, said Sergeant Edi Suhartri was stabbed to death in Tennom, West Aceh, and Sergeant Ali Imran was stabbed to death in Jeunib, North Aceh, both on August 31.
The incidents occurred as the police launched a media campaign that week in Aceh calling for an end to violence in the oil and gas-rich region, and for peace talks. The police have put large announcements in Aceh newspapers to push for the campaign. Separatist rebels belonging to the Free Aceh Movement have been fighting to set up an independent Islamic state since the 1970s, much to the chagrin of the international corporate entities..
'Special autonomy' plan for Aceh
On the same day that an independent commission to investigate military abuses was visiting Aceh for the first time, seven leading political parties announced proposals for "special autonomy" for the rich, violence-wracked province. Both moves on September 14 betrayed Jakarta's deep concern about rising separatist activity in Aceh, a concern which was only heightened by the East Timor crisis.
The proposed special autonomy for Aceh is close to the "comprehensive autonomy" offered by Jakarta to East Timor, which the East Timorese rejected in their August 30, United Nations-supervised ballot.
Aceh's deputy chairman of the National Mandate Party (PAN), Jamaluddin Ahmad, spoke in Aceh's capital, Banda Aceh, on behalf of the seven political parties which won the most votes in June's general election, including ruling party Golkar and opposition frontrunner the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).
"We hope that at least a small part of the constitutional framework for the special autonomy for Aceh can become an input for the Government and the Parliament to strengthen the law number 22 and 25 of 1999 and the draft law on the special region of Aceh," Mr Shmad said. He was referring to two recently passed laws on the sharing of provincial revenues between the province and the central Government in Jakarta, and a draft law recognising Aceh's specific customs, laws and education. He said the general outline of the proposed autonomy would leave foreign affairs, external security, fiscal and monetary matters and the judiciary in Jakarta's hands, with Aceh able to accept aid from abroad and from Jakarta.
The proposal is for Aceh to get authority over 70 percent of the revenues from local oil and gas resources and over 60 percent of other natural resources. These proportions are significantly larger than the respective 20 and 15 percent allowed for under the recently passed law. Currently the local people receive much, much less with much diverted to mainly American petroleum companies and other multinational corporations.
The proposal represents an effort to buy off growing anger in Aceh at the continued presence of extra troops and riot police in the province following the past decade of special military status for the province which has been marked by army-led massacres. The Independent Commission on Aceh, formed by President Bacharuddin Habibie in July, would investigate such military abuses, starting with the most recent, on July 23 in the Betung Ateuh area of West Aceh.
The team of independent investigators, which would visit Betung Ateuh first, includes people involved in the 1998 fact-finding team on the rapes of Chinese Indonesian women during the power struggle in Jakarta of May 1998. Members of the team were appalled by preliminary evidence gathering, which in the words of one member, spelled "Kopassus, Kopassus, Kopassus", the army's special forces now renowned for manipulating much of the recent violence in East Timor.
Many Indonesians feel much more strongly about the potential loss of Aceh than they do about East Timor - hence broad-based efforts by politicians and academics outside government to find ways to avert a second national tragedy. Aceh, which played an important role in the nationalist struggle that led to the birth of Indonesia in 1945, is largely Muslim and rich in oil and gas. But a growing number of Acehnese are likely to reject any offers from Jakarta as being too little, too late. Moreover, the experience of Indonesians is that the political and economic and elite and the army have never fulfilled any promise and only spout empty talk after which things revert to the same brutal and savage tedium of massacres, rapes, and burning of villages. Indonesians are a duplicious peoples who use a culture of never-ending violence to control the people.
Muslim chiefs urge Aceh referendum
A two-day meeting of 500 Muslim scholars and leaders in the largely Islamic province of Aceh ended with a strong call for a referendum to choose between autonomy and independence.
"We are pressing the Government for a referendum to be held under international supervision as is the wish of the people," Teungku Nuruzzahri, who chaired the meeting, was quoted as saying on September 16. Having entirely miscalculated the East Timor situation, Jakarta-based politicians were joining the bandwagon in an attempt to avoid a similar fate for Aceh, where separatist demands grew against a backdrop of military-sponsored violence.
Leading Muslim Abdurrahman Wahid, with fellow oppositionist Amien Rais, added their voices - and their tears - to the Aceh cause during the middle week of September and reiterated local demands for a referendum. Mr Wahid was attacked the last time he visited Aceh when he said a referendum was not the answer, while Mr Rais' National Mandate Party (PAN) has been more sympathetic to ideas of a federalist state. That both men prayed together with about 4,000 Muslims in Aceh's capital, Banda Aceh, showed not only a softening of their anti-independence stance but also a softening of past enmities between them.
"Even though I am sad, I do respect the results of the meeting," Mr Wahid said.
PAN's Jamaluddin Ahmad said: "Mr Rais said he also could understand the scholars' demand." He said many intellectuals in Aceh wanted the province to stay within Indonesia as part of a federal republic, a proposal the Government has ruled out.
"This is the compromise solution, an autonomous Aceh within an Indonesian unitary republic, just like Hong Kong and China," Mr Ahmad said. Given the failure of the East Timorese referendum to gain acceptance within Indonesia's military, this might seem an odd moment to propound a similar approach for Aceh. However, human rights groups pointed out that more than 200 people have been killed in Aceh in the previous six weeks, implying that Indonesian generals seem unconcerned with world condemnation of their violence and a form of rule that is out of the Dark Ages in what is obviously a culture of violence populated by a savage and uncivilized people.
Aceh rebels demand government shutdown
Separatist rebels in Indonesia's troubled Aceh province demanded that central government offices shut down by October 1 as their movement maintains its push for independence. Members of the armed Free Aceh movement circulated a petition today calling on those working for the ''Indonesian-Javanese'' government to vacate their offices by October 1. Free Aceh frequently refers to the central government in Jakarta, dominated by people from the main island of Java, as ''Indonesia-Java''. Most non-Javanese in what is known as Indonesia see themselves occupied by a Javanese empire that only caters to the needs of the Javanese at the expense of the other peoples.
''All the employees working for the Indonesian-Javanese government units which are not fair have to step down, all offices have to be closed and emptied totally by October 1,'' read the statement which was circulated in the province's capital Banda Aceh, 1,700 km northwest of Jakarta.
''The only ones allowed to remain open are educational facilities, news offices, hospitals and public facilities,'' the statement added. ''The liberation of the land of Aceh will prepare for our sovereignty and independence. We will arrange this country by our own means.''
The rebel movement did not state what it intended to do if the deadline was not met, but a spokesman told Reuters ordinary [local and indigenous] people should not be scared.
''The people should not be afraid because that warning is just for state employees that work for the Indonesian-Javanese government,'' said spokesman Abu Rajak.
October 1 was the day Indonesia's highest legislative body, the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR), would convene in Jakarta for a session that would set the schedule for the selection of a new president. Parliamentarians from June's historic election would be sworn in on that day. The vote was widely boycotted in Aceh, where more than 200 people were killed in an upsurge of military-perpetrated violence since May 1999.