After 26 years of violence, peace seems to have come to the Indonesian territory of Aceh, with a deal that gives the region autonomy within the Indonesian state. Aceh’s long struggle to break away was not resisted by Jakarta just because of the local wealth of gas and lumber, but because of the nightmare that has haunted every government since Indonesia’s independence from the Dutch in 1949
That nightmare is that this diverse country of 225 million, the world’s largest Muslim state, with no less than 300 different languages, will break up. The war to maintain its grip on the east of the island of Timor was prosecuted on these grounds. So too has been the vicious campaign against the GAM (Free Aceh Movement) freedom fighters in Aceh, who, in this long struggle, were given little quarter and gave as little in return.
Yet Aceh has always had argued that it was a special case. As early as the 13th century, it was occupied by Arab traders. They founded a state which, within 300 years, had risen to be the strongest power on Sumatra also including large parts of the Malayan Peninsula within its territory. Dutch colonialists failed for 200 years to capture Aceh. Only after all the neighboring territory was conquered did they mount a final campaign to subdue Aceh. That war took them 35 years.
It is this extraordinary Acehnese tenacity which has underpinned the long and bitter struggle, now hopefully ended. Part of the problem has always lain in the secular nature of the Indonesian Republic. The Acehnese had initially welcomed independence from the hated Dutch but they wanted a Muslim state. That would however have challenged the dominance of the Indonesian military, which remains the ultimate power in the land. Indeed, it was clearly the military’s frustration at finding themselves unable to crush the Acehnese independence movement that led them to behave so atrociously, often venting their spleen on the local population, rather than on the GAM fighters whom they were so rarely able to bring to battle.
There have been truces and agreements in the past which have been broken when the Indonesians resumed the attack. The new cease-fire that has been hammered out over the last two years with the help of Swiss mediators has just been signed in Geneva. Monitors are already taking up positions while the talks move toward agreeing a final autonomy deal. At some point, when the peace is deemed to have held, the rebels will be required to lay up their arms in dumps, rather as has been done by the IRA in Northern Ireland. This, observers agree, is likely to be the most tricky part of the whole peace process. Jakarta’s record gives the Acehnese little reason to trust it.
International donors have already met in Japan this month to talk about funding Aceh’s economic recovery. It seems that an autonomous Aceh will be allowed to keep up to 70 percent of its hydrocarbon revenues and, if it wishes, establish an administration based on Islamic principles.
President Megawati Sukarnoputri, who, from the start, has made a resolution of the Aceh revolt a priority for her administration, is to be congratulated on her success. Now she must convince Acehnese to trust a government that has in the past behaved with little mercy.
