Yesterday’s first anniversary of East Timor’s independence must have concentrated minds wonderfully in Jakarta. Certainly the government of President Megawati Sukarnoputri is determined that no other part of the troubled archipelago nation will get away. But the crackdown launched on Monday against separatists in the province of Aceh after the collapse of talks in Tokyo to salvage last December’s limited autonomy agreement is unlikely to solve her headaches.
It is easy to understand why she did it. With its substantial oil and gas reserves, Aceh is a major contributor to central government funding, although in the December peace deal it was agreed that 70 percent of those revenues would remain with the proposed autonomous Aceh government. But to end up with no oil and gas revenues whatsoever is more than Jakarta can bear. Moreover, if Aceh were to follow East Timor, it would be virtually impossible to then prevent the Balkanization of Indonesia. There are other secessionist movements across Indonesia — in West Papua, in Kalimantan, in south Sulawesi, in the Moluccas, and probably now after the recent terrorist attack, in largely Hindu Bali. But apart from the Papuans, the rest are not supported by the majority of the local population — not yet. An independent Aceh would change attitudes overnight.
Both sides of the Aceh conflict blame the other for the failed Tokyo talks. However, the Indonesian authorities wanted to them to fail. Since coming to power, Megawati has surrounded herself with staunch nationalists; like her, armed forces chief Gen. Endriartono Sutarto sees separatism as a threat to the country’s survival. He believes that separatist groups should be crushed. With that policy now being actively pursued, it very much looks as if the failure in Tokyo was deliberately engineered: Several rebel negotiators were arrested before they left for Tokyo and the crackdown was clearly organized in advance.
But repression is not going to work. The war in Aceh has been going on for 26 years. Resentment against Jakarta and the politically dominant Javanese remains virulent. If anything the crackdown will radicalize both the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) and the conservative Muslim Acehnese people. Parachuting 1,000 troops into the province and jet planes firing rockets at GAM positions may look like tough action to the military and the politicians in Jakarta, but it is not a regular army they face. It is a movement that can fade into the jungle, and one that has the support of much of the population. If the authorities try to punish the Acehnese for supporting GAM and its 5,000 armed separatists, it will increase their hostility. Two years ago, after Megawati became president, the military launched a bloody offensive in Aceh. It did not stop the rebels then and had to be abandoned, replaced by negotiations. It is strange that the president and generals now think that it will work.
Indonesia’s motto is “unity in diversity.” There is indeed a strong sense of unity among most Indonesians. But unity can be ephemeral. There remain strong economic, social and cultural grievances against the center, which continue to pull the country apart and which need to be addressed. Military repression, which failed miserably in East Timor, is likely to make a difficult situation much worse.
