Posted on 26-5-2003
Caught
in the crossfire
The military insists it will crush the Aceh rebels, but civilians
are the big losers in a battle nobody can win, writes John Aglionby
Friday May 23, 2003, The Guardian
Indonesia's campaign to wipe out the separatist Free Aceh Movement
(Gam) could not really be going much better as it enters its
fifth day. No Indonesian troops have been killed in action,
although one marine did die in an accident. Several dozen rebels
have been killed, even more arrested and two leaders have surrendered.
The noose is slowly tightening around the remaining guerrillas.
Moreover, people are glad the military are finally pulling no
punches in dealing with Gam, and relieved to be able to go about
their daily activities because the armed forces are protecting
them and respecting their human rights.
After causing the collapse of the ceasefire signed last December
by refusing to renounce its independence demand, Gam is now
getting its just desserts. And if one of the Gam commanders
who surrendered is correct, it should all be over in three months
and the 27-year-long insurgency will quickly fade to a distant
memory.
The only bad news so far has been the torching of almost 300
schools and the extensive paralysis of public transport. Perpetrated
and engineered by Gam, such acts simply expose the rebels' desperation
and inhumanity while reinforcing the need to crush them "to
their roots", as the armed forces commander, General Endriartono
Sutarto said in his Henry V-style rallying speech on Monday,
the first day of the offensive.
At least that's what most Indonesians must think, if the output
of the military's spin machine and the resulting domestic media
coverage are anything to go by.
The reality is not quite so cut and dry.
Yes, Gam is taking a pounding. But only where the Indonesian
military can find them, and meanwhile Acehnese civilians are
suffering enormously. An Indonesian proverb says that when two
elephants fight the ants get trampled, and that is precisely
what's happening in this resource-rich province on the northern
tip of Sumatra.
It is not only that 60,000 children now having no schools to
attend. Virtually every facet of daily life is being affected.
Farmers can't get their produce to market, and many traders
have nothing to sell. Those that do find they have either no
customers or no way of delivering their goods to retailers.
Where school buildings still stand, increasing numbers of people
are sending their kids away to stay there, and teachers are
rarely able to get home. The disruption is exacerbating already
high fear levels, a state of mind people hoped had gone for
ever when the cessation of hostilities agreement was signed.
And with the threat of forced relocation now hanging over them,
many Acehnese are becoming even more terrified; particularly
as their fate is completely out of their hands.
The likelihood of this conflict being over in a flash is extremely
slim. Gam started its insurgency in 1976 and Indonesia has never
really come close to defeating it at any time since, even when
it imposed martial law from 1989 to 1998.
Having said that, Gam has never come remotely close to victory
either. So the conflict has developed into a stalemate, and
the sad thing for the Acehnese is that the hawks on both sides
do not seem to be able to grasp this extremely crucial point.
Indonesian generals believe that this time everything will be
different from previous offensives. They say they have thrown
more troops into the operation but if their statistics from
November last year were correct, the total has only risen from
about 39,000 to 42,000; hardly a significant increase when Gam
strengthened its own forces during the ceasefire. Jakarta is
using much more airpower and armour than in recent attempts
to crush Gam, but when one's opposition is an army of highly
mobile guerrillas, relatively cumbersome armour loses much of
its effectiveness.
Things might be different if the Indonesian military were able
win over the Acehnese people, but troops have allegedly committed
enough atrocities in the first four days of the offensive for
that to be very unlikely indeed. The majority of the population
is apathetic at best, and in many cases downright hostile.
Peace is only likely to come to Aceh when both sides make significant
concessions. The rebels will have to accept that they will never
get an independent state - unlike the East Timorese independence
movement, Gam has no international support - and Jakarta will
both have to give Gam a political role in an autonomous local
government, and genuinely address a long history of injustice.
This will involve both finding, trying and convicting a significant
number of senior commanders who were responsible for terrible
human rights abuses, and injecting the funds promised to Aceh
into the province's development, rather than into corrupt officials'
pockets.
In the current circumstances such developments are utterly unrealistic.
So for the foreseeable future, the ants will continue to get
trampled
|