November 2000

Acehnese women struggle for self-determination

Editor's note: Cut Nur Asikin, 45, a leading spokesperson for the Acehnese mass movement demanding a referendum to determine the status of Aceh, and Syadiah A. Marhaban, 32, an Acehnese activist based in Jakarta, recently visited the U.S. They came to educate the public about the severe repression in Aceh, to lobby the U.S. and UN to pressure the Indonesian government to cease its military violence in Aceh, and to invite governments and NGOs to send representatives to monitor events in Aceh and supply aid. Cut Nur spoke with N&L in October.

A "Humanitarian Pause" in effect since June has not stopped the repression by the military and police. For years preceding the cease-fire agreement, people were shot, disappeared, tortured, raped and burned out of their homes and businesses on a daily basis. Every region of Aceh, nearly every family, has suffered as a result of the military falsely accusing people of being part of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM). The military conducts "sweeps" of villages, and if they do not find any guerrillas, they kill people anyway. They torture people by slashing their arms, bayoneting their eyes, raping women, all these things in front of the children. Now the children are adults, saying, "I want to be free." They can't wait any longer for independence.

Being tied to Java after the Dutch is a second colonization. Aceh has been part of Indonesia for 55 years, but that union was decided on by four religious leaders, not by the people themselves. Our people have suffered ever since. We lost our political and social culture and the religions of our communities. We have lived under four presidents of Indonesia, but not seen any change from one regime to the other. We were supposedly given "autonomy," then "special autonomy," then "special, special autonomy," but none of it made any difference. We're not going to wait for another promise from Gus Dur (Abdurahman Walid, the current president).

I live in the capital, Banda Aceh, and was one of five speakers at last November's demonstration of two million people in support of a referendum to determine our status. This Nov. 8, I believe we will get three million (three quarters of the whole population) turning out to express their political wishes peacefully. I am here seeking support from the international community. Women, students, all of civil society wants the referendum. The government can't stop 3 million people from demonstrating, although I just received a call from the student organization SIRA that a lot of student activists are being kidnapped and killed.

The women's movement is solidly behind the independence movement. Women suffered especially during the 10 years of military occupation before Suharto stepped down two years ago. Even under that dictatorship, women met in small groups to talk about independence. Many activists are widows of the violence; many are survivors of rape by the military and police.

Some women are sympathetic to GAM because it is trying to protect people from abuse. GAM has trained 12,000 women in civil defense; they train for three months and then return to their villages to protect the people from attacks. Aceh has a long history of women fighters. In the 17th century, we had women generals and troops, so this doesn't seem strange to us.

I joined the civil movement two years ago and became a spokesperson for the student movement. I visit the refugee camps, to which people flee when they hear the military is coming to their town. Twenty refugee camps currently house 3,000-17,000 people each. They have no clean water, and now that humanitarian aid workers have fled the violence, they often have no food. In many areas of Aceh there are no longer schools or hospitals. I go to the refugee camps to encourage the residents not to give up hope. People treat you as a leader if you can give them spirit.

I am also a member of the Humanitarian Pause Joint Commission overseeing humanitarian assistance to Aceh during the current cease-fire between the government and the GAM. I represent GAM and other local groups on the commission. The "Pause" has hardly lessened the violence. According to the Support Committee for Human Rights in Aceh (SCHRA), from June through September the Indonesian military and national police shot dead on the spot 72 Acehnese, including 11 women and 7 children; tortured 350, including 31 children, 6 women and 5 elderly, some of whom died in detention and some of whose fates are unknown; kidnapped and tortured 146, and engaged in arson 31 times. Oct. 12, the military torched Ulee Gle, the second largest town in the district of Pidie, destroying 150 buildings and shooting one man dead.

In New York, the Acehnese community and its supporters are mourning the recent murder of Jafar Siddiq Hamzah, a prominent Acehnese human rights activist who lived here but had returned to Indonesia for the summer where he was kidnapped, tortured and killed. The International Forum for Aceh, which he founded in 1998, is continuing his work documenting and reporting human rights abuses in his homeland.

The IFA can be reached at, and donations sent to, Box 13, 511 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10011, or email acehforum@aol.com.