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NEWS & LETTERS,
AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2003
Lead Article
International protests demand Indonesia troops out of Acheh!
by Anne Jaclard The government of Indonesia declared martial law in
Acheh on May 19. Troops were sent in to the already militarized province on the
northern tip of Sumatra island near Malaysia, along with aircraft to bomb and
ships to blockade it. Indonesia is determined to destroy Acheh’s popular
separatist movement by killing or jailing the small guerrilla force named Free
Acheh Movement (GAM) and activists who have been demanding a referendum on
Acheh’s status for the past five years. Students, women’s groups, farmers,
fishermen, small business people--nearly the entire province--have been involved
in grass-roots movements against Jakarta’s repression and exploitation which
GAM has fought since 1976. Some 12,000 Achehnese were killed before the current
war began. Two months into the war, the military (known as TNI)
boasted that 1,277 suspected GAM members had been arrested and 531 killed. More
credible reports are that fewer GAM members but hundreds of civilians have been
killed, as the TNI routinely kills villagers during offensives it calls “shock
therapy” after the U.S. war on Iraq. Rape and other torture are common. JAKARTA’S DOUBLESPEAK At the same time that the TNI boasts of rapid progress,
it also says martial law may have to be extended from six months to long as 10
years. This seeming contradiction is typical of the government in Jakarta’s
double-speak by which it casts the dirty work of its armed forces as
“self-defense.” The current war has also relocated about 40,000
Achehnese into displaced persons camps as the TNI seeks to destroy the
guerrillas’ support in the countryside. These camps lack clean water and
medicine; cholera and other diseases have broken out. Some villagers have been
sent home from the camps, but only to still greater hardship because the TNI
routinely robs their houses, livestock and stores, and burns down the houses and
schools. The Jakarta government claims its repressive operations
throughout the archipelago are due to ethnic and religious conflicts, but the
Achehnese are Muslims like the vast majority of Indonesians. Attempts to paint
them as extremist fundamentalists who oppose secular government are absurd.
Achehnese practice a brand of Islam which honors women’s rights and religious
tolerance. West Papua and Maluku, which also have active independence movements,
are predominately Christian, but the uprisings there are also based on
exploitation and abuse, not religion. “Religious” conflicts in Maluku have
been created by the TNI, which foments fighting between the long-time Christian
population and Javanese sent to Maluku to destroy the independence movement.
Thousands of Malukans and Papuans have also been killed by TNI’s “low
intensity warfare.” International pressure had produced a peace accord
between Indonesia and GAM in December that ended with martial law and the arrest
of the GAM negotiators. They are currently being tried for treason and face 20
years to life in prison or the death penalty. However the Bush administration is
now rewarding Indonesia by restoring military aid cut off in the early 1990s in
response to its repression of East Timor. President Megawati Sukarnoputri (known as Megawati) was
an early supporter of Bush’s “war on terrorism.” She felt the wrath of
Islamic fundamentalists at home when a bombing in Bali last Oct. 12 killed close
to 200 people. Under public pressure the Senate in May and the House in
July passed resolutions canceling $600,000 allotted for training the Indonesian
police and military next year unless Indonesia prosecutes the killers of two
American teachers at a picnic in West Papua last summer. Congress is now at odds
with the Bush administration which seeks to “normalize” relations with
Indonesia with $50 million in military aid already sent. U.S. aid gives the green light to continued military
suppression. On top of that, members of the military profiteer while suppressing
the popular movements. Soldiers receive most of their income from the businesses
they run on the side. In Acheh this includes illegal logging that destroys the
rain forest as well as the usual extortion. ECHOS OF 1965 PURGE Jakarta’s recent actions against the liberation
movements are reminiscent of the 1965-66 anti-Communist purge that followed a
coup against Indonesia’s first president, Sukarno, who was not a socialist but
was allied with the three million-member Communist Party. At least half a
million and as many as two million people were killed at that time, and the
Suharto military dictatorship, called the New Order, was installed for the next
28 years. Today censorship, loyalty oaths for civil servants, forced
participation in government rallies, fascistic militias and other
characteristics of the New Order have reappeared, not only in the rebellious
provinces but throughout the country. In spite of continuing repression, many new movements
have arisen. Indonesia’s labor movement has flourished since the end of the
dictatorship although the goverment and TNI still frequently intervene in
disputes to help employers. Strikes erupt from longstanding grievances,
employers blocking union branches, or denial of legal benefits and rights. In 2000, some 9,000 workers at a state aircraft
manufacturer went on strike to protest the firing of the chairman and secretary
of their union and demanded a three-fold salary increase. They won some wage
increases. The same year labor activist Ngadinah, an employee of a company that
produces shoes, was acquitted of criminal charges filed by her employer after
she helped 8,000 workers stage a strike for better wages. Aspirations for freedom by women have grown as well. The
Indonesian Women’s Coalition is raising awareness of physical and sexual abuse
of the country’s migrant workers, 73% of whom are women, and of the 70,000
women known to be victims of sexual abuse and people trafficking. In July, the People’s United Opposition Party (Partai
Persatuan Oposisi Rakyat, Popor) was founded. It is headed by a woman labor
organizer, Dita Indah Sari, who says, “Our platform is clear, anti-New Order,
anti-militarism and anti-global capitalism.” Popor is composed of mass
organizations of workers, students and farmers. OF NATIONAL MOVEMENTS When Suharto was forced out of office in 1998 by the
economic crisis that began in 1997 and by demands for democratic reforms, and
when East Timor finally won independence in a 1999 referendum, other
provinces’ independence movements took inspiration. East Timor has a different
history from Acheh, however. East Timor was bloodily invaded and annexed by
Indonesia in 1975, whereas Acheh has been part of Indonesia since 1949 when,
after four years of widespread guerrilla warfare, the Dutch East Indies were
forged into a nation composed of 6,000 islands. Moreover, Acheh is more strategically located and richer
in natural resources. ExxonMobil extracts and processes natural gas, producing
millions of dollars for the government while leaving the Achehnese impoverished.
Two years ago, Achehnese villagers filed a lawsuit against ExxonMobil for its
complicity in TNI atrocities, but the case has been stymied by the U.S. state
department. Passions for self-determination are growing, such as
those expressed by Reyza Zain, an exiled activist in the pro-referendum student
organization SIRA: It is the universal right of every nation, big or small,
to determine its own future. So the question is not whether Acheh, a nation
state that existed hundreds of years before the creation of the artificial
Republic of Indonesia, should or should not have that right, but only whether
the Achehnese want to exercise that right. When Acheh was incorporated into Indonesia, promises
were made about the form of the nation that was going to be created, in which
Acheh would have a special status for governing its own affairs. But those
promises were never kept. Acheh was treated as a mere colony, worse than under
the Dutch. A mass civilian movement developed throughout Acheh after Suharto
fell, culminating in a pro-referendum demonstration in the capital, Banda Acheh,
on Nov. 8, 1999, attended by approximately half the province's population of 4.3
million (see reports in N&L since 12/99). The independence movements in Maluku (Moluccas) and West
Papua (Irian Jaya) also grew in the last few years. West Papua is Indonesia’s
easternmost province and it is rich in natural resources. It was joined to
Indonesia in 1969 after the UN arranged for just 1,022 people to vote. Megawati
recently ordered Papua split into three provinces. “They are scared we Papuans
will be strong as a nation. Dividing our province is one way to create disorder
between us,” declared Free Papua Organization spokesman Joseph Prai in June. Maluku (once called the Spice Islands) first declared
independence right after the formation of Indonesia and was invaded by the
central government. In 1999, the TNI began a campaign there of burning homes,
churches, mosques, businesses and schools. A non-violent organization, “Maluku
Sovereignty Front” (FKM), was formed to resist. On April 25 of this year, the
53rd anniversary of Maluku’s declaration of independence, scores of FKM
supporters were arrested for sewing or flying flags of the outlawed republic. Since becoming independent last year, East Timor has
sought justice against those who perpetrated the slaughter there, but Indonesia
will not permit a trial of its top people. A few show trials have been
held--Indonesian officials reportedly asked the U.S. how many people it needed
to convict in order to receive U.S. aid money. The highest officer tried, Major
General Adam Damiri, who is suspected of having orchestrated the razing of 70%
of the East Timorese capital, Dili, in the aftermath of the referendum, was
allowed to miss his own trial to participate in the military assault on Acheh. ‘PANCASILA’ TURNED AGAINST MASSES Indonesia’s problems extend back to its origins in
1949, when the revolution against colonialism failed to deepen into socialism.
The state ideology became Pancasila which stresses nationalism and
self-reliance. To divert from the continuing poverty of the masses of
Indonesians, the government constantly invokes its nationalist origins to
justify repressing worker, student and national liberation movements. As Reyza
Zain puts it, “Acheh is being held by force within the Republic, which is of
course colonialism.” So strong is the popular assumption that nationalism
equals “the unitary state” that even most of the Jakarta student Left
opposes the war in Acheh only on the basis of human rights violations, not in
support of Acheh’s right to self-determination. At a forum by Indonesian and Timorese activists in New
York in June, Aderito de Jesus Soares of East Timor advanced a notion of what
independence has and has not meant for that new nation. He reported that the
World Bank and the UN had planned East Timor’s future before it even held the
referendum on its status. “Is self-determination just having your own flag and
government,” he asked, “or is it people really deciding what to think and
do?” At the same forum, Wani, a former Jakarta student
leader, described the rise and fall of the student movement: When the 1997 economic crisis made it difficult for
people to live, the students decided it was time to make a change. Hundreds of
thousands took to the streets; a million people were in the streets of Jakarta
the day before Suharto stepped down in 1998. But then the student movement fell
off dramatically. People thought everything would be fine, but a few months
later they realized nothing had changed. We got a little freedom of speech and
press, but then thousands were killed in East Timor and we were still repressed. Wani nearly died after being shot by the military at a
peaceful demonstration in Jakarta in 1999. She added: Now the situation is getting worse. The military and
reactionary Muslim groups are doing violence all over. But the student movement
is starting to grow again because students realize that the system Suharto built
is still here. We learned a lot by students struggling hand in hand with the
East Timorese until it became unbearable for the Indonesian government and they
let East Timor go. Today some students are moving to the Left and linking their
struggles to those in Acheh, Maluku and West Papua. There will be no
independence for those provinces without a big change in Jakarta. We need to
build this kind of people-to-people solidarity around the world. Build solidarity with the freedom movements in Indonesia, Acheh, Muluka, and East Timor. Contact Acheh Center: (717) 343-1598, or achehcenter@yahoo.com, or NEWS & LETTERS. |
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