Caught In The Crossfire
By John Aglionby
Guardian
24 May, 2003Indonesia'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.