The left-wing Acehnese Peoples Party (PRA) will be holding its founding congress in the provincial capital of Banda Aceh at the end of February. Sydney University Southeast Asian Studies lecturer Max Lane spoke to Thamrin Ananda, chairperson of the Preparatory Committee of the PRA.
There have recently been elections for governor and district heads in Aceh. The governorship and vice-governorship were won by figures from the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) and from the pro-referendum movement. Has the political struggle that characterised the situation in Aceh in the 1980s and 1990s ended?
The struggle has not at all ended, but the nature of the problem has changed. Aceh is becoming increasingly caught in a neoliberal trap of intensified capitalist exploitation. The natural disasters that Aceh has experienced are being used by foreign capital to further their economic and political penetration. All natural resources, especially oil, have been claimed by foreign companies. The northern part of Aceh has been flooded with foreign companies, but there has been no improvement in the welfare of the people.
The key institutions of state power are also being taken over by foreign agencies. The governor's office is dominated by USAID, the US Agency for International Development. The Regional Development Planning Agency has been taken over by the UN Development Program. And the Australian AIPRD aid operation is dominating the local district administrations.
In these circumstances, only those who can be described as "good human capital" can earn a decent income — nobody here has any actual capital.
We have very high unemployment and poverty rates. Official statistics show that there are almost 900,000 families under the poverty line — 54% of families. The Bureau of Statistics says that 17% — 417,000 people — are unemployed. And if we add in underemployment, the figure would go up to 1.3 million people, or 28.2% of the adult population.
What then is the significance of the victory of candidates associated with GAM and the referendum movement?
Irwandi Yusuf and Muhammad Nazar won with 39% of the vote. Morever, in seven of the 19 districts where there were direct elections for district heads. Candidates associated with GAM also won these. This is indeed very significant. It is a defeat for the various national, that is, Indonesia-wide, parties and represents an advance by the Acehnese people. It shows that they no longer have any trust in the Indonesian political elite and seek an alternative, including with locally based parties.
But this new Irwandi-Nazar government, while adopting some populist welfare policies, will compromise with the neoliberal agenda. The national parties will use any dissatisfaction as momentum against them in the 2009 elections.
It is now much easier for foreign capital to get into Aceh than before when foreign investors had to deal with a lot of red tape in Jakarta. Even while Jakarta may see Irwandi-Nazar as anti-national elements, at the same time they are good agents for neoliberal penetration.
On the other hand, the Irwandi-Nazar victory is a symbol of the victory of the Acehnese people in defeating the political-military domination of Jakarta.
This reflects the political consciousness of the Acehnese population then?
Yes, but in a way this will not be good for the peoples' struggle. They will continue to be motivated by a chauvinist nationalism which will make Jakarta the main enemy, while the Irwandi-Nazar government itself will in fact be the people's enemy in their struggle for greater welfare.
There is still no strong awareness of the role of neoliberalism as a force hostile to the people's welfare. There is no awareness of the global imperialist system of exploitation, with Third World countries as the main object of exploitation. Raising awareness of this and enabling the people to assess the Irwandi-Nazar government and its program within this framework is a big task now.
So how do you think the Acehnese political scene will now develop?
There are many initiatives to set up Aceh-based parties, including of course our own, the PRA. It is GAM that has the best structure and base to set up a local party, but they are being negatively affected by their own internal divisions. In the recent elections, most of the GAM elite supported candidates standing for the United Development Party, a national party. The rest supported Irwandi and Nazar.
This conflict is now very sharp and beyond reconciliation. The GAM leader, Malek Mahmud, has announced that there can only be one GAM party and parties established by other GAM figures will be banned from using GAM symbols. There may be several such parties.
The pro-referendum movement, organises through Sentral Informasi Referendum Aceh (SIRA). This is where Nazar comes from. They say they will set up a party of their own, but this is not certain. SIRA has long hitched itself to GAM. They will need open support from former GAM figures to be able to go with a party of their own.
The NGOs, although they campaigned for local parties, are not involved in this process. Their dependence on foreign funding means they are subject to agendas that concentrate on post-tsunami rehabilitation projects.
The student movement is also disorganised at the moment and disoriented by the rise of neoliberalism.
There is a massive ideological battle starting up among Acehnese, but this is complicated by the arrival of so many foreign social-democratic forces intent on having an influence and operating through so many of the foreign agencies.
So the Aceh-Jakarta relationship is even more complex now?
The national-based parties were defeated in the elections. This has broken Jakarta's domination, but in an indirect way. The new government, even with GAM elements in it, will not reflect the end of such domination if it plays the role of agents for Jakarta or for imperialist interests.
The growth of foreign domination is now the new trend. The fact that the central government in Jakarta was unable to end the military conflict and had to allow a role for foreigners opened the door to them. Then the fact that the military and political elite in Aceh were unable to act professionally further expanded that role.
The Body for the Rehabilitation and Reconstruction (BRR) and the Acehnese government is where they are concentrating their interests. The BRR is no longer just a reconstruction body but a kind of marketplace where deals and policy formulation for so many giant projects take place. Many real needs of the people, such as housing, remain unfulfilled while other big projects get implemented, but even then, by foreign companies, not by government companies.
The character of this new government is such that it virtually worships the presence of foreign investors. Its development strategy is not different from that of the previous government.
It would be a different matter if the government had a more anti-imperialist character and were to announce, for example, that all Acehnese resources belonged to the government of Aceh and not foreign companies.
This process has been made possible by the long-term military repression by Jakarta that has weighed down for so long on the Acehnese people and which has shaped their political consciousness.