The following is abridged from a July 27 article by Thamrin Ananda, the chairperson of the Acehnese Popular Democratic Resistance Front (FPDRA).
The negotiations between the Indonesian government and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) to resolve the Aceh question peacefully, which concluded on July 17 in Helsinki, are not the first to be mediated by a foreign institution.
On May 12, 2000, the Henry Dunant Centre (HDC) brokered an agreement between the two parties in Geneva, which came to be known as the Joint Agreement on a Humanitarian Pause in Aceh. It came into force in June 2000 for three months and was later extended to January 2001.
A monitoring team was also established to investigate and act upon violations. However, its level of competence was low and fear of reporting the truth high, so reports were only sent to Geneva and never published.
Although there was a drop in the level of violence during the first months of the pause, the agreement collapsed after the two sides accused each other of violations. From the start, a number of weaknesses were apparent.
The humanitarian pause
Under the May 12 agreement, three bodies were established: a Joint Forum to formulate and supervise basic policy, the Joint Committee for Humanitarian Action (JCHA) and the Joint Committee on Security Modalities (JCSM). The last two bodies had monitoring teams, although it was the JCSM that was responsible for investigating violations and the "discontinuation of military attacks", which were to be reported to the Joint Forum.
Up until the end of 2000, the level of violence was comparable with the situation before the pause, with the civilian population, as usual, bearing the brunt. In January 2001, the HDC again brought the two sides together in Geneva, where they made a "provisional agreement". For the first time this took up political issues, although these remained vague in nature.
They agreed that a resolution to the conflict must include: discussions on the question of free and fair elections for Aceh; an independent election commission; monitoring of the elections by an independent and impartial body; regulations to guarantee non-party candidates could participate and regional political parties could be formed; and criteria by which GAM and the supporters of independence could fully participate in the political process.
But while there was a rapid evolution in the process of resolving the Aceh question peacefully, obstacles continued over the issue of security and an end to hostilities. Armed clashes between GAM and the Indonesian armed forces (TNI)/police escalated, even as negotiations in Geneva restarted and produced the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement (CoHA). TNI troops carried out "military diplomacy" to improve their bargaining position at the negotiating table by laying siege to the town of Cot Trieng, involving no less than 5000 TNI personnel.
CoHA
On December 9, 2002, the two parties drafted a peace agreement. At the time, CoHA represented a step towards building mutual trust, which would then be followed by a phased process of demilitarisation. CoHA was not an agreement to resolve the conflict itself, as it didn't touch on the roots of the Aceh question.
The CoHA initiative focused on four points: Security, including a cessation of armed hostilities and violence, a peace zone, demilitarisation (the relocation of TNI troops and the storage of GAM's weapons) and reforming Brimob (the paramilitary police); the distribution of humanitarian aid to refugees; reconstruction, including the rehabilitation of infrastructure destroyed by the war; and civilian reforms, including organising the All-Inclusive Dialogue to strengthen the democratic process in Aceh.
There were a number of weaknesses with CoHA, including the lack of a detailed schedule or deadline for implementing it. Only for the question of demilitarisation was a timeframe set. And even after CoHA was signed, illegal military operations continued.
The Joint Security Committee (JSC) was formed from components of the government, the TNI and police, and the HDC involved some 150 observers made up of military officers from the Philippines, Thailand and GAM. It was here, once again, that the social organisations that strongly supported the peace process were unable to fully participate.
In the implementation of CoHA, the JSC confronted a number of difficulties. Theoretically, the JSC had quite extensive powers to conduct supervision and monitoring and in the initial period of CoHA, the number of deaths dropped dramatically and refugee numbers declined.
During this period, many parties discussed the question of how to widen the peace zones (demilitarised zones) where civilians could move about freely (with schools, places of worship, public spaces, markets, offices, transportation and so forth). These zones were also used to provide a buffer between the two warring camps and end armed clashes. But in reality, the peace zones were never created.
The JSC only had three months to complete its tasks. Both the TNI and GAM misused these restrictions and a series of violent incidents occurred in several parts of Aceh. The public reported 78 cases of human-rights violations to the JSC during this period.
CoHA began to falter during the demilitarisation phase and then fell to pieces in May 2003, after the Joint Council Meeting in Tokyo broke down. Aceh was plunged back into war when it was placed under a state of martial law on May 19.
JSC failure
The demilitarisation process failed due to the JSC's weakness in conducting investigations and monitoring, and its lack of power in imposing sanctions on parties that violated the agreement.
The number of violations committed by the TNI and police is unknown because the JSC was afraid to publish its findings and only sent them to Geneva. This is why the JSC lost its authority in Aceh.
The JSC was unable to guarantee security to those members of the public who reported violations. It was extremely difficult for the JSC to obtain direct information from the public, simply because many were too scared to report violations.
In the end, those who did not desire peace sabotaged the process though mobilisations against the JSC and setting fire to the JSC offices in central Aceh, which was followed by the burning down of the JSC offices in eastern Aceh by the Ge Parang militia group.
In the fifth round of the Helsinki negotiations, a breakthrough was made. After getting past a number of points of dispute, the two parties finally started to find points of agreement on issues such as "self-governance" for Aceh within the framework of the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia. It will be signed on August 15.
A number of other points were agreed on including the economy, amnesty, the role of cultural leaders, human rights trials and local political parties. The main point, however, which will be the indicator of the success or failure of self-governance, is the question of demilitarisation.
Past experience has shown that the question of demilitarisation is the most difficult. In the Helsinki negotiations, it appeared that the government correctly understood this and demilitarisation was set as the main goal to be achieved in the first three months.
The issue of local parties will be decided in 18 months' time. This means that if the demilitarisation process fails, local parties will never become a reality in Aceh and, similarly, the other points of the agreement will also fail.
The parties have already agreed to the presence of a foreign monitoring team, the Aceh Monitoring Mission (AMM). This time the two sides have agreed to the presence of monitoring teams from the European Union and Association of South-East Asian Nations. However we do not know exactly what kind of authority the teams will have or whether they will suffer from the same limitations as the JSC.
Building a sense of mutual trust between the two parties is also crucial and they must agree to a ceasefire so that demilitarisation can proceed smoothly. This is because during the CoHA demilitarisation process, both sides continued military operations. The most prominent examples were the TNI sweeps in the cities and routine security operations often ending in armed clashes with GAM.
If this is repeated and the AMM does not have the authority to act against those who violate the agreement, then there is concern that the Helsinki agreement will suffer the same fate as CoHA. In order to control armed troops from both sides, government infrastructure in Aceh must be under the control of mediators so that policy implementation will proceed smoothly and not be at odds with the agreement. (Many government policies during the CoHA period conflicted with the peace agreement itself, such as the prohibition on holding demonstrations while CoHA permitted the Acehnese to do so.) The AMM must also have a sufficient number of trained, professional personnel (particularly foreigners) and be able to guarantee the safety of witnesses.
If demilitarisation is successful, the second most important issue is the political process and the question of local political parties. Although this is in fact not something new — it was agreed under CoHA — in its implementation there are new elements. There must, therefore, be clear details, including who will organise future local elections.
On the question of the authority to impose sanctions or act against a party that violates the agreement, it is likely that the AMM will experience difficulties, bearing in mind that Aceh is an area of armed conflict and there will be no peacekeeping force. The AMM may therefore tend to prioritise its own safety considerations and this could become an obstacle to being able to take firm action against violations and maintaining its authority in the face of two armed and warring parties.
[Translated by James Balowski.]
From Green Left Weekly, August 10, 2005.
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