By JAMES BALOWSKI
JAKARTA — Although coverage of Indonesia's brutal war in its northern-most province of Aceh has all but disappeared from the international media, it is still front-page news here. If you believe the headlines, the Indonesian military's (TNI) goal of crushing the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) and "resolving" the Aceh "question" once and for all has been a resounding success.
Three weeks into the "integrated operation", the TNI is claiming that GAM militants are fleeing to the mountains, trying to escape to North Sumatra or nearby Malaysia. The TNI claims it has surrounded or taken control of most of GAM's strongholds and killed more than 100 GAM members. More than 70 have been arrested or have surrendered.
However, human rights violations, the displacement and forced evacuation of civilians, press restrictions and violence against journalists, mass arrests of students and human rights activists and other harsh measures are undermining domestic and international tolerance for the TNI operation.
On May 30, the TNI's Aceh military commander Major-General Endang Suwarya issued a decree prohibiting foreign vessels from entering Aceh's waters. He said this was to prevent weapons smuggling by GAM and that ships failing to heed warnings would be "blown out of the water".
On the same day, a decree was issued to limit the use of telecommunication equipment, in particular walkie-talkies. On June 1, Suwarya issued a decree authorising the seizure communications equipment throughout Aceh.
The TNI has begun replacing civilian administrators at the district and sub-district level with military officers. TNI insists this is only a "temporary" measure.
Police are on a nationwide alert for fleeing GAM members and have stepped up surveillance of about 20 locations in greater Jakarta and parts of Sumatra. Human rights activists are also being targeted. On June 4, Amnesty International stated: "There is now serious concern for the safety of all human rights defenders in [Aceh], some of whom have already been subjected to human rights violations."
Police spokesperson Sayed Husaini told Agence France Presse on June 3 that activists who assist GAM would be charged with subversion, adding that police have records and evidence against them. He gave no details on the size of the wanted list, other than to say there are "a lot".
Husaini said many are students from a state institute for religious studies in Aceh's capital, Banda Aceh, or are members of non-government organisations. He specifically named one, Kautsar, who is the deputy chairperson of Student Solidarity for Acehnese People. Among the NGOs threatened were the Information Centre on a Referendum for Aceh and Society's Solidarity for the People. Members of the Acehnese Peoples Democratic Resistance Front are also being hunted.
Opposition grows
On May 31, religious leaders from the country's two largest Islamic organisations, Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah, along with the Indonesian Communion of Churches, demanded that the Indonesian government avoid civilian fatalities and boost humanitarian activities in the province. They emphasised that the main purpose of the integrated operations was "winning the hearts and minds of the Acehnese", not a military takeover.
Earlier, Muhammadiyah chairperson Ahmad Syafii Maarif suggested that more casualties would spark anti-government sentiment among the Acehnese. Maarif said the government should stop the war and look for ways of resolving the Aceh conflict peacefully.
Jakarta governor Sutiyoso has warned Muslim preachers not to use mosques as a forum against the war. Sutiyoso's spokesperson Achyat Awe told the June 4 Jakarta Post that the governor had learned that many preachers were speaking out against the military operation during Friday prayers.
The US government has also begun to express concern. Speaking after a meeting with Indonesian defence minister Matori Abdul Djalil in Singapore on May 29, US deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz called for a political solution to the Aceh conflict and urged Jakarta to allow NGO monitors into the province. This would "help encourage the world that Indonesia is behaving professionally and carefully", Wolfowitz said. A US State Department official added that "this is not the way we were hoping things would turn out" and that Washington is watching the situation "carefully".
Djalil said Indonesia's Aceh operation was both military and humanitarian and hoped for success within six months. "Maybe it will finish in just two or three months because we understand ... that too long [a period of] martial law ... is not good for our government."
'Deep concern'
On May 29, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he was "deeply concerned" at the impact of the war on the civilian population of Aceh. In particular, he was "disturbed by reports of extra-judicial killings and widespread burning of schools". He called on Jakarta to "ensure the necessary security conditions to allow international aid organisations safe and unhindered access to affected populations".
Indonesia's UN representative Slamet Hidayat expressed disappointment at Annan's statement. According to the May 30 Detik.com, Slamet said: "Although [Annan] is not making accusations, his statement could lead the international community to believe that there were civilians being murdered."
State minister of communications and information Syamsul Mu'arif said Jakarta plans to hire an international public relations firm to sell Indonesia's war. "We are weak in international public relations as foreign press coverage on Aceh has been giving a negative impression of the operation", he told the May 31 Jakarta Post.
Yasril Ananta Baharudin, a member of the parliamentary information and foreign affairs commission, said the government had failed to gain public support for the Aceh war and suggested it emulate the US government, which set up media centres to sway public opinion during its invasion of Iraq.
Press restrictions
Journalists who have ventured out of the relative safety of Banda Aceh continue to bring back stories of massacres and summary executions by TNI soldiers. There are reports that detail abductions of non-combatants and discoveries of corpses, some shot and others exhibiting signs of torture, on roadsides.
Journalists say that, because of fear of reprisals by TNI, morgue workers now write "loss of blood" as the cause of death on corpses delivered with execution-style head wounds.
Jakarta recently rejected requests from about 10 international journalists to enter Aceh. Suwarya has said there is no need for "foreign observers" in the province. Officials admit that such requests are normally dealt with by the department of migration but, following the declaration of martial law, the sole authority now lies with Suwarya.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists on May 29 issued a statement: "CPJ has documented a series of alarming incidents in which journalists have been targeted while driving on the main road between the provincial capital, Banda Aceh, and the town of Lhokseumawe [in North Aceh]... We are also gravely concerned by mounting evidence of a systematic effort by Indonesian security forces in Aceh to restrict reporting on the fighting there."
Similarly, on May 29, the Jakarta based Coalition Against Violence Toward Journalists detailed several violent incidents and restrictions imposed on journalists in Aceh. It said that the restrictions started when Suwarya asked the media on May 20 not to quote statements from GAM. Then on May 25, the TNI stipulated that all journalists had to report to the military before covering the operation to prevent "internationalisation" of the Aceh case.
Andrew Marshal, writing in the June 9 Time magazine, painted a chilling picture of the political climate facing journalists in Aceh: "Of all the hardware currently deployed in Aceh, US-supplied bombers, British-made jets, tanks, armored troop carriers, assault helicopters, warships, it was a slate-gray Japanese sedan that unnerved us journalists the most.
"The car bore a large sign reading 'Press', yet it carried several uniformed men with guns. Who were they? GAM rebels? Not likely: the car was spotted several times in broad daylight in areas controlled by the TNI.
"More likely, we thought, the passengers were soldiers deliberately misusing press stickers to besmirch our independent and non-combatant status, and to draw us into the line of fire by making vehicles carrying journalists legitimate targets of either GAM or the TNI.
"It worked. By the end of the campaign's first week, at least seven real press vehicles had to brave a hail of bullets. Then, as journalists began to report on the mounting military atrocities against civilians, several reporters — Indonesian and foreigners — were interrogated by the police or army, and at least three received death threats.
"The 54 Indonesian journalists 'embedded' with various TNI units fared no better. They arrived in Aceh frightened, partly because they wore military uniforms and were indistinguishable from the troops and partly because their military keepers had told them GAM knew all of their names and intended to assassinate them.
"Foolishly, I had assumed the presence of embeds might curb the worst excesses of the troops. Fat chance. Two embed teams have witnessed TNI atrocities and been warned — in one case, on pain of death — not to report them. 'Before, the embeds were afraid of GAM', says an Indonesian colleague in Lhokseumawe in northern Aceh. 'Now, they're more afraid of the TNI.'".
On June 2, the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) said it would investigate more than 20 cases of alleged human rights violations during the first two weeks of the operation. Komnas HAM reported that, from the testimonies obtained so far, there are indications that the perpetrators are members of GAM, rogue elements of the TNI and other unidentified groups.
At a press conference in Jakarta on June 2, MM Billa, head of Komnas HAM's monitoring team in Aceh, said: "Based on these findings, Komnas HAM calls for an end to hostilities between the two opposing parties and for the reopening of negotiations and the involvement of civil society [in these negotiations]. The emergency military operation must be terminated in order to also end the possibility of continued civilian casualties."
Billah noted that the cases of human rights violations included summary executions of civilians in Bireuen on May 27, the torture of civilians in the village of Hadu (Bireuen) on May 23, sexual harassment of civilians in the village of Meunasah Krueng on May 23, rapes in greater Aceh on May 26, the rape of a 13-year-old child at the Ara Bungong Kampung in Bireuen on May 26, the arrest of Tempo journalists on May 26 and the forced expulsion or removal of residents.
[For more coverage of the Aceh people's struggle for freedom, visit <http://www.asia-pacific-action.org>.]
From Green Left Weekly, June 11, 2003.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.