DECEMBER 13, 1999 VOL. 154 NO. 23

Anger in Aceh
Provincial rebels and Indonesian troops cooperate to pull off a mostly peaceful anniversary, but behind the calm, attitudes continue to harden dangerously on both sides
By NISID HAJARI

Kemal Jufri/Corbis Sygma for TIME Women members of the Free Aceh Movement weep as they pray during the anniversary celebration of the group.

What broke out in the seething province of Aceh last Saturday may have looked something like peace. Belying widespread expectations of violence, rebels fighting for independence from Jakarta simply raised their movement's flag and gave a few speeches. Indonesian troops, accused by locals of a hair-trigger brutality, generally watched from their barracks. Most Acehnese stayed indoors or gathered in small groups.

The calm, however, may only signal a coming storm. Members of the Free Aceh Movement--known by its Indonesian acronym gam--say they scaled down grand plans to declare independence on the Dec. 4 anniversary of their founding in 1976 in order to deny government troops any excuse to intervene. "We have not given permission to the people of Aceh to raise the flag, for safety reasons," gam military chief Abdullah Syafi'i announced earlier in the week. Jakarta's commander in the province, Colonel Syarifudin Tippe, replied that his forces would respond with similar moderation. (In some areas, troops did pull down the gam flag, but most were left untouched.) By rights, cooler heads might now be expected to prevail. Instead, both sides may be using the lull to gather another head of steam.

The military, still fiercely opposed to any talk of independence for the province, argues that its policy of restraint isn't working. Commanders claim that orders to lie low have made Aceh a more dangerous place, with daylight robberies and ambushes on the military becoming more routine. "The law is no longer being implemented here," says Tippe. Other officers have complained that their men cannot defend themselves, and in Aceh's southern districts several police posts have reportedly been abandoned. Across the province more than 70 elementary schools have either closed or been set ablaze in the past month, forcing 17,000 students to stay home. Thousands of mostly non-Acehnese have begun to flee to other parts of Indonesia. Military officials point to the exodus to justify their demand for martial law, though many in Aceh itself claim that those who have frightened the refugees into leaving are not gam fighters but the shadowy "provocateurs" who seem to lurk behind every crisis in the archipelago.

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Frightened Acehnese have given the military more ammunition. On the night of Nov. 28, residents of the farming village of Lamtamoet took a passing soldier for one of those provocateurs and hacked him in the back of the neck with a rencong, the traditional Acehnese machete. As with two subsequent incidents--in which attacks on soldiers prompted the army to lash out, killing three civilians--the beating in Lamtamoet had violent consequences. The next day villager Abdul Wahab and 27 other men were rounded up, "stacked like pieces of wood in the back of a truck" and hauled in for questioning to a military post. "They beat us with shoes, rifle butts and two-by-fours," says Wahab, pointing to the stitches above his right eye and a missing tooth. Sitting nearby, five of his compatriots lift their shirts to reveal fresh gashes and bruises on their backs and arms.

Moderate Acehnese leaders are wary of falling into the same trap, forswearing violence and ultimatums for Jakarta to grant a referendum on independence. Yet among them, too, frustration now runs high. Just after his election, Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid seemed to promise Aceh just such a vote and swore to deal with the problem himself. Since then he has jetted off to 14 countries in six weeks and made no firm plans to visit the province. He now says any referendum will decide only whether or not to introduce Islamic law in Aceh. The flip-flop has hardened attitudes among those who organized last month's massive rally in the capital of Banda Aceh. "There must be an independence option," warns Muhammad Nazar, leader of the Center for an Acehnese Referendum. "Anything short of that is just a trap." Some 30 Acehnese representatives were granted a meeting with Wahid at his Jakarta home last Tuesday. But, says activist Maimul Fidar, "there was no dialogue. We were given the opportunity to express our demands briefly ... that's all. The ordinary people of Aceh can't help feeling like they've been ridiculed."

Fear of a similar duplicity has caused the Acehnese rebels to turn a deaf ear to Jakarta. "We are not interested in what Gus Dur has to say," says Syafi'i, referring to Wahid by his nickname, "because we do not recognize Indonesia, which was a false creation by the Dutch colonial empire." The gam fighters, estimated at fewer than 5,000, are far outnumbered by the 11,000 police and three battalions of soldiers Jakarta has stationed in the province. But in recent days Syafi'i and others have stepped up their media campaign, stiffening their rhetoric to the point where compromise is hard to imagine. Their septuagenarian leader Hasan di Tiro, a descendant of the Acehnese sultans, still refuses to meet with Wahid.

Ironically, that may suit the President just fine. Wahid's extensive travels have highlighted two critical differences between Aceh's demand for independence and that of recently freed East Timor: the lack of a single, charismatic leader and the absence of widespread international support. At each stop on his tour, Wahid has received assurances that Indonesia's allies favor its territorial integrity. To those who complain that he should spend more time in the troubled province than abroad, a palace official responds pointedly: "The President does plan to visit Aceh, but he doesn't know whom he's supposed to meet with." Even Hasan, who lives in a suburb of Stockholm, commands only soft support in Aceh. "We respect the struggle of gam, but want to find someone who can lead the masses," says local parliamentarian Nasir Zamil. "There is still no one figure who can mobilize the people."

Kemal Jufri/Corbis Sygma for TIME Indonesian soldiers (TNI) destroy a wall bearing the painting of the Free Aceh Movement.

More importantly, Wahid's globe-trotting may have allowed him to harden his own position. By refusing to follow up on his earlier talk of independence, he has dampened the very firestorm he had ignited. (Few take seriously the Acehnese threat to hold their own referendum if one is not granted.) He may now feel confident about ordering a crackdown. "Privately, Gus Dur doesn't agree with the use of force. But he will have no other choice but to give in to the military if there is no compromise," says Abdul Wahid (no relation), head of the international relations department of the President's National Awakening Party.

The excuse that Wahid cannot afford to antagonize a still-powerful army is a useful one. Before he returned to East Timor for the first time in 24 years last week, Nobel laureate Jose Ramos-Horta drew a parallel between the suffering of his new nation and that of Aceh. "The same people responsible for the destruction of East Timor will have to answer for what is happening in Aceh, Ambon and Irian Jaya," he warned in a clear reference to the Indonesian military. Although they reappeared on the streets of Banda Aceh last week, troops there have ostensibly been confined to barracks. In Jakarta, former army chief General Wiranto and several retired generals have been summoned before parliament to answer questions more pointed than anything that would have been tolerated under Suharto.

Yet Wahid gives no sign of meeting a key Acehnese demand by prosecuting the generals for human rights abuses in the province. "Gus Dur will be challenged if he puts high-ranking army officers on trial," says Abdul Wahid. "He will implement the law, but in accordance with Indonesian culture and political considerations." That, however, may be precisely the problem: behavior that Jakarta considers Indonesian is seen by the Acehnese as typically Javanese. In Javanese ethics tepo seliro is a virtue--the ability to restrain oneself from entering, or even talking about, a conflict by giving off and reading mutually understood signs. "There is no such thing as conflict resolution for the Javanese," says philosophy professor Franz Magnis-Suseno. "How can you expect a resolution for a conflict when its very existence is basically denied?" Wishing the problem of Aceh away, though, may only be making things worse.

Reported by Zamira Loebis/Jakarta and Jason Tedjasukmana/Lamtamoet