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Free Aceh ?.Perlu nggak yach ?
.In 1976, Aceh Merdeka ("Free Aceh") was founded as an
armed resistance group. The movement is headed by Tengku Hasan M.
di Tiro, who has been in exile in Sweden since 1980. The Indonesian
military refers to this group as the Gerombolan Pengacau Keamananan
(GPK), which means "gang of security disturbers."
In the late 1970s, Indonesian authorities conducted mass arrests
of Aceh Merdeka members and shut down their activities until 1989.
In that year, the group, now also calling itself the Aceh-Sumatra
National Liberation Front (ASNLF), came out of hibernation and vigorously
renewed its quest for independence, often through attacks on police
and military installations.
According to one writer who was in Aceh during the lead-up to the
violence, the 1989 attacks began when a religious leader from Malaysia
came to Aceh and "used several economic and social arguments
to whip the young men into a state of eager anticipation at the
prospect of a glorious holy war to liberate Aceh." The leader
told the young men, many of them students, that Jakarta was siphoning
off Aceh's natural resources without putting money back into the
region.
Many Acehnese say they are disadvantaged by Indonesia's major industrial
development projects in Aceh, which provide employment opportunities
for outsiders, especially from Java.20 If Aceh were independent,
the reasoning goes, its people could reap the economic benefit of
its own resources. Aceh is rich in natural liquid gas and petroleum,
providing 15 percent of Indonesia's exports. However, critics state
that Jakarta "plunders the westernmost territory's wealth and
leaves it impoverished." Acehnese in Malaysia told USCR, "Aceh's
resources are taken by Jakarta, while the Acehnese live in poverty."
Another sore point for Acehnese is Indonesia's "transmigration"
policy. Two-thirds of Indonesia's population of 180 million is concentrated
on the fifth-largest island, Java. Transmigration, by which Jakarta
helps residents of overcrowded Java to migrate to outlying islands
in the Indonesian archipelago, partly addresses the issue of population
density.
Another motivation for the Free Aceh movement is religion. Although
Indonesia has the largest Muslim population of any country (87 percent
of the 180 million inhabitants are Muslim), it is not an Islamic
state. Many inhabitants mix their faith with Hindu, Buddhist, or
other beliefs.23 The Acehnese, however, are devoutly Muslim and
are considered to "take their religion, their manners, and
their morals very seriously." According to a 1993 book on Indonesian
history, "the more than 3.4 million Acehnese are most famous
throughout the archipelago for their devotion to Islam and their
militant resistance to colonial and republican rule....[Aceh is]
the part of Indonesia where the Islamic character of the population
is the most pronounced." Acehnese, however, take issue with
being called "Muslim fundamentalists."
Despite these sources of tension between Acehnese and the Indonesian
government, not all Acehnese supported the resurgence of the Aceh
Merdeka movement in the late 1980s.
In early 1990, responding to attacks by Aceh Merdeka, Indonesian
security forces launched a counter-insurgency campaign code-named
Red Net. The operation led to the deaths and disappearances of many
civilians. Although some Acehnese felt the response was warranted,
many believed the tactics went too far. The army would indiscriminately
round up and detain local civilians after an incident attributed
to Aceh Merdeka, and families of Aceh Merdeka supporters were often
arrested without legal recourse.
In 1991, Indonesia designated Aceh a military operations area, giving
the army "a free rein to crush the separatists." Amnesty
International reported that between 1989 and 1992 about 2,000 people
were killed in military operations in Aceh. Independent Indonesian
investigators have estimated that the number of people who were
killed, missing, or physially abused between 1989 and 1998 runs
into the thousands, with more than 1,000 still in military detention.
The human rights group FORUM, which oversees 78 nongovernmental
organizations in Aceh, says it has compiled 668 reports of atrocities
in Aceh during the height of the military operation. Many witnesses
said they were kidnap victims who were forced to bury people whom
the military had shot or tortured to death.
Throughout all of this, Indonesia has promoted the goal of "unifying"
the nation's various ethnic and religious groups, a goal not shared
by all citizens. For this reason, the Acehnese, among others, view
many government policies with suspicion. They see the transmigration
policy, for example, as not only as an economic strategy but an
attempt to "dissolve local cultures into the predominant Javanese
culture." The government, in turn, considers the Acehnese separatist
movement unacceptable. This movement, however, is far from the most
serious threat to national unity.
Given Indonesia's current problems and Aceh's complex history, the
Aceh Merdeka movement can be seen as part political, part religious,
and part economic.
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