Aceh – Test Case for Indonesian Reform

The third round of Aceh peace talks in Helsinki showed that the process is well on its way. Negotiators from both sides, the Indonesian government and the Free Aceh movement GAM, have been able to push aside hard-line positions, and to explore new solutions. However, the hardest stumbling block of the peace process, the security issues, has hardly been touched as yet.

The negotiators used the first two rounds for sounding out each other’s attitudes, but during the third round the economic and political questions were discussed. It is well known that the struggle over natural resources has been a major reason for the Aceh conflict, yet the economic issues did not block the peace talks. In fact, the Special Autonomy Law for Aceh in 2001, which was at first offered as a ready-made solution for the conflict by the Indonesian government, already handed over more revenues from natural resources to the Acehnese. Economic issues have not been settled yet, and it remains to be seen how GAM’s own proposal on the division of economic power will finally be received in Jakarta.

Political questions are slightly more difficult: How to organise the self-governance of Aceh as an integral part of the Indonesian nation-state? And how to make it a win-win situation? GAM has suggested that Indonesia should allow the formation of local political parties in Aceh. Currently the Indonesian legislation does not allow this, and even in local elections the candidates have to represent national political parties.

Legislative changes may turn out to be a bottleneck for the peace process, since some of its the most vocal opponents sit in the Indonesian parliament DPR. They can be found for example among the members of the PDI-P, a party that last year lost its leading position in both parliamentary and presidential elections. The DPR hardliners have made efforts to nullify the importance of Helsinki peace talks. The conservative parliamentarians are also afraid that if local parties were allowed in Aceh, other provinces would demand the same treatment.

It is thus important to sell the results of Helsinki talks to the parliamentarians at home. After all, it will be in their hands whether the peace agreement will be signed and the legislation amended accordingly. It will be hard, though not impossible, to find a simple majority in the DPR to support the necessary changes.

The unpredictable army

But the joker of Aceh peace game will again be the TNI, the Indonesian military. Previous effort to build peace in Aceh in 2002 failed because the military opposed the agreement. The then President Megawati Sukarnoputri shared the narrow-minded nationalism of the military. She made the decision to start a bloody military operation in Aceh in May 2003 that has by now increased the death toll of the conflict by thousands.

On the other hand, the current President, ex-General Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has publicly stated that he aims to find a peaceful solution for Aceh. The success or failure of the peace process will thus label his performance as Indonesia’s President. At the same time the peace process will show to which direction Indonesia will develop in the future: is the power in the hands of the hard-line conservatives of the Parliament and the ultra-nationalist military Commanders, or in the hands of the Reformists?

The representatives of the military were absent from the third round of peace talks in Finland. Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal, and Security Affairs, the retired Admiral Widodo A.S. joined the previous two rounds, but was dropped out of the team. Instead, he has given statements to the Indonesian media that lack any willingness to gain peaceful solutions in Aceh. The military and the Parliament hard-liners have launched their own media war that aims to turn the public opinion against the peace talks.

Even if a peace agreement will be signed there is no guarantee that the military obeys it. TNI showed again its stubbornness by sending more troops to Aceh while the talks went on in Helsinki. The negotiators of Indonesian government tried to play down the news by suggesting that it was a question of normal rotation, which it was not. The third round of talks ended with a common promise that both sides will restrain their forces in the field during the negotiation process. But immediately after the talks the Aceh military Commander stated that the military operation in Aceh will continue, and that an idea of a ceasefire is wishful thinking. Despite promises, fighting has continued in Aceh.

Disagreements on peacekeeping

In the fourth round of talks, which will take place in the end of May, the parties have to confront the security issues. According to some sources, GAM will demand that the Indonesian troops will be fully withdrawn from Aceh, and in the future the internal security of Aceh should be taken care of by Acehnese police forces. On the other hand, the Indonesians may come up with a demand that only the troops that participate in the military operation will be withdrawn, while the organic troops of the TNI will stay in Aceh. It will not be easy to reconcile these two views.

The implementation of a potential peace agreement is planned to be monitored by regional organisations, most probably from ASEAN and EU countries. Indonesia has already pointed out that it will not allow peacekeeping forces in Aceh. On the other hand, it sounds implausible that GAM would accept a model where the monitors are civilians or unarmed soldiers. There is a good reason for this: the monitors of the 2002 Cessation of Hostilities were all unarmed, and they had no capacity whatsoever to pressure the military or the paramilitary groups in Aceh.

On both sides of the negotiation table the memories of East Timor in 1999 surface frequently. In Indonesia, the nationalists and the military remember East Timor Referendum and the UN operation as an era of humiliation. For them East Timor is an example on how international community interferes with Indonesia’s domestic affairs. The Acehnese are afraid that the East Timor bloodshed will repeat itself in Aceh. In order to avoid this, they are vocally supporting the international presence in Aceh.

Leena Avonius has written her doctoral thesis on the political changes in Indonesia in the University of Leiden, the Netherlands.