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WORLD SOCIALIST WEB SITE<br>
Published by the International Committee of the Fourth International
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- Wednesday, 5 January 2005 -<br><br>
-----<br>
____________________________________________________________________<br><br>
In the wake of tsunami calamity<br>
INDONESIAN ARMY STEPS UP WAR IN ACEH<br>
____________________________________________________________________<br><br>
News & Analysis: Asia: Indonesia<br>
<a href="http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/jan2005/aceh-j05.shtml" eudora="autourl">http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/jan2005/aceh-j05.shtml<br>
</a>By John Roberts<br><br>
There are growing signs that the Indonesian military (TNI) is
exploiting<br>
the current catastrophe in northern Sumatra to crush the separatist
Free<br>
Aceh Movement (GAM) and establish its unchallenged control over the<br>
resource-rich province of Aceh.<br><br>
So far the death toll from the earthquake and tsunami that devastated
Aceh<br>
on December 26 is more than 100,000 and is likely to rise much higher.
From<br>
Lhokseumawe on the east coast through the provincial capital Banda
Aceh<br>
near Sumatra's northern tip to Meulaboh on the west coast, cities and
towns<br>
have been obliterated.<br><br>
Transport and other infrastructure have been torn apart. Hundreds
of<br>
thousands are desperately in need of water, food, clothing, shelter
and<br>
medical attention. There is now a serious risk that further lives will
be<br>
lost through disease and hunger.<br><br>
Yet, rather than concentrating resources on emergency relief efforts,
the<br>
Indonesian armed forces, with the approval of President Susilo
Bambang<br>
Yudhoyono, are preoccupied with their counterinsurgency operations
against<br>
GAM fighters. While refugees are desperate for supplies and relief
workers<br>
for transport, the TNI has launched offensives against GAM in
various<br>
locations across the province.<br><br>
When the tsunami hit, the military already had 40,000 troops and<br>
paramilitary police in Aceh as a result of its ongoing campaign to wipe
out<br>
GAM. The current offensive initiated in May 2003, under former
president<br>
Megawati Sukarnoputri, included armour and artillery as well as air
and<br>
naval support and was billed as Indonesia's own version of the US
"shock<br>
and awe" methods in Iraq.<br><br>
Despite a state of emergency and a media blackout in Aceh over the
last<br>
year, human rights organisations have reported gross and widespread
abuse<br>
of local Acehnese by the military, including arbitrary detention,
torture<br>
and summary execution. Yudhoyono, a former general, was Megawati's
top<br>
security minister and played a crucial role in planning and overseeing
the<br>
offensive until he resigned last March to contest the
presidency.<br><br>
In the aftermath of the December 26 tsunami, the TNI's responded by<br>
dispatching an additional 15,000 troops to Aceh, ostensibly to carry
out<br>
humanitarian relief work. But far from the well-oiled machine that
swung<br>
into action against GAM the previous year, the military's emergency<br>
assistance in the province has been marked by disorganisation, delays
and<br>
disinterest.<br><br>
On December 27, TNI chief General Endriartono indicated that the
military<br>
would respond in kind to a unilateral ceasefire declared by exiled
GAM<br>
leaders in Sweden to allow relief efforts to go ahead. It soon
became<br>
clear, however, that the TNI had no intention of passing up the
opportunity<br>
to inflict a defeat on GAM, which had suffered losses during the
tsunami<br>
and earthquake.<br><br>
The first media reports related to a particular incident. On Thursday,
a<br>
GAM spokesman announced that Indonesian troops had killed two GAM
members<br>
in the Peurelak area of East Aceh, including the local commander
Afrizal<br>
bin Abdul Manaf. He said TNI troops had also set fire to a house in
the<br>
village of Idi Reayeuk. A TNI spokesman acknowledged the clash, but
blamed<br>
GAM rebels for provoking the incident by ambushing a convoy of
military<br>
trucks carrying relief supplies.<br><br>
Sweden-based GAM spokesman Bakhtiar Abdullah strenuously denied that
GAM<br>
fighters had attacked a convoy. In turn, he accused the military of<br>
harassing and torturing suspected GAM sympathisers in refugee camps.
The<br>
TNI's abuse of refugees was also reported to the Aceh Referendum<br>
Information Centre by volunteers working in Banda Aceh. They alleged
that<br>
refugees on the way to relief centres were being interrogated by
the<br>
military.<br><br>
Bakhtiar told the British-based Guardian: "The reports we received
are that<br>
they are moving in more troops under the guise of relief operations.
We<br>
know that they are trying to track down GAM fighters in the area. We
have<br>
given strict orders to maintain a ceasefire and hoped that the
Indonesian<br>
military would respect that ceasefire and refrain from military
action."<br><br>
As it turned out, the clash was not an isolated incident. The Jakarta
Post<br>
this week reported that the TNI had launched operations against GAM<br>
hideouts in Teupin, Batee, Seunebok Langa, Gampung Jalan, Kuburan
Cina,<br>
Buket Linteung and Buket Jok areas of East Aceh. In north Aceh,
army<br>
attacks were underway in Makmur, Gandapura and Peusangan.<br><br>
The TNI not only confirmed that the operations were taking place, but
was<br>
completely unapologetic about them. In comments cited in the
Guardian,<br>
Colonel Ahmad Yani Basuki declared: "We have to maintain
security<br>
operations to prevent the rebels from attacking vital installations
and<br>
relief operations." According to Basuki, only one third of TNI
troops were<br>
involved in military operations and the remainder had been assigned
to<br>
relief work. He provided no evidence, however, for any of his
assertions.<br><br>
Lieutenant-Colonel D.J. Nachrowi told the Jakarta Post that the TNI
was<br>
"now carrying out two duties: humanitarian work and the
security<br>
operation." He put forward a different argument, maintaining that
the<br>
military was obliged by the state of emergency to attack GAM. "The
raids to<br>
quell the secessionist movement in Aceh will continue unless the
president<br>
issues a decree to lift the civil emergency and assign us to merely play
a<br>
humanitarian role in Aceh," he said.<br><br>
Yudhoyono has shown no intention of lifting the civil emergency in Aceh
or<br>
of reaching a temporary truce with GAM. Instead, in an appeal for
national<br>
unity, the president has called on the separatist fighters to lay
down<br>
their weapons, in other words surrender, to facilitate relief
operations.<br>
The military, of course, would remain armed to the teeth.<br><br>
Various human rights groups have confirmed that military operations
are<br>
continuing in Aceh. A spokesman for the British-based Tapol
organisation,<br>
Paul Barber, told the Inter Press Service News Agency: "Under the
civil<br>
emergency, the Indonesian military continue to play a leading role
and<br>
there has been no cutback in the level of military operations in most
of<br>
the territory."<br><br>
Nasruddin Abubakar, president of the Aceh Referendum Information
Centre,<br>
angrily condemned the TNI's actions, saying: "The government is
still<br>
maintaining the civil emergency and continuing on with military
operations<br>
in Aceh despite the fact that the death toll is now close to 100,000.
Is<br>
the government not yet satisfied with the killing? Are Acehnese not<br>
citizens of Indonesia?"<br><br>
The fact that the Indonesian military has been devoting
resources--troops,<br>
transport and coordination--to its military operations would help
to<br>
explain the limited and chaotic character of the relief effort in Aceh.
Air<br>
transport is crucial in reaching remote areas and moving relief
supplies<br>
into the province, but it has been a shambles. The Indonesian air force
has<br>
made no effort to either regulate airspace over Aceh or to provide
air<br>
traffic control to vital airports in Banda Aceh and Medan where<br>
international aid is arriving.<br><br>
Numerous media reports point to the bottlenecks in ferrying aid into
Aceh<br>
and distributing it. On New Years Eve, an aircraft had to wait 14 hours
in<br>
Banda Aceh for a takeoff clearance. At one stage the only surviving
air<br>
traffic controller in Aceh was reportedly left to operate the
airport<br>
alone. Trucks and fuel have been in critically short supply. The
Sydney<br>
Morning Herald reported that US relief organisations in Medan, forced
to<br>
rely on their own resources, had "begged, borrowed and rented"
80 trucks to<br>
provide transport.<br><br>
The disinterest of the Indonesian military in the plight of Acehnese
is<br>
most graphically revealed by the inexplicable delay in surveying the
extent<br>
of the disaster on the west coast, which lay in the direct path of
the<br>
tsunami. It took four days for the Indonesian air force to send a
flight<br>
over Meulaboh, which one journalist likened to the scene after the<br>
Hiroshima atomic bomb.<br><br>
Highly publicised relief operations are now underway by US and
Australian<br>
military, which are providing key logistical support. US military<br>
helicopters flew the first significant supplies of aid into Meulaboh
last<br>
weekend. The Australian military teams are in Banda Aceh providing
clean<br>
water and other assistance. All criticism of the TNI and its
appalling<br>
human rights has been shelved as these efforts are hailed in the media
as<br>
ushering in a new period of cooperation.<br><br>
These joint operations have very little to do with any genuine concern
the<br>
victims of the December 26 disaster. Both Australian and the US have
been<br>
seeking to reestablish working relations with the Indonesian military
since<br>
the fall of the Suharto dictatorship in 1998. The relief efforts provide
an<br>
ideal opportunity not only to work closely with the TNI but potentially
to<br>
establish a foothold in Aceh--a key region with significant oil and<br>
reserves adjacent to the strategic Strait of Malacca.<br><br>
As for the TNI, the support provided by the US and Australian military
for<br>
relief efforts allows the diversion of additional Indonesian
military<br>
forces into its operations against GAM. There is every indication that
the<br>
Indonesian military has the tacit support of Washington and
Canberra,<br>
which, unlike in the case of East Timor, have maintained a complete
silence<br>
on Jakarta's dirty war in Aceh over the last 18 months.<br><br>
US military establishment thinking was revealed in a recent comment by
the<br>
US-based Stratfor Global Intelligence thinktank. It noted that the
tsunami<br>
disaster might prove to be a boon for the military's campaign against
GAM.<br>
"Yudhoyono will send more troops into the province to rebuild and
clean up<br>
... If GAM does not agree to settle the problem peacefully, Yudhoyono
will<br>
have more troops on hand to clean them out," it noted.<br><br>
What is emerging in embryo in Aceh is a return to the relations
that<br>
existed prior to 1998, when the US, Australia and other major powers
relied<br>
on the ruthless Suharto dictatorship to safeguard their economic
and<br>
strategic interests in Indonesia and the region.<br><br>
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