SUHARTO
may be gone but respect for human rights and freedom of speech is
still a long way off in the country he ruled with an iron fist for
32 years. A shameful chapter in history near its end as East Timor
inches toward independence. But Indonesia's military and police still
continue to commit, or turn a blind eye to, murder, rape, torture
and arson in other parts of this vast archipelago.
However,
since Suharto's fall in May last year more and more people are daring
to speak out about the atrocities being perpetrated by the state.
Ahmad
Human Hamid is a sociology lecturer at Syiah University in Banda Aceh,
the capital of the ''special territory'' of Aceh. With a total area
of 55,392 square kilometres, and a population (in 1980) of just over
2.6 million, Aceh lies in the far north of the island of Sumatra.
''We
weren't brave enough to speak out before now,'' says Ahmad.
For
the past year Ahmad in his role as vice coordinator of Care Human
Rights Forum has been confronting the aftermath of more than three
decades of brutal repression in his home province. Ahmad recalls how
while attempting to document cases of torture he approached a village
elder in Aceh. The old man looked at him quizzically and asked, ''What
kind of torture do you want to collect?'' Ahmad was stunned. In Aceh,
torture has apparently become a highly specialised ''discipline''.
In 1989
martial law was imposed in Aceh and the province declare a ''military
operational zone'' (Daerah Operasi Militer). According to statistics
compiled by Forum Peduli Hak Asasi Manusia, at least 1,321 people
have been killed in the province since then. During the same period
1,958 people went missing, 597 houses burnt down; there were 128 reported
cases of rape and 3,430 of torture.
Ahmad
suspects that these figures grossly underestimate the real picture.
Victims and their relatives are often too afraid of reprisals to come
forward, he said. And since Aceh is a largely mountainous region,
the difficulty of the terrain also hampers the collection of accurate
data.
Debra
Yatim is a leading feminist and founder of women's group Selendanglila.
Half Acehnese herself, she is well aware that East Timor is not the
only place in her country where people's rights are regularly abused.
''You
name any human rights violations, Aceh has it. If anybody wants to
research human rights violation, Aceh would be a perfect place to
go.''
Aceh
has a long history of resisting outsiders. It was here, in the late
13th century that Islam gained its first foothold in the archipelago
when the ruling elite of Achin (as it was then known) embraced the
faith. Achin was an important port in the lucrative spice trade and
grew into a powerful trading state. It reached the height of its power
during the reign of Sultan Iskandar Muda (1607-36) whose influence
extended throughout Sumatra and across the straits to the Malay Peninsula.
Achin
was the only part of the archipelago excluded from the Dutch sphere
of influence after the signing of the Anglo-Dutch treaty of 1824.
The Dutch sent an expeditionary force to conquer Aceh in 1873 and
although they claimed victory in 1904, the colonial war continued
right up to 1945 when the Dutch East Indies gained independence and
became known as Indonesia. In that 72-year period it is estimated
that 70,000 Acehnese and 37,500 Dutch soldiers were killed.
Although
granted ''special territory'' status in 1953, the people of Aceh felt
betrayed by the Sukarno government which had promised them autonomy
if they agreed to join the new republic. When the local ruler was
refused permission to introduce Islamic law, there was an uprising,
train tracks were ripped up and Jakarta sent the military in. Some
4,000 Acehnese lost their lives in this rebellion which continued
until 1962. Thousands more were killed by mobs during the anti-communist
pogrom which followed the suppression by a rightist general named
Suharto in 1965.
A separatist
movement took up arms against Jakarta in 1976 and sporadic violence
continued until 1984. Renewed fighting broke out in 1989 and Suharto
sent in the troops again and imposed martial law.
According
to Debra, Aceh played such an instrumental role in the struggle for
independence back in the 1940s that Jakarta considers the province
too important to the national ''pysche'' to allow it to secede from
the republic. Nor does she believe that Jakarta will willingly give
up control of the vast deposits of oil and liquified gas discovered
in Aceh in the '70s and early '80s.
Aceh
at a crossroads
Today,
people like Ahmad and Debra are still trying to explain to themselves
how the world and otherwise decent Indonesian citizens could have
ignored the situation in Aceh for so long.
''A military
operational zone was in place,'' says Debra. ''For 32 years, the Indonesian
military has being creating a country within a country and violating
every aspect of human rights. To go there we [Indonesians] had to
ask for permission. Diplomats couldn't get permission at all. Researchers
were allowed in only for three days at a time and had to be escorted
by local officials.''
Ahmad
recalls the response that one courageous local journalist got when
he asked a politician about reports of missing Acehnese.
''The
answer was: 'Well, the Acehnese like to go to Malaysia. Or who knows,
maybe they just drowned themselves in the river!' This was such an
insult! But then Suharto strictly controlled the press. No journalist
would have been able to dig up a story, let alone write about it.
You didn't need to read a lot of newspapers in those days because
they were all the same.
'' The
most recent tragedy documented was the massacre of 39 civilians by
military personnel on July 23 in Beutong Ateuh, West Aceh. In that
incident religious leader Tengku Bantakiak, members of his family
and some of his students were murdered and their bodies thrown down
an old well.
''In
the name of the state, a group of individuals has been freely violating
people's rights,'' he says. ''It's very close to the idea of ethnic
cleansing. And who are the real victims? The victims are the women
and children. It's about the destruction of the very fabric of our
society. Who has the heart to see an infant hung upside down and its
mother not allowed to feed it for hours and hours until finally the
child dies?''
Adds
Debra: ''They rape any single women that they can find. Two or three
villages are full of illegitimate children with Javanese features.''
Ahmad says that after decades of state-approved violence, the social
network in Aceh has completely broken down.
''Individuals
who provide assistance to a victim's family are immediately assumed
to be supporters of the separatist movement. So a victim's family
is completely abandoned and left to suffer. Victims' wives and children
are labelled as traitors and this seal [stigma] will remain with them
for the rest of their lives.''
Earlier
this year Debra went to Aceh and asked to visit a refugee camp.
''They
refused me point blank,'' she says, angrily.
To Debra's
dismay, many Indonesians with whom she has tried to discuss Aceh just
shrug dismissively and say, ''Oh, it's not my problem.''
She concedes,
however, that the vast majority of her compatriots still do not know
what is happening in Aceh. What's more, she says, the Acehnese have
been portrayed by the Indonesian media as Islamic fundamentalists
similar to those in Iran or Libya, or as rebels who have no respect
for security and order.
''The
discourse has been put in place and it's hard to get away from,''
she says. ''At the same time, the Javanese are portrayed as being
more civilised than the rest of Indonesians; they are supposed to
speaks more gently, with more refinement. And two presidents [Sukarno
and Suharto] happened to be Javanese.''
Since
independence there has been an all-out attempt to ''Javanise'' the
whole of Indonesia, Debra says. And too often in her country, nationalism
means conformity. She says the rallying call of ''one culture one
language'' was useful in uniting people of diverse religions and cultures
in a common struggle against Dutch colonial rule. But faith in that
political slogan is fast waning, she says, and not just in Aceh, but
in Irian Jaya, Ambon and elsewhere.
After
the fall of Suharto, many ordinary Indonesians suddenly began to feel
that they could voice their opinions again but with the the military
still very influential and the cultural climate little changed, Debra
says she honestly doesn't know where Indonesians are heading.
''People
may eventually say: I want my identity back. I want to secede. I don't
want to be part of this experiment anymore.''
Ahmad
thinks it may still be possible for Aceh and other regions to remain
part of Indonesia but for that to happen some sort of ''truth commission''
needs to be set up so that those responsible for the atrocities can
be put on trial and their victims properly compensated for the anguish
they have suffered.
Earlier
this year, Ahmad got the opportunity to pay a visit on President Habibie.
There he was politely told that the president would only accept responsibility
for events which had occurred during his term of office.
''It's
the same way that a child protects his parent,'' says Ahmad, referring
to the fact that Habibie is perceived by many as Suharto's protege.
He says
Habibie is urging people to forgive and forget.
''But
how can we forgive?'' Ahmad asks. ''How can we forget when men have
been dragged out of their houses and killed in front of their families
and the killers are still walking around scot free.''
Ahmad
warns that more and more violence can be expected in the years ahead
if attitudes and government policies do not change.
But
Debra seems to think that the outcome is a forgone conclusion.
''We
think secession is the only alternative,'' she says, firmly. ''Getting
away from Javanese-Indonesian imperialism is the only way.''
