The Australian, January 12, 2005
Damien Kingsbury: Growing doubts on Aceh's relief effort
THE arrival in Aceh of militant Islamic fundamentalist groups has raised the prospect
of conflict with foreign aid workers and troops, including Australians, who are helping
the tsunami relief operation. Indonesian and Australian authorities have claimed the
Islamist organisations do not pose an immediate threat, and that the Indonesian
military (TNI) can provide sufficient security.
But this was the claim made in East Timor in 1999, when the TNI actively supported
militias. There are some parallels with Aceh.
The leader of the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) has already threatened foreigners by
saying un-Islamic behaviour in public, such as drinking alcohol, will not be tolerated.
The even more militant Laskar Mujahidin (LM), which is also in Aceh, has engaged in
sectarian warfare against Christians in Ambon and Central Sulawesi.
The presence of these organisations in Aceh has disturbed many Acehnese, not least
the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), which has rejected them as corrupting Islam. While
GAM members are devout Sunni Muslims, GAM itself is not an Islamic organisation
and it rejects Islamic fundamentalism.
Radical Islamist organisations have attempted to work in Aceh in the past, in
particular the Laskar Jihad and, more recently, Jemaah Islamiah. GAM rejected their
advances and they found no support among local Acehnese.
For a province that has suffered almost three decades of conflict, the presence of
TNI-backed militias is not new, and many see the FPI in particular as just another
imported militia organisation. The FPI began life in August 1998 as a civilian militia,
organised by military leaders to attack pro-democracy protesters.
Under the leadership of a Saudi educated Arab-Indonesian, Habib Rizieq, the FPI took
on a more explicitly Islamist hue, smashing up bars and nightclubs it claimed
offended Islamic faith. The FPI also operates "protection" rackets in Jakarta and
elsewhere, and is comprised mostly of street thugs.
LM is a much more disciplined and focused organisation, being the military wing of
the Indonesian Mujahidin Council (MMI), which was established and headed by
alleged Jemaah Islamiah leader Abu Bakar Bashir.
LM fielded the most highly trained and well-armed militia in the Ambon and central
Sulawesi conflicts. The TNI retains active links with the FPI, and although its
association with LM is far more murky, being through military intelligence, the LM was
armed with standard issue TNI weapons and uniforms during combat in Ambon.
There is an increasing view in Aceh that these organisations have not been brought in
to help, but to act as a third force in the conflict between GAM and the TNI.
This view is supported by official Indonesian Government financing of the organisations
to travel to Aceh. The strategy of introducing militias has proven effective where
predominantly Javanese militias operate in central Aceh. But the Javanese have not
been welcomed in the more populated coastal areas. Hence the arrival of groups that
some believe can appeal to the Islamic faith of the local population.
Meanwhile, the TNI is trying to present GAM as the only security threat to the aid
program. It has claimed that GAM guerillas have dressed as TNI soldiers and
redirected refugees and aid. The TNI has a history of being less than frank about its
own activities and it is unlikely that GAM has the capacity or interest in dressing as
TNI, especially when it is currently under sustained TNI attack.
GAM declared a ceasefire the day after the tsunami struck, and says it has stuck to
that despite being attacked (the two TNI losses have been acknowledged as being
from "friendly fire").
The deteriorating security situation, therefore, appears to be largely of the TNI's
making. The question is why at this time of great disaster?
Outsiders have had limited access to Aceh for many years and after May 2003 it was
effectively closed off during the TNI's bid to finally crush GAM.
The TNI was initially reluctant to allow in foreign aid workers and it has been clear that
it wants them to leave as soon as possible. As it did when the UN was bundled out of
East Timor after the ballot in 1999, a deteriorating security environment provides the
perfect justification to achieve that.
The TNI cannot conduct its campaign against GAM and many ordinary Acehnese with
the eyes of the world fixed on it. Nor, under such scrutiny, can the TNI rake off a large
share of the aid that is currently flowing in to Aceh, although even with their presence
some TNI personnel are selling food aid to refugees. It has been a rule of thumb in
Indonesia that only about 10 per cent of aid arrives where it is intended.
There are various unofficial "taxes", and inflated construction and transport costs by
TNI companies. Aid officials in Aceh are hoping they can keep losses down to about
30 per cent.
Access to some of the hundreds of millions of dollars of aid money would, however,
help fund the TNI's campaign in Aceh, which ran out of money in mid-2004. As a
largely self-funded institution, the TNI has a quick eye for a dollar. The TNI is also
committed to containing GAM, at least to the extent that it only provides an excuse to
maintain a military - and business - presence in Aceh. Therefore, if Aceh's security is
now an issue, one need not look far for the principal cause.
Damien Kingsbury is director of International and Community Development at Deakin
University and author of Power Politics and the Indonesian Military (RoutledgeCurzon)
and The Politics of Indonesia (third edition, Oxford). He recently completed an
Australia Research Council project on TNI business activities.
© The Australian
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