If GAM lost relatively few guerillas, the same can not be said of the Indonesian Military, who had troops stationed both in the capital and on the west coast which were hit by the tsunami. &ldquoThere were thousands of soldiers who died, maybe up to 15,000. Indonesia is panicking at the moment because there are thousands of weapons in the water and on the beaches at the moment, and it's sort of a race as to who will get the weapons first. It's clear that the guerillas are getting some of them”.
Aid in a conflict zone
Both Nessen and Lorenz are in agreement that the continuing conflict, to date, hasn't really affected the aid operations, in the sense that aid has been getting through to survivors who have needed it.
Aid is controversial though, as undoubtedly some of it is getting through to GAM guerillas. Both sides have claimed that opposing combatants have seized and sold food destined for civilians. The control of aid will have a political effect though, and the Indonesian Government's initial efforts to group survivors in housing camps, under military control, have been the subject of concern from Human Rights Watch, partly because of fears that the military will control who gets aid, and equally importantly who doesn't. The civilian population however has so far largely resisted plans to be moved into camps.
According to Nessen the Indonesian military have every right to worry that aid will work its way to the guerillas, but not, as they suggest, through extortion, but rather through support:
&ldquoPeople are again more openly supporting the guerillas. Given an open situation, people tend to lean more towards the guerillas. Indonesia has always argued that the people of Aceh, free from guerilla pressure, would lean towards Indonesia, but it seems to be the opposite. The guerillas are not coming down to the villages and yet part of the aid received by villagers is being given freely to the them. I saw that when I was there. This is one of the main activities of the military at the moment, patrolling around the refugee camps to make sure that the people who receive aid don't turn it over to the guerillas. The Government say that they're doing these patrols to prevent the guerillas from coming into the camps and forcefully taking supplies, but if you know Aceh you know it's nonsense, because the people really do support the guerillas”.
Massive amounts of money have been collected for the relief efforts, so much so that MSF controversially closed their fund raising: ”We actually have too much money to cover the emergency phase, that was why we stopped accepting funds very early on. Obviously there’s a huge amount of needs in other countries where we’re working, and so we’re going back to our donors to ask if we can spend money elsewhere, where our teams also have needs”, explains Lorenz, giving an idea of the massive amount of funding that was generated in reaction to the unprecedented scale of the disaster. Paradoxically the sheer scale of the funds raised has the potential to create problems, particularly in Indonesia which is currently ranked 8th most corrupt State in the world according to Transparency International's 2004 survey.
Nessen clarifies: &ldquoOver the next couple of years, it will be problematic. The military will surely take a cut from the big money that comes in for reconstruction. You have to remember that the Indonesian military takes 70% of its operating budget from non-governmental sources. The budget of Indonesia only covers about 30% of the expenditure of the Indonesian military. They have a lot of legal businesses, through foundations, that have operated for many years (since the early ’60s), but on top of that you have the illegal businesses, where they take a cut of any major contract or sale in Aceh. A building goes up, or schools are built – they'll take 20% from the contract. They need money from somewhere, and there's the very real possibility that they'll take it from aid money coming in for reconstruction”.
Corruption aside, the military conflict in Aceh has the potential to interfere with reconstruction and recovery in another simple way – the restriction of movement. &ldquoThere's also a problem with the movement of people, – reasons Nessen – In the aftermath of the disaster, people need to be given freedom to move, to establish a new equilibrium, maybe for people who've lost their whole family to go and live in a different part of Aceh. I've met people coming from west Aceh, which was completely devestated, who had lost their whole family, going to stay with relatives in east Aceh. I met one guy who told me he had been constantly stopped and questioned by the military: 'What are you doing here, what are you doing in this area?', as they'd never seen him before, and immediately presumed he was working for the guerillas. Another guy was carrying a lot of food there, and they took it away from him, and his cigarettes and telephone, saying that he was supplying the guerillas”.
He has seen though an easing of restrictions on movement, on the part of the TNI. &ldquoThe military has backed down a little, because there's a desperate need for movement. Many of the normal distribution routes for food and goods have been destroyed by the tsunami, so instead of food going to the people, the people have to go to the food, and the conflict was affecting that. They've had to back down basically because too many people were getting shot”.
At the same time, he tacitly admits that freedom of movement, by its very nature, helps the guerilla movement: ”The guerillas were having a tough time in that area [the west coast and Banda Aceh], but now they're able to move around, to get support and food, so the movement is coming out again. They had been pushed back, but now they're coming out again, being strengthened, probably because the military is not strong in those areas any more”.
Political Talks
The tsunami has brought the political spotlight to Aceh. Whether it's the presence of international media attention, or Internation concern due to the large amount of aid money flowing into the region, there has been an unprecedented pressure on Indonesia to achieve a political breakthrough with GAM. Talks have been ongoing in Finland since February [2005], with a final proposed round scheduled for April [2005].
Nessen, who is in contact with sources in Finland, gives his view of the talks process: &ldquoThe position of Indonesia is that they don't want to agree to any steps without agreeing to the final outcome. They don't want to agree to a ceasefire, for example, unless the guerillas agree to accept autonomy, because their experience of ceasefires has been that the guerillas benefit – they can regroup, resupply etc. There was a ceasefire before, in 2002/2003 that lasted for six months, where there were peace zones where neither side could hold weapons, and the TNI had to withdraw from those zones. And what they saw was that in those areas that they withdrew from, GAM was more active, and the independence movement was more active in general. They didn't need their guns. In a situation where there are no guns, GAM would win. In a war of sentiments, independence is the winning sentiment, rather than Indonesian rule. So now, Indonesia wants, unlike almost every other peace talks in the world, a final agreement before the preliminary steps. The reasonable position is obviously incremental – you get a ceasefire, and you build on that until you get to the point where the conflict is de-escalated. GAM obviously wants that, not only because it's the normal way things get done, but also because it gives them a respite. They want that. Before the tsunami, there was the tsunami of the TNI which has killed thousands of people in Aceh, and locked people under a regime as harsh as any in the world in the last few years. There's a big distance between them. GAM's suggestion has been a ceasefire and de-militarisation, along with some type of international presence, of peace keepers who have some power, let autonomy work for a few years, and after a certain period, for example five years, have a referendum. The fear is obviously that once GAM give up their weapons, the Indonesian military will come back in. There's no trust between the Government and the guerillas”.
As any attentive reader of Nessen's work will have noticed, there is a perceptible sympathy for both GAM and the Acehnese. Does this affect his objectivity in analysis? &ldquoI'm pro-Acehnese – he responds, openly, – to the extent that I'm pro-GAM it's in the extent that they speak and fight for the Acehnese. I didn't come to Aceh pro-GAM. I came seeking the truth, and found that the Acehnese people want independence, and GAM is the force fighting for that. I think the job of the journalist is to express the views of people who are not heard, and I'm just trying to give voice to what's happening. All guerilla groups have problems, and more so when they become governments, but right now they're a legitimate vehicle of the independence aspirations that an overwhelming majority of the Acehnese people hold. It would be foolish to go in there and have to be pro-TNI”.
&ldquoThat said – he continues -, one of the reasons that they [Indonesian Government] got so mad with me was that I spent a lot of time with the Indonesian military, in an attempt to understand their viewpoint also. My view is less black and white. The people themselves are not evil, it's an evil system that prays on weaknesses, and converts them into weapons to do evil. Ordinary people, ordinary Germans killed millions of people in WWII, and now ordinary Indonesians are killing thousands of Acehnese. These same ordinary Indonesians, had they been born in Aceh, would be GAM fighters. That is my belief, and I've told them so. Unfortunately, those GAM fighters might very well have turned out to be Indonesian soldiers had they been born elsewehere”.
Nessen goes on to give the example, that no doubt the Indonesian Government fear the most in relation to Aceh, of East Timor, where Independence was finally achieved, after international pressure and a UN controlled referendum:”Journalists who tell you that they don't care one way or the other about the things that are happening, that they see, they're lying to you. All the journalists working out of East Timor were supportive of East – Timorese independence”. Throughout his conversation Nessen gives examples of the treatment of the Acehnese by the Indonesian military. &ldquoYou see the conflict in every moment when you're there in Aceh, if you're a perceptive observer. If you speak Indonesian for example, when a 60 year old man calls a 20year old Soldier, which makes him a superior, calls him Father essentially, you know there's a problem”.
Aceh's future is far from certain. The tragedy of the tsunami has brought the province, and its problems, into the international spotlight. Reconstruction and recovery will need more than the massive funds donated in the wake of the tragedy. It will take more than the dedicated work of teams of aid workers. It will also require a political solution to the conflict.