Part IV: Cultural
Survival and a Post-Conflict Update
Today, just to keep a bit on top of things in this narrative, I looked
up Steven Shewfelt, who as you recall did his dissertation (in 2007) on the
different attitudes people had towards returning towards their homes in Aceh after
the peace accord, and conducted an examination of their respective emotional
and perceived economic states. As I read further in his dissertation I think
I’m seeing that this study may not be as useful to us as I first thought,
because it seems that he did not interview a representative sample of the
communities, which include many women, children, and elderly/disabled. I
believe that everyone he interviewed was from Java. It’s true that great many
people from Java lived in and continue to live in Aceh (and Aceh Timur); this
is mostly as a result of the transmigration program initiated by Jakarta in
order to alleviate overcrowding in Java and populate the more
“troublesome”regions of the country (cf East Timor during the 1979-99
occupation). So although many Javanese consider Aceh their home, their
responses are by no means indicative of the thoughts, fears, hopes,
aspirations, or collective memory of the Gayo and other indigenous groups who
had inhabited those areas for generations.
For example, here’s some
world factbook information on Aceh:
Ethnic
Groups: 45% Javanese, 14% Sundanese, 7.5% Malays 7.5% Madurese, 26% , Other
26% “Other.” That’s a lot of “other!!!”
Languages: Bahasa Indonesia (official), English, Dutch, over 1,000 indigenous languages
One Thousand. Count ‘em.
Motto: Unity in Diversity
And yet . . . a post-conflict assessment that studies only half of 45% of the population (Javanese women being excluded)?
He reports at one point during his field interviews, “As the peace agreement has been implemented with
considerable success, people who live in the province and see the day-to-day
improvements in the security situation, even if they have not returned to their
homes of origin, are less likely to hold on to the polarized sentiments through
which they see a potential enemy in everyone who is not a known compatriot.
This dynamic was evident in a focus group discussion with people who were still
displaced but lived in Aceh." [I believe all these “people” were
from Java; I must ask him about this.]
Interviewer: “Now, after the MOU, are you worried, afraid
of experiencing prejudice or something?”
Respondent 1: “There is no prejudice anymore, because it’s
not only Javanese here, there are also people from Gayo, Sumatra and Aceh. No
matter here or anywhere else, the people of Aceh are now united. And there are
ex-GAM members, for example in Sindang Balik, and they live here now, so [there
is] no more prejudice and we are not worried.”
This type of finding is hard to evaluate, because Javanese would be
far less likely to be the subject of any prejudice and could comfortably say
that they felt no prejudice and so that because Gayo were living with them,
everything was fine. That sounds vaguely like whites arguing that there isn’t
any discrimination anymore because they see people of color everywhere. So I’ll
have to talk to him about that if he responds.
But now, as promised, we go back a week or so when I was still trying
to find information about how the province was faring post-conflict. Cultural
Survivial is an interesting group and I grew excited when I found their web
page with information on the Aceh Conflict.
Here is an excerpt.
It is easy to
understand why the Indonesian nation-state has denied Aceh independence.
Jakarta wishes not only to preserve national unity, but also to develop other
areas of Indonesia using profits derived from exploitation of the oil and gas
deposits in Aceh. Aceh supplies 50 percent of Indonesian oil and gas. Aceh
territory is also considered resettlement ground for Javanese migrants. The Acehnese, however, are opposed to this use of their land
and have long aspired to independence. [my italics added.]
I was glad to read this
because it gets closer to what we need to point out to more people in the
position of affecting public and social policy regarding smallholder and
indigenous rights in Aceh Timur.
However, as I feared, the
article did not go far enough, in that these days, in fact for many years now,
the Aceh provincial government wants to exploit this for themselves. This is
what is thwarting attempts to assist the rural poor in these resource-rich
areas of the province. This is why we can’t get a good-sized sustainable
development grant for smallholders to save our souls. The Acehnese, it turns
out, are NOT “opposed to this use of their land,” if by “Acehnese” we mean
government officials and people who see their economic survival as dependent on
large and destructive mining and agribusiness interests. It’s pretty hard for
someone who can’t feed his family or get medicine for the baby to say no to a
job in a gold mine because he knows inherently that this is destroying his
ancestral home.
However, many good points
are made:
During this
struggle for independence, their human rights have systematically been
disregarded -- they have been pillaged, raped, and disappeared. Thousands have
been forced to leave their homes due to targeting by Indonesian military
operations. At least 5,000 people have been killed in the last decade -- 345 in
the first four months of 2000 alone. They have been forbidden to write in their
own language, and their freedoms of expression, religion, and culture have been
repressed. In response to those violations, the Free Aceh Movement, led by
Hasan di Tiro, has been striving since 1976 (both militarily and
diplomatically) to establish an independent state. GAM's leaders currently live
in exile in Stockholm.
Sadly, Mr de Tiro died in
2010 after finally being allowed to return to Aceh, and receiving his
citizenship back one day before his death. I believe that since the article
first was published (2000) all GAM leaders have ceased living in exile.
Human rights violations are not the only reasons compelling Acehnese to seek independence. They feel that they are economically disadvantaged since most of the profits derived from their oil, gas and other products benefit other provinces. Instead of enjoying an improved standard of living, most Acehnese live in poverty. Jakarta's transmigration policy, [note: see above entry on Dr Shewfelt’s dissertation] which relocates workers from the overcrowded Java to other islands, is reviled. As a result of transmigration, Javanese immigrants populate the mountains and the industrial zones on the coast of Aceh, cutting off Acehnese access to the fish and rice necessary for subsistence. Perhaps most importantly, religion has dominated concerns for independence. Acehnese take issue with the fact that while Indonesia is 87 percent Muslim, it is not an Islamic state. The Acehnese have made several attempts to establish an Islamic state and continue to aspire to this goal. - See more at: http://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/indonesia/aceh-conflict-reconciliation#sthash.G13E2EUl.dpuf
Next Time:
How Aceh Timur and the Leuser Ecosystem Intersect—the good, the bad,
and the very scary
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