Aceh: Escalating Tension
Aceh: Escalating Tension
Table of Contents
  1. Overview
Indonesia's Police: The Problem of Deadly Force
Indonesia's Police: The Problem of Deadly Force
Briefing / Asia 1 minutes

Aceh: Escalating Tension

Tensions in Aceh have escalated sharply in recent weeks, prompting the government in Jakarta to promise to accelerate the implementation of autonomy plans and announce a small humanitarian aid package.

I. Overview

Tensions in Aceh have escalated sharply in recent weeks, prompting the government in Jakarta to promise to accelerate the implementation of autonomy plans and announce a small humanitarian aid package.[fn]The package, worth $10.47 million USD, is to be disbursed from December to February. Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Rizal Ramli, said that President Abdurrahman had instructed his economic team ‘to buy the hearts of Acehnese people’ and that the fund would be used both to help finance rehabilitation programs following the massive floods in the end of November, and also to ‘accelerate the implementation process of special autonomy for Aceh’. AFP, 2 December 2000.Hide Footnote  President Abdurrahman Wahid has also announced a plan to visit Aceh on 15 December where he will witness the formal introduction of syariah[fn]More commonly rendered in English language sources as ShariaHide Footnote  law in the province.[fn]Kompas, 5 December 2000.Hide Footnote  At the same time, Indonesian leaders reiterated their unambiguous view that the province would never be independent.  

In spite of the ‘humanitarian pause’, an agreement signed in May between armed separatists and the government, there has been sustained low level violence in Aceh for months. While there was less conflict than feared on 4 December, the 24th anniversary of the founding of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM),[fn]Gerakan Aceh Merdeka.  Hide Footnote  two isolated clashes led to loss of life.[fn]Among those killed were a marine NCO and five or six GAM members. See slightly different reports in Kompas and Republika, 5 December 2000.Hide Footnote  International NGOs have reacted sharply to the increased use of violence by Indonesian police and military personnel in Aceh. Foreign governments have been less responsive, and remain hopeful that the sympathetic approach of President Abdurrahman and the pause agreement may yet see a peaceful settlement of the dispute that leaves Aceh part of Indonesia. But the stakes are rapidly becoming higher, and the Indonesian government will have to do much more in response to Aceh grievances if that is to happen.

Banda Aceh/Jakarta/Brussels, 7 December 2000

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