Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Banda Aceh (Fides Service) “We are tragically accustomed to violence. The conflict between the army and the rebels has continued for years with a few brief interruptions. After the imposition of martial law and the start of the military offensive, people are worried but resigned. They call for less promises and more facts and denounce abuses and violence on both sides in this forgotten war”. Father Ferdinando Severi OFM Conv., is parish priest of the Sacred Heart of Jesus church in Banda Aceh city, the only Catholic parish in this civil province in the far north of the island of Sumatra.
Now that the central government’s 12 May deadline for disarmament has passed and peace talks in Tokyo have failed, the Indonesian army has launched an offensive against the separatist rebels which is expected to last six months. The Indonesian airforce bombed a Free Aceh Movement (GAM) rebel base 20 kilometres east of Banda Aceh while warships are approaching the area and 7,000 government troops have joined the 25,000 already present on the island. The army aims to bring the number of troops to 50,000 to eliminate between 3,000 and 5,000 GAM militants hiding in the forest.
Father Severi who has been on mission in Aceh for 12 years, has about 1,100 Catholic parishioners out of a population of 4.1 million mostly Muslims. He is against major military operations and says the government should show more patience. “Most of the people in Aceh want justice and security not secession” he explains, “A military attack will cause more suffering for the civilian population. People are so terrorised by both the GAM rebels and the army troops that they dare not even leave the house”.
The key to solving the problem in Aceh, the friar says, is to try to rebuild trust: “Since the time of Suharto, people have suffered a lot: in the army’s offensive against the rebels some 3,000 civilians have been killed and the province has been robbed of its resources of natural gas, the largest reserves in Asia. People have no trust in Jakarta just as they had no trust in the Dutch colonial powers. Moreover there are rumours that that corrupt sectors of the Indonesian army support the rebels to boycott negotiations and continue the war, for which they receive and handle money. Moreover the people recall all too vividly the cruelty of the army in the past year; whole villages were devastated and burned to the ground. The army has already said that in this offensive against the rebels many people will have to leave their homes: as many as 100,000 may become internally displaced”.
Father Severi continues his analysis: “On the other hand civilians also suffer banditry kidnapping, extortion, on the part of rebels who need money. The government in the final stage of negotiations made reasonable proposals showing openness and understanding and signed, in December 2002, a cease fire agreement. Jakarta’s offer included: granting special autonomy status; direct election of the governor, no longer appointed by Jakarta; a reinvesting of 70% of profits from liquid gas extraction; the adoption of the Sharia Muslim law as the civil law for the local community (although applicable only to Muslims). But the GAM rebels only confirmed their demand for a referendum on independence, as in East Timor. President Megawati Sukarnoputri, refusing to question Indonesian sovereignty, launched a massive military operation”.
“Today – concludes Father Severi– life is very difficult for the people caught between the army and rebel crossfire. A new attack will not help to rebuild trust, it will only widen the existing gap between the Aceh local tribes and the Javanese of Jakarta, seen as foreigners and colonisers.”
The province of Aceh is one of several areas which have made trouble for the Indonesian government for years. In this area the Free Aceh Movement prospers as it preaches independence from Jakarta in the name of an Islamic theocratic state. The guerrilla in Aceh has been active since 1976 and since then peace agreements have alternated with periods of tension and fighting with the regular army. PA (Fides Service 19/5/2003 EM lines 45 Words: 554)
