'Indonesian military has come to the conclusion that Acheh is practically lost.'

'Powerful lobbying is being pursued in the US at every stage. Even the mighty Exxon-Mobil is being forced to account for its complicity in the perpetration of gross human rights violations in Acheh.'

'It seems that the Indonesian military has chosen the wrong pawn in its political power play in Jakarta. Gus Dur may be on the way out, but so is the military.'

IRST THERE WAS AN ARTICLE appearing in the Jakarta Post (June 20) by one reader signing as Soegih Arto urging: "I hope the government stops these talks (with the Free Acheh Movement or GAM) because after  so many talks, moratoriums and establishment of peace zones, no improvement has yet been achieved. Fortunately, military operations to establish law and order have begun to show some success. If the government insists on continuing talks, don't send a foreign ministry official, but one from the Ministry of Home Affairs, because GAM is an internal matter. Better still if we send a military officer to lead the team. This is to show to the GAM that the talks are not between two equal political entities, but a government and an internal rebel group."

Then as on cue, the commander of Bukit Barisan Division in Medan, under which the Acheh military command depends, declared that he has crushed GAM and GAM fighters are on the run. Correcting earlier military reports by his men in Acheh that top GAM commanders had run away to Malaysia, he said: "They have fled to Thailand, they don't dare go to Malaysia because they are afraid of MP-GAM" (referring to the rebel faction of GAM whose adherents are in Malaysia). He said he would overwhelm GAM in a single big attack. "If they have 10,000 men, we are going to send 20,000, GAM will soon be wiped out", he said.

Such bravado is of course going against the image the Indonesian government wants to project abroad, especially to the Americans, that GAM was the side that had refused to negotiate a peaceful settlement through dialogues. The US State Department is understood to have pressured Jakarta to go back to the negotiation table facilitated by the Henry Dunant Center in Geneva. This is of course to show the good side of Indonesia to the 7 senators who have written a letter to Secretary of State, Colin Powel, condemning Indonesian insistence of resorting to military means to solve the conflict in Acheh, ignoring the underlying causes of the rebellion. The Senators urged the US Administration to link any renewal of military assistance to Indonesia to the respect of human rights by the nation's security forces in Acheh. Responding to this letter, the State Department told the senators that the Indonesian security forces were not the only side guilty of gross human rights violations in Acheh, but GAM too. The letter written by the Legal Assistant to the Secretary of State accused GAM of carrying out assassination, kidnapping and rape, based on "an eye witness report by two Singapore journalists." (It appears that the CIA has been sleeping on Acheh issue thus forcing the State Department to have to rely on the unnamed Singapore journalists). (click here to read GAM's clarification)

The State Department is clearly annoyed by the Senators' letter especially following the switch of allegiance of one of a Republican senators, thus turning the majority in the US Senate into the Democratic camp, which doesn't share Bush's penchant for cowboyish style in conducting foreign relations. As it is known, the embargo against military cooperation with Indonesia was initiated by Senator D'Amoto of the Democratic Party, following the killing of UN workers by Indonesian backed militias in Timor. President Bush government is working hard to find ways for the lifting of this embargo. But that has not been made easy by the behavior of the militarists in Jakarta.

It seems that the Indonesian military strategy now is to create a situation in Acheh that would force GAM to withdraw from the Geneva dialogue, because the peace talks cannot but reduce the importance of the military in the power struggle now taking place in Jakarta, especially if another ceasefire should be declared in Acheh, this time probably with a stronger monitoring team from abroad.

Due to his personal problem, Gus Dur is losing his grip on power in Jakarta. In Maluku his Laskar Jihad fighters are being slaughtered by the GSB forces (combined military and police units. Maluku is under a Civil Emergency rule; as such, security matters are still under the purview of the police. To circumvent this legal problem, the military has created this combined operational force). He tried to remedy his misfortune by bribing the military with the Inpres no. 4, that has given the military a free hand in Acheh. But this has somehow backfired and made the military even bolder, to the point of openly defying his presidential orders.

Things are gradually going the way as when Suharto was consolidating his power in Indonesia. The first victim then was the free press. It is the same now. The military in Acheh forced the Serambi management to close down the only daily newspaper published in Banda Acheh, Serambi Indonesia. Following that, Serambi made a complaint to the pro-establishment Aliansi Journalis Indonesia, which then forwarded the complaint to its international link-up, the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance and the International Federation of Journalists, that swallowed the story of a threat of kidnapping and murder of journalists issued by GAM.

ExxonMobil's security guard. This oil company now under a spotlight of international communities. ExxonMobil has been notorious for supplying military for Acheh massacres for over a decade.

In Medan, capital of North Sumatra, the Waspada daily has been for sometime now subdued to serve as a propaganda machine of the Bukit Barisan Military Command. Foreign journalists are practically banned from entering Acheh. International agencies have closed down their offices in Acheh, including that of the UNDP.

In the face of all this, one is tempted to believe that the Indonesian military is gaining an upper hand in Acheh and thus in the power politics game in Jakarta. But according to reports that are still trickling out from Acheh, thanks to modern facilities like the Internet and cellular phones, such a scenario may not be entirely true. GAM fighters may not have been as daring as before, but their attacks have become deadlier every day, due probably to better armament and more field experience. Online reports by members of the public in Acheh mentioned heavy casualties on the side of the security forces (especially Brimob, the police elite mobile brigade) at every attack launched by GAM. A few days ago, following the killing of two policemen in front of a secondary school in Calang, Greater Acheh District (near the capital of the province), the police came back in force and attacked the students who were gathering to register their entrance to a university in Banda Acheh. According to villagers, the policemen had entered Calang to beat up and rob some villagers. Then out of nowhere GAM fighters came and the policemen fled. They were caught up in front of the school and were shot dead. Two M16 guns belonging to the policemen were seized by the GAM assailants. An hour after the incident, Brimob reinforcement came to the Calang secondary school. They started shooting at students  and 3 of them were killed on the spot while 25 others, including three teachers, were severely injured by beating.

So what gives? If they were winning an upper hand, why such brutality? They would have started to win the heart and mind of the people. But the fact is, the Indonesian military has come to the conclusion that Acheh is practically lost. The only way to keep it within the Republic is by force. Internationally, political observers in Washington say that as far as Indonesia is concerned, the tide of sympathy in the international community, especially in the US, is flowing the wrong direction. In fact, as early as November 99, an American academician from San Francisco who visited Jakarta has warned that Indonesia had better watch out on the behavior of its security forces in Acheh. He observed that the Acheh issue has caught up the attention of young activists in the US. This was triggered especially by the kidnap and murder of Jafar Siddiq Hamzah, an Achenese human rights activists based New York, last September. The professor from Berkley said that once such a development is allowed to gain ground, there would be no turning back, the public opinion in the US would change and the Achenese would have very powerful allies in the United States. That warning was ignored by Indonesian leaders, too busy in their own power struggle and the prophecy seems to be coming true for the Achenese. Powerful lobbying is being pursued in the US at every stage. Even the mighty Exxon-Mobil is being forced to account for its complicity in the perpetration of gross human rights violations in Acheh. A large Washington based human rights NGO, the International Labor Rights Fund, has filed a suit against Exxon Mobil Corporation in the Columbia District Court, on behalf of 7 men and 4 women victims of atrocities perpetrated by units of the Indonesian National Army (TNI) hired by Exxon-Mobil to guard its wells and facilities in its North Acheh gas plant.

It seems that the Indonesian military has chosen the wrong pawn in its political power play in Jakarta. Gus Dur may be on the way out, but so is the military. Its political life in Indonesia is running out./PJ

A clarification about the rape by GAM the State Department has accused, in its letter to senator Patrick Leahy:

We have checked it with our friend journalists in Singapore if they knew or aware of any of Singaporean journalists ever investigated the case and reported it in any of Singaporean journals or publications. They said that they are sure no such news in Singaporean media.

We suspected Mr. Gelbard, ex US ambassador to Jkt, was the source of this slanderous news since he was the one who said this.

Mr. Nashiruddin Ahmed et al., the Joint Committee for Security Matters, were able to recollect that in a meeting with Mr. Gelbard at Kuala Tripa Hotel in Banda Acheh on April 5. 2001, Mr. Gelbard had said that he has proofs that GAM has committed atrocities on non acehnese migrants including rape. When Mr. Ahmed et al. requested the proof, Mr. Gelbard said that he has a copy of a Singaporean publication "this big" he pointed out at a magazine. When Mr. Ahmed et al. requested that a copy of the publication be sent or faxed to them, Mr. Gelbard oked it but he never did.

In the meeting, Mr. Gelbard has also shown his juvenilish behavior when he came to defend the ExxonMobil. He asked GAM not to attack ExxonMobil and Mr. Ahmed et al. replied GAM would never attack ExxonMobil. But, Mr. Ahmed et al. used that opportunity to expressed that they were unhappy with the involvement of ExxonMobil in the gross human right violations in Acheh now and before and also ExxonMobil has become a huge military base to which GAM has every right to attack should a military conflict erupt.

To this response, Mr. Gelbard showed his anger by saying more or less like this: "You know the US is a super power. Aren't you afraid to have us angered? We don't want to make enemy, neither do we like to get pushed to have one." 

The words "We don't want to make enemy, neither do we like to get pushed to have one" have been reiterated by the US Embassy Secretary I, Mr. Ted Lyng, in a meeting with GAM a few days ago. (GAM)