It is indeed a historic coincidence that the commemoration of a decade of the Helsinki peace accord for Aceh takes place just two days prior to the commemoration of the 70th year of Indonesian independence and a week after the 48th commemoration of ASEAN.
Hafid Abbas, Jakarta | Opinion | Sat, August 15 2015, 10:16 AM
It is indeed a historic coincidence that the commemoration of a decade of the Helsinki peace accord for Aceh takes place just two days prior to the commemoration of the 70th year of Indonesian independence and a week after the 48th commemoration of ASEAN.
The three commemorations have the common historical background of uplifting human dignity. Their universal spirit should inspire us to explore more greatness for the future.
Ten years ago, Aceh was in a dark era of 30 years of conflict with the government’s military. Decades of exploitation of its rich natural resources, with minimum return to the host communities, which contributed to the wealth and power of the central government and to the alienation of the host populations were the main reasons for its separatist movement under the Free Aceh Movement (GAM).
Military operations led to over 50,000 lives lost on both sides, or equivalent to four or five lives lost every day for 30 years.
Amid such an extremely tense and bloody situation, on Dec. 26, 2004, an earthquake and tsunami devastated Aceh physically, economically, psychologically and socially. About 220,000 were killed or missing, and more than 550,000 were homeless or displaced.
Under such traumatic circumstances, Vice President Jusuf Kalla with the support of then president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono managed to immediately create a new turning point and bridge the multiple complexities of human suffering and tragedy as a unifying factor for peace and dignity.
Facilitated by former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari, the government, represented by then law and human rights minister Hamid Awaludin and GAM’s prime minister Malik Mahmud, agreed to negotiate to end the three decades of conflict.
After five rounds of peace talks between Jan. 25 and August 2005, finally on Aug. 15 that year the Helsinki Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed.
The government and GAM confirmed their commitment to a peaceful, comprehensive and sustainable solution to the conflict in Aceh with dignity for all.
Both sides committed themselves to create conducive conditions in Aceh within the unitary republic. The bloodshed was to stop for the Acehnese to start the road to justice and prosperity.
Yet similar to the commemoration of the 70th year of our independence, such dreams have not been achieved.
Near the end of the 20th century, in 1998, Indonesia was devastated by multidimensional crises socially, economically and politically, which then forced this country to transform itself from a centralized to a decentralized system, from an authoritarian regime to democracy.
Many international scholars predicted doom, gloom and a disintegrated Indonesia like the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia.
These predictions were based on hyperinflation in 1998. But Indonesia bounced back and held a peaceful election in 2004. The World Bank noted: “No country in recent history, let alone one the size of Indonesia, has ever suffered such a dramatic reversal of fortune”.
In 2014, the WB reported Indonesia as the world’s ninth largest economy.
Aceh’s peace momentum could not have been achieved if Indonesia was still in the old era. Aceh and its decade of peace is indeed the product of a new democratic Indonesia.
With all its difficulties today, Aceh’s local administration and the central government should work together for the people’s security, justice and prosperity.
Similarly within ASEAN, in its 48th year the Helsinki MoU for Aceh should be an asset, a living model for lessons learned and possible replication for other parts of ASEAN. Recent tensions include that which has forced thousands of the Rohingya minority to flee Myanmar for neighboring countries.
Latest figures from the International Organization of Migration revealed last March that more than 25,000 Rohingya asylum seekers are now in other ASEAN countries and some 8,000 were still on boats in the Malacca Strait. Of those, 11,941 of them were in Indonesia including over 1,700 in Aceh.
Similarly, lessons from Aceh could be explored for unresolved tension in Mindanao, the Philippines, and in Pattani in southern Thailand. But therein lies the main lesson — that only in Indonesia’s new democratic era was Aceh’s peace possible.
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The writer coordinated implementation of amnesty for all prisoners of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) as then director general for human rights protection under the Law and Human Rights Ministry, a measure stipulated between the Indonesian government and GAM. He is now a member of the National Commission for Human Rights.
