That hope has faded. Fatimah, who is too scared now to be identified by her real name, has watched the Indonesian Army regain control over her village, making nightly sweeps, threatening human-rights workers and hunting down GAM supporters. (The number of tortured and bullet-ridden corpses arriving at the local morgue has more than doubled in the past month, to nearly one per day.) But GAM itself has grown unruly, corrupt and cruel. The rebels and many of their handpicked local leaders have begun abusing their newfound power–extorting taxes, and skimming local funds, for example. As the Army closes in, some GAM members threaten people who question them–or the idea of independence. “GAM is… already treating people badly,” says Fatimah. “What will happen if we get independence?”
Nobody knows the answer to that question. But it weighs heavily on the minds of political leaders in Jakarta. Resource-rich Aceh is widely seen as the domino that could trigger the disintegration of Indonesia. Back in November such a scenario seemed almost inevitable. Nearly everybody in Aceh supported GAM’s struggle for an Islamic state, the Indonesian Army was retreating and President Abdurrahman Wahid was promising a “referendum.” But enthusiasm for independence is waning. The shift is partly due to Wahid’s policy of carrot (airy promises of cash and justice) and stick (a fierce Army offensive). GAM has added to its woes by imposing hard-line Islamic law even as it plays by rules of its own. Central authority has all but evaporated in some places, and in the vacuum, fear and uncertainty reign. “What we fear,” says one woman from central Aceh, “is that independence will be a transfer of power from one abusive authority to another.”
The Acehnese know something about abuse. For centuries an independent Muslim sultanate, Aceh fought a bitter 100-year war against Dutch colonialists and was one of the first provinces to join Indonesia. Under Sukarno and then Suharto, the government plundered Aceh’s abundant resources and gave little in return. (The Arun oilfields generate $4 million a day, nearly all of which still goes to Jakarta, 1,100 miles away.) When GAM emerged a decade ago, the Army responded with a savagery that deepened people’s desire for independence. Wahid has quietly backed off his referendum offer, but he has pushed a broad autonomy offering a new railroad, 75 percent of all revenues from its resources, and–most importantly–a civilian-military tribunal to prosecute soldiers accused of human-rights abuses.
Nothing has happened yet, except the Indonesian Army has gone back on the offensive. It has pounded the rebels–attacking GAM commander Abdullah Syafi’s base–and civilians, too. An Acehnese member of Parliament and a community activist both turned up dead recently, with signs of military involvement. In north Aceh, where GAM is strong, Army troops have burned rows of houses–leaving dozens of families huddled under huts nearby. “Repression is being used as shock therapy,” says student leader Aguswandi. “The Army wants to scare people so they don’t go for independence.”
The rebels are doing a pretty good job of that themselves. They have upped the premium on their “war taxes” and shown about as much leniency as Mafia loan sharks. “Everybody pays, no matter what,” says one villager. “If you can’t pay, you run away.” The same goes for GAM’s “borrowing” habits: civilians have no choice but to hand over their vehicles, but if they ask for them back, they are berated for disloyalty. Perhaps the most damning claim, corroborated by diplomats and human-rights workers, is that the rebels manipulated some villagers into leaving their homes so they could win international aid and sympathy. A GAM supporter in Banda Aceh admits that abuses occur, but he says the “real GAM” is not to blame. These acts, he says, are done by new recruits, splinter groups or undercover Army soldiers trying to “create a situation where Acehnese hate each other.” Whoever it is, it feels more like extortion than revolution.
Given such misdeeds, the rebels’ embrace of a quasi-fundamentalist brand of Islam is exacerbating divisions within Aceh. Nearly all Acehnese are Muslim, and most applaud the revival of their religious identity: Islamic boarding schools are flooded with new students and, in nearly every town, Muslim kids are collecting donations for the construction of new mosques. The conflict emerges when the rebels, backed by radical students and handpicked Muslim ulamas, impose their own hard-line interpretation of Islamic law. The students, known as the Taliban, are not as fundamentalist as their Afghan counterparts. But they often act as the morality police, doing sweeps in search of thieves, prostitutes, illicit sex or women without the jilbab. Students scold offenders, shave their heads or parade them through town wearing a sign announcing their crime: “I am a prostitute.” In the case of more serious crimes, which are passed along to secret GAM tribunals, punishment has allegedly included execution.
Even for many devout Muslims, this arbitrary application of Islamic law seems more like a return to the past than a step toward the future. “How can they say they are applying Islamic law when there are no clear regulations or institutions?” asks Tengku Syamaun Rasyid, an influential 50-year-old Muslim teacher, or ulama, who runs a school in a conflict zone outside the coastal town of Lhokseumawe. “It’s a dilemma. But people are too afraid to criticize.” The only Acehnese speaking out are a handful of women’s activists who feel that religion is being used as a weapon against women. “In this system, everybody becomes a policeman,” says Suraiya Kamaruzzaman, the 31-year-old executive director of a women’s group called Flower Aceh. “When we say ‘stop the violence against women,’ everyone agrees with us. But when we don’t agree with the application of Islamic law, they say we are bad Muslims.” In Aceh, that’s a dangerous thing to be. Just to be safe, Suraiya–who used to conduct workshops with women in villages–hardly ventures beyond her home and office.
Neither GAM nor the Indonesian Army really rules Aceh these days. Fear does. In desperation, student and civic leaders have called for a ceasefire, with GAM’s ostensible support; but the plan has little chance for success. “The safest way to live in Aceh is either to be with the military or the rebels,” says Nasrullah Dahlawy, a proindependence activist. “The middle is a very dangerous position.” But that, sadly, is where most Acehnese–like Fatimah–are trapped. And what most of them want now, even more than independence, even more than Islamic state, is to live without fear.
