An Acehnese view on the new government [Op-Ed by M. N. Djuli, ex-Aceh
negotiato
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Tapol
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Nov 05, 2009 03:20 PST
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From Joyo
The Jakarta Post Thursday, November 5, 2009
An Acehnese view on the new government
M. N. Djuli, Banda Aceh
The re-election of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) and
his decision to drop Jusuf Kalla (JK) as his vice president and
pick Boediono instead makes Indonesian power politics, to use
the superpower analogy, unipolar. Whether this will be a
negative or positive development for Aceh will be measured by
the commitment of the new government in realizing its promises
as stipulated in the Helsinki Agreement.
Although it doesn't seem to be too relevant now to debate who
was responsible for achieving peace in Aceh, in fact, its true
champion was the people of Aceh.
Both SBY and JK as a team did, of course, hold the key, without
which the peace in Aceh that we all are enjoying today would not
have been possible. Now that their dream team is no more, what
next for the Acehnese?
JK has openly expressed his disappointment in the Acehnese for
giving over 90 percent of their votes to SBY, prompting him to
decry the Acehnese as "ungrateful", forgetting maybe that in
politics there is no such thing as gratitude, there being only
calculated advantages and disadvantages.
Besides, why should the Acehnese be grateful to any of the
national leaders, who were the source of their misery in the
first place? It is the duty of these leaders to rectify the
wrongs committed either by them or by their predecessors that
caused unparalleled suffering to the people of Aceh.
In overwhelmingly placing their trust in SBY, the Acehnese are
in fact showing their political maturity, knowing how to
calculate advantages and disadvantages; in other words, in
"playing smart". Their votes were too few in number to have any
real effect on the result of the election. SBY would have won
even without the Acehnese votes.
But the votes do have a tremendous effect on SBY's personal
prestige as a man of peace, a reformed general.
The Acehnese endorsement gave SBY an additional feather in his
cap, an acknowledgement by those on whom he had once unleashed
50,000 troops to subdue.
Will they be proved right? A handful of representatives in the
House of Representatives (not all from the President's
Democratic Party), and one Acehnese as a Cabinet member who is
in charge of state-owned companies will not have much weight in
policy making. Demanding "payback" from SBY for their
overwhelming support in the election will not make sense either.
In the final analysis, the Acehnese can only base their bet on
their belief that SBY is smart enough to realize that
maintaining and developing peace in Aceh is in the interest of
the Republic itself.
SBY, and thus the central government, should realize that the
signing of the Helsinki Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was a
great victory for the Republic.
The peace agreement was signed after long and hard negotiations,
between equals, on international soil, openly witnessed by the
world community.
For the first time in history, the Acehnese have stated in clear
and unequivocal terms that Aceh is part of the NKRI. The Free
Aceh Movement (GAM), even if not officially disbanded, is fading
away, its armed wing dismantled, its weapons destroyed, its
members dispersed willingly into civil society as ordinary
citizens of the Republic, its leaders becoming government
officials, politicians and businessmen.
Indeed, one side of the opposing parties in the Helsinki peace
negotiations has voluntarily lowered itself to be part of the
other upon the signing of the MoU. The GAM, as officially
certified by the AMM, has fulfilled all its obligations
stipulated in the MoU.
Although there is no longer any possible threat whatsoever
coming from the GAM, and thus any real pressure it could exert
on the central government, it is now the turn of the government
of the Republic to fulfill its part of the bargain.
The central government needs to make sure that the future
generation will not regret the current Aceh population's
decision to sign a peace agreement with the central government,
as my generation questioned the legitimacy of the agreement made
by my father's generation that ended the DI/TII rebellion.
Today, four years after its signing, out of the 13 laws required
to implement the clauses of the Helsinki MoU, only two, i.e. on
the holding of the elections and the formation of local parties,
have been realized. Many other crucial issues are still pending,
such as the formation of the Human Rights Court (Article 2.2),
the Joint Claims Settlement Commission (Article 3.2.6), and the
enactment of the law to govern economic matters (the entire
Article 1.3).
The law on the national TRC, which was passed by the House (DPR)
in 2006, was declared unconstitutional by the Constitutional
Court (MK), and has still not been reintroduced to parliament,
resulting in the postponement of the formation of a local TRC as
stipulated in the Article 2.3 of the MoU.
Even one of the easiest matters to implement, that would cost
the central government next to nothing but be very important for
Aceh, the facility to issue visas on arrival, is not yet in
place at the new and gleaming international airport of Sultan
Iskandar Muda in Banda Aceh, despite the agreements given by the
President that an Immigration Office would be opened at the
airport.
The central government, by delaying the full implementation of
all the clauses of the MoU, is not only endangering the peace
process in Aceh, but risking wasting the great victory it
achieved in Helsinki.
It is lowering the image of the nation in the eyes of the world,
not only as an emerging democracy and an open and just society,
but also as a model in terms of conflict resolution and
post-conflict management.
Ahtisaari may have won the Nobel Peace Prize, but it is up to
Gen. (ret.) Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to grab the title of a real
man of peace, the President of a Republic that all Indonesians
can be proud of, so that we Acehnese can finally say, "we got it
right this time".
The writer is chairman of the Aceh Peace Reintegration Board
(BRA). This is a personal opinion.
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