Abstract: Popular movements in Aceh and Papua seeking separation from Indonesia must beunderstood in the context of earlier nationalist movements in history, including Indonesia’s ownmovement for independence from the Netherlands. Movements in Aceh and Papua have built asense of identity, considering themselves to be ‘notion-states’ even if they are not yet nation-states.This process parallels Indonesian identity formation in the early twentieth century. Aceh originallycombined local, Indonesian and Islamic identities, but intrusion by central government institutionssparked a defensive nationalist reaction, which was stimulated further by uneven economic devel-opment and by repressive tactics by the centre. Papua was incorporated into Indonesia by meansthat led local people to believe they had been denied their right to self-determination, spurring ahistorical sense of grievance and a collective identity of shared suffering much like that in Aceh. Bythe end of Sukarno’s Guided Democracy and Suharto’s New Order, both territories had passed apoint of no return in their nationalism. Repressive tactics have failed to contain aspirations forindependence; a new approach based on dialogue is needed.
Keywords: Aceh, East Timor, Indonesia, nationalism, Papua, separatism
Introduction
If any slogan can be said to sum up the Indo-nesian national revolution, it is ‘From Sabangto Merauke’, a geographical assertion of theIndonesian national space.1 Under this slogan,Indonesian nationalists began to organiseagainst Dutch colonial rule in the first half ofthe twentieth century, fought a war of indepen-dence in 1945–1949, and then campaignedfor the transfer of Papua (Irian Jaya) from Dutchto Indonesian rule from 1950 to 1962.2 Underthe same slogan, the unity of the unitaryRepublic of Indonesia has been defended eversince.
Yet the slogan can also be used as an expres-sion of the secessionist tendency within modernIndonesia. Sabang is Indonesia’s westernmosttown, lying off the coast of Aceh, where inde-pendence sentiments run strong. Merauke liesin the south-eastern corner of Papua, the prov-ince where the demand for independence isstronger still.
Movements for an independent Papua andAceh are generally described as ‘separatist’efforts to divide Indonesia, with their armedwings labelled under the Suharto regime as littlemore than ‘security disruptors’ (gerakan penga-cau keamanan). Yet it is more useful to regardthem as nationalist movements, which seek todefine their nation not as Indonesia, but as theirown province. Scholars of the history of nation-alism have characterised secession movementsas the latest wave in the two-century history ofnationalism (Smith, 1982; Anderson, 1991).Indeed, it is remarkable the extent to which newethnic nationalisms parallel the earlier emer-gence of an Indonesian nationalism that soughtto separate from the Netherlands. ‘Indonesia’,both as a concept and as a state, is the inventionof a nationalist movement; so too with Aceh andPapua. It is almost as remarkable how closelythe discourse of the Indonesian centre has par-alleled that of Dutch colonialists who refused torecognise that their East Indies colony wasbecoming an Indonesian nation in the minds of
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its people (Webster, 1998–1999). Nevertheless,it is in the minds of the people that nations exist.As Mohammad Hatta (1972: 570–571) pointedout: ‘Once a nation has become convinced ofthe rightness of its cause, the ideal of indepen-dence can no longer be suppressed.’
Although Indonesia has often been viewed asa state in danger of disintegration, it has shownan impressive ability to invoke unity. Despitenumerous conflicts in early Indonesian history,secessionist sentiment was very low. The 1950declaration of a Republic of the South Moluccaswas primarily a leftover of the revolution inwhich Ambonese leaders loyal to continuedDutch rule attempted to resist incorporationinto the new Republic – a secession that lackedsupport from many Ambonese (Chauvel, 1985;Anderson, 1998). Early rebellions in Aceh, WestJava and South Sulawesi occurred under thebanner of the Darul Islam, a movement thataimed at reinventing the whole of Indonesia asa state guided by Islamic principles. Uprisingsstarting in 1958 in West Sumatra and NorthSulawesi explicitly rejected secession. Ratherthan demanding independence for the prov-inces concerned, these rebellions raised thebanner of the Revolutionary Government of theRepublic of Indonesia (PRRI) (Mackie, 1980;Kahin and Kahin, 1995). Papuan secessionism,rooted in the years before the Indonesian take-over, was for many years the only movementexplicitly seeking separation from Indonesia.
Only after the Indonesian state changed theconstitutional definition of its territorial extentby annexing East Timor in 1975–1976 was thereanother challenge to Indonesian unity. EastTimorese nationalists had already declaredtheir independence when Indonesian troopsinvaded. Their resistance from 1975 to 1999was essentially a defensive nationalism thataimed at the restoration of that independence.The expansion beyond the original Indonesiannational space, however, opened the door forregional challenges to Indonesian unity: the firstexplicit declaration of Acehnese independencecame in 1976. Finally, the success of East Timorin regaining its independence after the fall of theSuharto regime has served as a demonstrationto other restive regions. Civil society in Acehbegan to organise around the demand for areferendum on independence. Papuan leaderscalled for a dialogue that might lead to inde-
pendence. Demands for secession were heardfor the first time in other areas: Riau, Sulawesi,the South Moluccas again and even Bali.
Still, the real force of secessionist nationalismremains at the two extremes of Indonesia: Acehand Papua. It is important that these two move-ments be considered as nationalist movementsin the same way that the movement for Indone-sian independence was a nationalist movement.In both territories, as in Dutch-ruled Indonesia,a nationalist movement built a sense of identityas a nation, even before gaining the apparatusof an independent state. Not yet a nation-state,Indonesia was already a real nation well before1949 in the minds of opinion leaders andincreasingly among the bulk of its inhabitants.Especially in the years 1945–1949, it might bedubbed a notion-state, a people who believedthemselves to be a nation and who thereforeacted in defence of their nation against anattempted Dutch recolonisation. Neither Acehnor Papua is a nation-state, but both havepassed a point of no return in their nationalism:they are already notion-states. This is not some-thing that can be solved through a repressiveapproach.
Nationalist movements are not groundedonly in space, in their homelands. They are alsolocated in time, looking to history as a vitalcomponent of the nation, reading the nationback through time in order to assert that it has‘always existed’ (Hobsbawm and Ranger, 1983).They look also to the future, drawing much oftheir strength from the promise that the futurethey can provide will be a better one. As such,while focusing on territorially defined national-ism in Aceh and Papua, this paper will alsogive attention to the historical construction ofidentities.
The invention of Indonesia
Indonesia is a twentieth-century invention. Itsindependent governments often spoke of theircountry as the inheritor of such ancient empiresas Srivijaya and Majapahit, but evidence thatthe archipelago formed a precolonial politicalunity is slim to non-existent. The need to recalltraditional glories was less grounded in accuratehistory than in the need of Indonesian nation-alists to show that ‘natives’ were as civilised astheir Dutch colonisers. Edward Said calls this
‘reinscription’, the emotional need to find pre-colonial traditions, ‘the rediscovery and repa-triation of what has been suppressed in thenatives’ past by the process of imperialism’(Said, 1993: 210).
Indonesia was an anthropological term, ren-dered political starting in the 1920s by a nation-alist movement that flowered in the Dutch EastIndies in the early part of the century. Theword’s importance lay in its use to describe anation, rather than a collection of Dutch colo-nies that happened to be contiguous throughthe vagaries of imperialism’s division of theglobe. The subversiveness of the word ‘Indone-sia’ can be seen in the adamant refusal of thebeleaguered Dutch government to employ it, aslate as 1941.
Indonesian nationalist streams coalesced in1928 with the ‘Youth Oath’, which pledgedsupport for ‘one country, Indonesia; one lan-guage, Indonesian; one people, the Indonesianpeople’. It may also be worth noting that thesenew Indonesian nationalists did not hearkenback to Majapahit, but were engaged in a self-conscious invention of something new. The factthat both Indonesian nationalism and Indonesiaitself were constructs does not, however, lessenthe very real commitment to Indonesia as afocus of loyalty.
It only remained to define the bounds of thisnew nation. Jacques Bertrand (2004) has arguedthat the Indonesian ‘national model’ was devel-oped during a series of ‘critical junctures’ begin-ning with the Indonesian revolution in 1945–1949. As part of the formation of this originalnational model, the territorial extent of Indone-sia was defined. Two concepts contended,based respectively on cultural and political con-siderations. In 1945, the Preparatory Body forIndonesian Independence voted for a GreaterIndonesia encompassing the entire Indonesiancultural area (including British Malaya andBorneo, and Portuguese Timor as well as theDutch East Indies). This concept, which can bedescribed as ‘ethnic nationalism’, had currencyeven outside Indonesia: Philippine PresidentDiosdado Macapagal’s advocacy of ‘Maphil-indo’ in 1963–1965 was one echo. Within Indo-nesia, this vision stressed assimilation ofminorities into a new Indonesian identity, whichin practice often meant informal Javanese domi-nance. However, Indonesia ended up being
defined according to the second vision, as thepolitical successor state to the Dutch EastIndies. The familiar schoolroom map of Indone-sia became ‘a powerful emblem for the anti-colonial nationalisms being born’ (Anderson,1991: 175). This is important because it alsooffered an alternative definition of who wasIndonesian, based not on blood but on territory– in other words, a ‘civic nationalism’. An Indo-nesian was not someone who was part of theMalay world, but an inhabitant of the territorybounded by Indonesia’s borders. The twovisions would contend throughout Indonesia’sindependent history, and their interplay didmuch to shape secessionist conflicts.
Indonesia has often been characterised as a‘plural society’ in which different ethnic groupslived side by side, but had little interaction (Fur-nivall, 1939). David Brown (1994) calls theplural society analysis an outgrowth of a primor-dialist view of ethnicity, one with strong impli-cations for state strategies in encouraging anauthoritarian state. He does not accept allaspects of the primordialist approach, but seeksto marry it to the situationalist alternative(ethnicity-as-construct) by focusing on the roleof the state. Ethnic separation movements, inthis conception, are defensive reactions toencroachments by the state, which seeks‘increasingly systematic control over peripheralregions through the expansion of their adminis-trative bureaucracies, their armies and theireducational systems’ (Brown, 1994: 1). Ethnicconsciousness rises on the periphery inresponse.
The plural society argument began with thecolonial period. Where the precolonial patternof the archipelago had been one of extensivetrade and cultural mixing, the Dutch East IndiaCompany’s policy of monopolising trade builtnew barriers between ethnic groups. In the past,it had been much easier to cross ethnic lines(conversion to Islam in Borneo, for instance,might make one into a Malay). Ethnic divisionswere entrenched under Dutch divide-and-ruletactics and by Dutch preservationist rhetoric,which sought to codify indigenous traditions.The Dutch also employed ‘loyal minorities’ tokeep down not only the Javanese, but also otherpeoples such as the Minangkabau. Dutchemployment of ‘loyal minorities’ differed fromthose of other colonisers in the region in a
number of respects. Generally these were Chris-tianised peoples such as the Ambonese, set upover Muslim neighbours. In Java, however, theJavanese traditional rulers were brought in aspartners at first to rule their own people andlater as a counterweight to Islamic modernism.It was far easier for a Javanese to advance in theDutch East Indies than for a Burmese in BritishBurma; Javanese even outnumbered Ambonesein the Royal Netherlands Indies Army. TheDutch, having solidified ethnic categories, wenton to argue that their rule was the only thingpreventing inter-ethnic civil war in Indonesia.
Two patterns of ethnic tension were thusestablished: Christianised ‘loyal minorities’against the rest, and Javanese elites (the priyayi)against the rest. The ‘loyal minorities’ scatteredthroughout the archipelago often resisted Indo-nesian nationalism. The priyayi, in contrast, sawthemselves as leaders of the revolution, leadingto tensions between the ethnic and civil nation-alist visions. Both nationalist streams saw theneed for integrationist nation-building strategiesafter independence. Where the two streams dis-agreed, however, conflict resulted, as in the1958 PRRI uprising in which civic nationalistsin the Masyumi and Socialist parties madecommon cause with regional military com-manders.
The centre responded in this case in a purelymilitary fashion, moving swiftly to put down therebellion. The PRRI was not an ethnic secession-ist movement, but the ethnic nationalists whoheld power interpreted it that way. Thus, theresult was a more repressive system by thecentre. The main result of the regional rebellionswas to change the way the state was organised(Kahin and Kahin, 1995). Martial law wasimposed in 1957, ‘Guided Democracy’replaced the parliamentary system in 1959, andthe army under Suharto seized power in 1965–1966. Ethnic nationalists were now firmly incharge. With 45% of the population, the Jav-anese held 50% of leadership positions in therevolutionary period. This climbed to 66% bythe ‘Guided Democracy’ period. The post-1965‘New Order’ regime took neo-patrimonialism tonew heights. Ethnic tensions were handledthrough the choking off of public participationfrom about 1970 onwards, which included aban on public discussions of ethnic, religious orracial disputes. Javanese dominance continued
to escalate: Javanese officers went from 66% in1965 to 80% in 1978 (Brown, 1994: 128–129).With Javanese ethnic nationalism dominant atthe centre, it is hardly surprising that other formsof ethnic nationalism have risen in reaction inthe periphery.
Under the New Order, the state responded toregional ethnic tensions by rejecting their valid-ity. The form of that rejection varied. It is goingmuch too far to suggest that ‘the Indonesianmilitary has always treated the military option asa last resort’, but there is some truth to theassertion ‘that “bargaining” and “coercion/violence” represent the extreme ends of a rangeof response alternatives [and] in practice all areused in different combinations’ (Kuntoro-Jaktiand Simatupang, 1987: 99). The military (almostinvariably given the job of containing local con-flicts) moves rapidly and easily from one type ofaction to another. One example is the use of‘territorial’ troops assigned to do developmentwork at the local level. Development projectsaim to win the loyalty of villagers, but they alsoserve as a means of surveillance and control,deny village resources to dissident forces, andcan rapidly shift over to combat operations(Amnesty International, 1993).
The persistence of resistance in Aceh
Aceh, located at the extreme north-western tipof Sumatra, is well-known for its long historyof devout Islam and resistance to outside rule.It was a flourishing Sultanate in precolonialdays. An 1871 British–Dutch treaty consignedAceh to the colonial sphere of influence of theNetherlands. The Dutch quickly moved to incor-porate Aceh into their empire by force, aseconomic penetration was prevented by theentrenched position of American and Britishmerchants (Reid, 1969). In the course of anunexpectedly long and bloody war, traditionalleaders (ulebalang) were defeated, but resis-tance was carried on by religious leaders(ulama) who gave the war an increasinglyIslamic character. Eventually, the Dutch turnedto a strategy of allying with the ulebalangagainst the ulama. Large-scale resistance con-tinued until 1913; many Acehnese say theywere never conquered. The result was a stronganti-Dutch feeling and a reinforcement of exist-ing Acehnese allegiance to Islam, with the
ulebalang confirmed in their positions by theDutch but stripped of their popular legitimacy(Reid, 1969).
Aceh fought fervently in the 1945–1949revolution. It was the only part of Indonesianot over-run by Dutch troops. During thisperiod, ‘Acehnese leaders thought and acted inAcehnese, Islamic and Indonesian terms, withlittle awareness of the possibility – and cer-tainly no sense of any inevitability – of con-flicts among the three’ (Morris, 1985: 83).Leadership belonged to the All-Aceh Union ofUlama (PUSA) led by Daud Beureueh. As aprovince of the Republic, Aceh was exercisingeffective self-rule in wartime conditions. Theparadox of the revolutionary period is that astrong Acehnese nationalism emerged underthe leadership of PUSA, which declared Islama fundamental tenet of what it was to beAcehnese. At the same time, there was anequally fervid commitment to the Indonesiannational cause. ‘The loyalty of the public tothe Republic of Indonesia is neither pretendednor fabricated but rather is honest and sincereloyalty which comes from pure heart-felt com-mitment as well as from firm calculations andconsiderations’, Daud Beureueh declared. Hecontinued, ‘the Acehnese people are con-vinced that separate independence, region byregion, state by state, can never lead to endur-ing independence’ (Beureueh, quoted in Sjam-suddin, 1985: 99).
Problems were not long coming. Theyinvolved the alternative, non-Indonesian identi-ties: Acehnese and Islamic. First, Jakartarevoked Aceh’s provincial status in 1951,adding it to North Sumatra, controlled by Chris-tian Bataks in Medan. Second, government eco-nomic policies worked to Aceh’s disadvantage.Third, the centre failed to make what PUSAconsidered adequate steps towards theentrenchment of Islam, as in the view of civicnationalists such as Hatta this might antagonisenon-Muslim minorities. The government evenintervened in the running of local religiousschools. Fourth, Aceh’s isolation from the rest ofthe archipelago ended, and the central govern-ment began to intrude its institutions. All thisseemed like a betrayal of the revolution toPUSA. In 1953 then, Daud Beureueh launcheda rebellion under the banner of the DarulIslam movement. This was not an attempt at
secession, but rather an attempt to affectnational politics.
Jakarta’s response was not calculated toreduce tensions. Jakarta recognised that popularsupport lay with Daud Beureueh, so relied onrepressive military force. Provocatively from theAcehnese perspective, if reasonably enoughfrom the vantage point of Jakarta, the troopsused were from North Sumatra (Sastroamidjojo,1979). The invasion of Christian Batak soldiersis likely to have increased separatist sentimentstill further. So too are violations of humanrights by soldiers. In 1955 Daud Beureueh’smovement redefined the Islamic Republic ofIndonesia as a federation, with Aceh a Constitu-ent State. At the same time, however, DaudBeureueh saw his position as a national playerwithin the Darul Islam, taking it upon himself toannounce a new cabinet for the movement inwhich he was vice-president and Acehnese heldfive of 14 cabinet posts (Sjamsuddin, 1985). Ifthis indicated some divergence from the DarulIslam centre, it was also evidence of continuingAcehnese loyalty to the idea of Indonesia. DaudBeureueh later signed Aceh up as one of 10constituent states in the federalist UnitedRepublic of Indonesia (Republik PersatuanIndonesia), an alliance with the PRRI remnants,including anti-Jakarta Batak and Minangkabau(Kahin and Kahin, 1995).
The Acehnese revolt was settled by stages inwhich all of Daud Beureueh’s original regionaldemands were eventually met. As each conces-sion was made, more of Daud Beureueh’s sup-porters ended their rebellion. So while he mighthave insisted on Indonesia-wide changes, themovement proved in the end to value Acehnesenationalism more highly. Aceh was granted itsown military command, then provincial status.The new Acehnese military command renewedthe informal barter trade. Finally came status asa ‘special region’ with the right to protect reli-gious and cultural affairs, and finally, to enticeDaud Beureueh out of the bush, Jakartaaccepted Islamic law for Aceh in 1962.
The settlement was a victory for Acehnesesentiment, without any abdication of the idea ofbeing Indonesian as well as Acehnese. Underthe New Order, however, Aceh’s status as a‘special region’ was stripped of its meaning.Like all other provinces, Aceh’s governor andlocal administrators were appointed by Jakarta.
Religious education of Acehnese children wasdisallowed. Jakarta prevented Aceh from imple-menting Islamic law as promised. The ulama,articulators of the Acehnese national identity,were displaced by ‘Acehnese technocrats whosepositions in the government were based onreceiving higher secular education’ (Morris,1985: 1). The New Order’s national visionstressed economic development (pemban-gunan). Accordingly, the local technocratsassailed Aceh’s Islamic backwardness. At thesame time, their poor relations with the ulamaleft them dependent, like Jakarta technocrats,on the New Order regime. The ulama weremore and more alienated by the regime, whichwas moving against political Islam.
Paradoxically, this economic emphasis con-tributed to a resurgence of Acehnese national-ism. Massive resource development in Aceh,particularly of natural gas, has not deliveredsignificant improvements in the local standardof living. In 1980, the province’s per capitaincome ranked fourth in the country, but itshousehold income index stood 21st (Brown,1994: 298). The New Order regime partlysoared on the strength of foreign support,benefiting from an oil and gas boom drawnoverwhelmingly from three provinces: East Kali-mantan, Riau and Aceh. Largely on the strengthof Acehnese liquid natural gas (LNG), Indonesiabecame the world’s largest exporter (Kell,1995). Aceh’s LNG earnings were pegged atUS$1.2 billion annually, with only 1.6% of thatreturned to the province (Kearney, 1999). Manysaw this as ‘internal colonialism’. With the alli-ance with Jakarta technocrats apparentlyreaping no benefits, the obvious alternative wasa secessionist response. Aceh has also beensubjected to an increasing influx of Javaneseofficials and economic migrants, a natural out-growth of nation building on the ethnic-nationalist assimilation strategy. Acehnese canclearly see the evidence of other ethnic groupsarriving, getting rich and contributing nothinglocally except pollution. It is perhaps not sur-prising that the great majority of guerrilla activ-ity in the 1970s and again in the 1990s was inthe northern coastal areas where uneven devel-opment was at its starkest.
This economic theme was strongly stressedby the Gerakan Aceh Merdeka (GAM), headedby Hasan di Tiro, a former Darul Islam repre-
sentative to the United Nations. Di Tiro declaredthe independence of ‘Acheh Sumatra’ on 4December 1976, employing a heavy dose ofnationalist and internal-colonial rhetoric:
We, the people of Acheh, Sumatra, exercisingour right to self-determination, and protectingour historic right of eminent domain to ourfatherland, do hereby declare ourselves freeand independent from all political control ofthe foreign regime of Jakarta and the alienpeople of the island of Java. . . . During theselast thirty years the people of Acheh, Sumatrahave witnessed how our fatherland has beenexploited and driven into ruinous conditionsby the Javanese neo-colonialists: they havestolen our properties; they have robbed us fromour livelihood; they have abused the educationof our children; they have put our people inchains of tyranny, poverty and neglect. (di Tiro,1985: 2)
The GAM had moved several steps furtherthan Daud Beureueh ever intended. Some of the1950s rebel leaders, in fact, opposed it strongly(Saleh, 1992). It is for the first time an organisa-tion grounded squarely in Acehnese ethnicnationalism, with the old loyalty to Indonesiastripped away. In GAM rhetoric, Indonesia isderided as an artificial country that shouldnever have come into existence. Di Tiro arguedthat the GAM had been successful despite mili-tary defeat in the 1970s, as it ‘has successfullyrevived Acehnese historic consciousness. . . . Politically we have won; the only thingthat separates us from victory is the guns’ (diTiro, 1985: 2).
The GAM returned in greater force in 1989,with some guerrillas having in the meantimeundergone training in Libya. This time, accord-ing to the regional army commander, the GAM‘had a concept, had guns, and on the groundhad the masses’ (Kell, 1995: 66–67). The centremet this new uprising with ‘shock therapy’ ledby KOPASSUS (Special Forces Command),which included ‘fence-of-legs’ counter-insurgency operations pioneered in East Timor,3
the display of corpses, mass killings of an esti-mated 2000 people and other atrocities. Thecounter-insurgency campaign was a militarysuccess, but a political defeat for the New Orderregime. While it concentrated on a repressivemilitary response, forces within Acehnese civil
society were becoming increasingly disillu-sioned with the Indonesian state. Acehnesenationalism had grown massively as a defensivereaction to the ‘security approach’ of the Indo-nesian military. At the same time, the feeling ofbeing Indonesian had declined. Acehnesepeople ‘had woven a hidden transcript of sharedsuffering, alienation from the Indonesian state,and anger at their treatment by the armedforces’ (Bertrand, 2004: 173–174). Nationalistswere quick to seize the window of opportunitycreated with the fall of the New Order in 1998.A year later, 1 million people (a quarter of theprovincial population) rallied in Banda Acehdemanding a referendum like the one promisedin East Timor. It was a solid show of strength bya vibrant civil society sector that had grown upin the space between the Indonesian state andthe GAM.
Acehnese civil society organisations werepart of an international civil society of non-governmental organisations that played anactive role in the attempt to resolve the Acehconflict through dialogue. In May 2000, aftertalks mediated by the Swiss-based HenryDunant Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue,President Abdurrahman Wahid’s governmentsigned a ‘humanitarian pause’ with GAM rep-resentatives. However, violence increased onboth sides. President Megawati Sukarnoputri’sgovernment offered special autonomy, a largershare of natural resources income to the provin-cial government and local Islamic law. But bothsides remained adamant on the demand forindependence, which had become the psycho-logical heart of the issue.
The basic conflict was that the Indonesiangovernment was willing to concede autonomy,but wanted this to be the final solution. GAMwould accept autonomy as an interim step, butclung to its demand for independence. InAugust 2002, Indonesia delivered an ultimatum,giving GAM six months to give up their demandfor independence or face a military solutionimposed by force. But international pressurewas able to achieve a new deal. Just before thetwo sides were scheduled to meet in Tokyo, agroup of donor countries met and agreed to theaid that would be needed to finance any agree-ment. By the end of the year, Indonesian gov-ernment and GAM reached a Cessation ofHostilities Agreement that took autonomy as the
basis for reaching a settlement and promised afull dialogue and greater local share of resourcewealth (Sastrohandoyo, 2003). But the basicdisagreement, GAM’s demand for indepen-dence, remained. ‘I can not tolerate [separat-ism] any longer’, Megawati said in May 2003 asshe ordered the army into action (KAIROS,2003). With 50 000 troops, this renewed warwas Indonesia’s largest military operation sincethe invasion of East Timor. Within a month, anestimated 40 000 civilians were displaced and342 civilians were confirmed dead by localhuman rights groups (Asia Human Rights Com-mission, 2003; KONTRAS Aceh, 2003). Ineffect, martial law meant a beefed-up armyoffensive, the removal of international aidworkers in favour of agencies of the Indonesiangovernment (a party to the conflict), a crack-down on peaceful dissent, and the politicalscreening of all civil servants leading to thereplacement of ‘unreliable’ officials, in manycases by retired army officers. The offer ofspecial autonomy was undercut by a return to aSuharto-era security approach likely to increaseAcehnese resentments and thus prove counter-productive. Aceh had been alienated step bystep from the Indonesian national project since1949. A similar process took place in Papuaover a shorter period.
Papua is separated from the Indonesian main-stream by cleavages of race and religion.However, this alone does not make it certain toseparate, as much of eastern Indonesia is at leastpartly Melanesian and Christian. The cleavageshave become salient under additional chal-lenges from Indonesian nationalism, in the formof demographic pressures, economic exploita-tion, human rights abuses and a clash of histori-cal narratives.
The case of Papua has quite a different historyfrom that of Aceh. Dutch New Guinea wasneglected, used by the colonial governmentmainly as a prison camp for Indonesian nation-alists. The internment of many leaders theregave Papua (and its swampy south-easterncorner around Merauke in particular) a centralplace in the nationalist imagination. National-ists strenuously objected to Dutch moves to
exclude the territory from independent Indone-sia. When the Netherlands finally agreed toIndonesian independence in 1949, it decided toleave Papua out of the transfer of sovereignty. Inthis way, the Dutch kept a toehold in the Asia–Pacific area and a glimmer of their colonialmission (Lijpardt, 1966). There was also thepromise of oil and minerals. This problem ofdelayed decolonisation ruined hopes forDutch–Indonesian post-war cooperation. Nostream of Indonesian nationalism could acceptthe continued existence of Dutch colonialism inthe archipelago. Allowing Papua to choose itsfuture would even threaten the fabric of theexisting state. ‘The application of the Nether-lands’ concept of self-determination with regardto West Irian’, Foreign Minister Subandrio toldthe United Nations, ‘would mean in fact that weshould also accept the same concept withregard to the other islands or regions of Indone-sia and consequently accept the disintegrationof the Indonesian National State’ (Subandrio,cited in Osborne, 1985: 21). As efforts at theUnited Nations failed, Indonesia prepared forwar, which furthered the militarisation of thewhole country. Sukarno’s Indonesia followed apolicy of brinkmanship, which eventuallyforced American intervention in the interests ofmaintaining regional stability, and a 1962agreement for a phased handover of Papua toIndonesia. The agreement provided for an ‘actof free choice’ after a period of Indonesian rulein which the inhabitants would be given thechance to express their opinion, but this wasprimarily an attempt to save Dutch face.4 Thisomission would not have mattered if thePapuans had been Indonesia’s ‘brothers andsisters’, as argued by Jakarta, or if they had beenpassive stone age tribes, the apparent view inWashington. However, the years leading up to1962 had seen the emergence of a distinctiveand relatively new Papuan identity.
Papuan nationalism has been traced back tothe Koreri movement, a millenarian group thatfought Japanese invaders and invented theMorning Star flag that has become the centralsymbol of Papuan nationalism. Political partiesquickly began to be formed in Papua – someaccepting Dutch and others Indonesian patron-age, but all of them essentially elite assertionsof Papuan identity. In 1961, a National Com-mittee was formed by Papuan elites, who
echoed the Indonesian Youth Oath in a decla-ration of their new nation. They agreed on anew name, West Papua; a national flag; and anational anthem. In retrospect, the date thePapuan flag first flew has been asserted asPapuan Independence Day. On the eve of thetransfer to United Nations control, three-quarters of the bureaucracy was Papuan(Robie, 1989: 59). Dutch policies had donemuch to foster Papuan nationalism, alongremarkably similar lines to the earlier emer-gence of Indonesian nationalism. On the otherhand, the emerging elites displayed a strongsentiment against becoming part of Indonesia,with most preferring a period of Dutch rulefollowed by independence, perhaps in federa-tion with Australian New Guinea.
Papuan elites responded to the Indonesiantakeover by accepting it but demanding theirnational symbols (the flag and anthem) berespected and the promised plebiscite be heldin 1963 (Savage, 1978; Osborne, 1985). Indo-nesian officials showed striking insensitivitytowards a people they believed themselves tobe liberating from colonial rule. On the dayafter receiving the transfer of sovereignty, Indo-nesia’s Culture Minister presided over abonfire of Papuan flags, schoolbooks and cul-tural items (Anti-Slavery Society, 1990). Thissort of behaviour, combined with the immedi-ate abolition of Papuan political institutionsand parties and the imposition of ‘GuidedDemocracy’, can only be viewed as theattempt to pursue assimilationist nationalism. Itis hardly surprising that under this type ofrepression (and associated human rights viola-tions) Papuan nationalism soared. Forces con-tributing to early identity formation underDutch rule accelerated under Indonesian rule,spurred by Indonesian officials’ refusal to viewthe Papuans as equals.
As a result, even pro-Indonesian Papuansbecame opponents. They included the firstIndonesian-appointed governor, Eliezer Bonay,who was quickly disillusioned by the Indone-sian presence: ‘as soon as the Indonesiansarrived in our country, totally unexpected thingsbegan to happen. There were numerous brutali-ties, thefts, torture, maltreatment, many thingsthat had not happened before. . . . When theIndonesians came, they took literally every-thing’ (Bonay, cited in Budiardjo and Liong,
1988: 17). In 1965, the Organisasi PapuaMerdeka (OPM, Free Papua Movement) wasestablished. When the ‘act of free choice’ wasfinally held in 1969, it became clear that novote against Indonesia would be tolerated (Salt-ford, 2002). Allegedly the Papuans were noteducated enough to be permitted a direct vote,but had to take part in a ‘traditional’musyawarah (consultation, traditional in Javaand hence in all Indonesia under the assimila-tionist national vision). The unanimous vote ofdelegates for Indonesia was considered toinstantly have made all Papuans full Indone-sians, however. Thus, a direct vote could beheld in the 1971 national elections.
The ‘act of free choice’, by extinguishingdreams of independence and increasing Indo-nesian penetration to the village level, para-doxically solidified Papuan nationalism. Duringthe consultation stage, the tribes of the WisselLakes region rose up in a new type of rebellion.Through perceived repression and denial ofindigenous rights, Jakarta was stimulating thecreation of a defensive Papuan nationalism thatcut across ethnic lines. Elite national conscious-ness, bit by bit, was transformed into massnational consciousness.
The next step was a declaration of indepen-dence ‘from Numbay [Jayapura] to Merauke’ byOPM leader Seth Rumkorem (1970). Repeatedclashes have taken place ever since, with eachact of violence by the armed forces seeminglyincreasing Papuan resentment. The OPM usedboth traditional religious custom and Christian-ity as mobilising factors. It was able to sustainguerrilla resistance thanks to a high degree ofpopular support, favourable jungle terrain andthe availability of sympathetic refuges across theborder in Papua New Guinea.
Indonesian intrusion has come mainly in theform of natural resource exploitation and migra-tion. Both intrusions into what had becomeseen as the Papuan homeland stimulated resent-ment. Mineral development is led by Freeport’sgiant copper and gold development in the southcentral mountains, Indonesia’s largest taxpayer(Leith, 2003). Forestry is another area of rapidencroachment, especially as more accessibleforests in Sumatra and Kalimantan aredevoured. This is especially threatening topeople such as the Asmat of the Merauke area,whose livelihood is based on sago trees as a
source of food and carvings from ironwoodtrees. Papua is one of the main export-generating provinces of Indonesia; however,like Aceh, few benefits can be seen flowing tothe people.
Papua is a major destination for the transmi-gration programme. This programme’s targets,although rarely met, are seen to threaten thesurvival of the Papuan peoples. Numerically, thegreater demographic threat is spontaneousmigration from Sulawesi, Maluku and Java intourban areas, where non-Papuan migrants fill themuch-resented economic niche occupied byethnic Chinese in Java. There are an estimated 1million migrants and 1.6 million indigenousPapuans in the province, with the major townsalready showing a migrant majority (Defert,1992: 331–355; Bertrand, 2004: 152). Evenapparently well-meaning Indonesian develop-ment programmes have caused problemsthrough their perceived lack of sensitivity toPapuan culture. Papuan culture has been at theheart of the current generation of elite resistance.
Integration in Indonesia, it seems, has donelittle to substitute pan-Indonesian for Papuansentiment; quite the reverse, in fact. The feelingof being Indonesian, never strong in Papua tobegin with, has been eroded and a much stron-ger Papuan identity formed through a sharedmemory of suffering (Sekretariat Keadilan danPerdamaian, Keuskupan Jayapura, 1999–2003).After the fall of Suharto, 100 Papuan leadersfrom provincial and district administrations toldIndonesian President B.J. Habibie that theunanimous demand of Papuans was for inde-pendence (Mote, 2001). In 2000, two nationalcongresses in Jayapura formed the PresidiumDewan Papua (Papuan Council Presidium), thelargest expression of civil society demands forindependence to date.
President Wahid pursued a conciliatoryagenda, allowing the nationalist congresses togo ahead, restoring the name Papua in place ofIrian Jaya and agreeing to consider specialautonomy. There was a division among Papuansbetween those who supported this path of ‘two-flags’ nationalism and the supporters of inde-pendence under ‘one flag’. Although specialautonomy is officially in effect, it has not metthe aspirations of either stream of Papuanopinion. Following the brief ‘Jayapura spring’,Jakarta took a harder line against Papuan nation-
alism. The Papuan flag, allowed briefly, wasbanned once again, and Presidium leader TheysEluay was killed in 2002 by Indonesian securityforces.
The Timor effect
Indonesia’s invasion of East Timor in 1975 canbe seen as the apotheosis of the ethnic-nationalist vision of a Greater Indonesia.Although the 1945 Constitution explicitlydefined the country as excluding East Timor, theSuharto regime decided nevertheless to invadedays after the tiny state declared its indepen-dence. The result was a bloodbath that alsodealt a body blow to Indonesian internationalaspirations for more than 20 years. Ali Alatasfamously described East Timor as the ‘gravel inour shoes’ that made it difficult for Jakarta topursue the rest of its foreign policy (Jardine,1992). East Timorese nationalism was alreadystrong in 1975. It was given further strength bythe visible intrusions of the Indonesian state, therepressive security approach, and even by Indo-nesian development programmes designed towin the hearts and minds of the younger gen-eration. Jakarta pursued colonial policies in EastTimor that had many similarities to those fol-lowed by the Dutch in their East Indies colonyearlier in the century, with much the sameresult: an even more nationalist-mindedyounger generation (Pinto and Jardine, 1997;Taylor, 1999).
After the fall of Suharto, incoming PresidentHabibie decided that the shoes should beremoved and the gravel shaken out. A once-and-for-all decision was needed: would EastTimor become Indonesian, or have its indepen-dence restored? Thus, Habibie allowed a refer-endum that voted for independence. TheIndonesian army and militia groups tried toderail the vote, killing and deporting manythousands, and Habibie was eventually forcedto accept an international peacekeeping force.His policy required a psychological paradigmshift in a country where the dominant historicalnarrative insisted, in defiance of the facts, thatIndonesia had acted to liberate its East Timorese‘brothers and sisters’ and was now deliveringonly good things. As the President said: ‘For along time, consciously or not, we have offered
to the nation a version of reality that was nottruly being experienced’ (Habibie, cited inWebster, 1999: 19).
East Timor’s independence did offer thechance for Indonesia to move ahead, free of theburden of this intractable problem. Yet it alsoserved as a demonstration effect to otherregions, especially Aceh and Papua. If there isone lesson from East Timor, however, it is thatno amount of harsh repressive action can defeata nationalist movement; rather, the securityapproach only stimulates further nationalism.
Autonomy and history
A number of regions including Riau, the SouthMoluccas, Sulawesi and Bali have seen seces-sionist musings since the fall of Suharto, manywith long-standing traditions going back toDutch colonial times. Regionalist sentiment hasbeen expressed, without the threat of secession,in North Sumatra, Lampung, West Kalimantanand East Nusa Tenggara. Yet none seems likelyto leave Indonesia. Under democratic govern-ments, the centre has rebuilt its lost legitimacyby re-inventing the system in a manner thatallows both public participation and greaterautonomy for the regions.
Special autonomy packages for Aceh andPapua, however, have not had the same success.As in East Timor, identity formation in these twoterritories had passed a point of no return: notyet nation-states, they felt themselves to be‘notion-states’. The offer of special autonomy forEast Timor was dismissed as ‘too little, too late’.The same was true in Papua and Aceh, espe-cially when the choice was posed as the Ooption (otonomi) versus the M option (merdeka,or freedom). Problems converting the offer ofspecial autonomy into acceptable specificsraised the suspicions of Jakarta already preva-lent in the two outlying regions. The stress laidin autonomy offers on Islamic law for Aceh, ademand made by very few Acehnese groups,added to the feeling that Jakarta was simply notlistening to Acehnese aspirations (Aguswandi,2005). Similarly, Jakarta’s refusal to accept a fulldialogue with Papuan nationalists strengthenedPapuan perceptions of alienation.
The deadlock in Aceh was broken by anatural disaster. The devastating earthquake andtsunami which struck the province in December
2004, and its aftermath, claimed 166 320 lives,according to the Indonesian Health Ministry(Norton and Yates, 2005). Foreign aid donorsclearly accepted Indonesian sovereignty,thereby stepping up the pressure on GAM toreach an agreement, but there was also persis-tent allegation that the Indonesian army wasusing aid as a weapon in its counter-insurgencywar.5 The pressure on both sides encouragednew negotiations.
A series of meetings in Helsinki saw the Indo-nesian government and GAM reach a compro-mise agreement which formally went into effectin August 2005, just in time for Indonesia’s 16thanniversary. GAM surrendered its demand forindependence and accepted Jakarta’s offer ofspecial autonomy, in exchange for the right tobecome a political party free to contest elec-tions. As the central government had longrefused to permit regionally based politicalparties for fear they could disrupt national unity,that marked a concession by the government ofnewly elected President Susilo Bambang Yud-hoyono. So did the centre’s agreement to a 300-strong team of international observers fromEurope and South-East Asia. Disarmament pro-visions called for GAM to surrender its weaponsand for Jakarta to withdraw 50 000 troops(Memorandum of Understanding, 2005). Whilewelcoming the agreement, Acehnese non-governmental organisations called for anenhanced role for civil society. Some observersworried that this deal, like others before, wouldbe blocked in Jakarta. Still, by transforming awar for the separation of Aceh into a politicalconflict to be fought at the ballot box, the agree-ment raised hope that special autonomy lawsand dialogue might hold the key to peace inAceh and also in Papua.
The journey up until then of the specialautonomy law for Papua provides a case ofhope turning into disillusion. A widespreadconsultation among Papuans formulated a pro-posed autonomy law presented to the Indone-sian parliament with the explanation that itrepresented the minimum demands of Papuansociety. However, a number of modificationswere made in Jakarta that weakened the law.The original package aimed to meet popularaspirations by developing mechanisms forgenuine local control in place of authoritywielded by the military, as well as a larger local
share of natural resource earnings. It called foran upper house of the provincial parliamentcomposed of traditional leaders, civil societyorganisations and women (Majelis RakyatPapua, MRP), for the recognition of symbols ofcollective identity such as the banned Papuanflag and anthem, and for a dialogue on thePapuan integration into Indonesia that couldpotentially lead to independence in the future, ifit was determined that the integration processhad not allowed a proper act of self-determination under international law (Sekre-tariat Keadilan dan Perdamaian, KeuskupanJayapura, 2001).
Once this draft reached Jakarta, the economicclauses were broadly accepted with the offer of70–80% of resource earnings being returned tothe province, but the more symbolic dimen-sions were watered down. In other words, theissue was considered as one of unequal devel-opment, which has been an irritant to Papuansbut not the principal cause of rising Papuannationalism. The other changes were all aimedat making a weaker special autonomy law intoa ‘final solution’, the opposite of what manyPapuan nationalists had hoped for. For instance,special autonomy was granted only ‘within thecontext of the Unitary State of the Republic ofIndonesia’, the flag and anthem were permittedonly as ‘cultural symbols’ subordinate to theIndonesian national flag and anthem, the policeremained under national rather than provincialauthority, and continued transmigration waspermitted with the approval of the Governor,rather than halted entirely as demanded in theoriginal draft.
Three changes were especially important.First, the power to designate administrative unitswithin Papua was transferred from the provin-cial level to Jakarta. As a result, the centre hassliced off a piece of Papua to form a new prov-ince of questionable legality called West IrianJaya. Second, the MRP was changed from anupper house into a consultative body, with itsexact authority unclear, weakening the roleenvisioned for local traditional leaders and civilsociety. Third, the new autonomy law deletedthe independent commission to look into thehistory of Papua’s integration, substituting atruth and reconciliation commission empow-ered to ‘provide clarification of Papua’s historyin order to strengthen the people’s unity in the
State of the Republic of Indonesia’ (SekretariatKeadilan dan Perdamaian, Keuskupan Jayapura,2001). The decision to deploy additional troopsearly in 2005 seemed to signal a more repres-sive approach, and reports continued of humanrights violations by the Indonesian army andpolice (see, for instance, Robert F. KennedyCenter, 2005).
The lack of progress on the autonomy lawbrought between 10 000 and 15 000 protestersinto the streets in Jayapura in August 2005 underthe banner of the Dewan Adat Papua (Papuancustomary council), which symbolically‘returned’ the autonomy law to the central gov-ernment. Calling Jakarta’s plans for the MRPinadequate, the protesters alleged corruption onthe use of regional funds and called for a com-prehensive review of the special autonomy lawand a dialogue on making Papua into a ‘land ofpeace’. Prominent among the demands was acall for ‘a clarification of the history of WestPapua so as to ensure that Papuan people nolonger fall victim [to] human rights abusessimply because their understanding of historydiffers from that of the government’ (DewanAdat Papua, 2005: 1).
The OPM has already renounced the use offorce in its campaign for Papuan independence,so the Papua situation lacks the military aspectof Aceh. There is no evidence, however, thatindependence demands are any less in Papuathan in Aceh. Indeed, the secretary of theDewan Adat Papua made an explicit compari-son between central government policies inPapua and what they were in East Timor, raisingthe spectre of the same sort of internationaltrouble for Jakarta. ‘The government has torespond seriously’, he said, ‘otherwise Papuawill remain a pebble in the shoe of the Indone-sian government in international forums’(Somba, 2005). The only answer, he argued, wasa dialogue along the lines of the one that finallyreached a peace deal for Aceh (Somba, 2005).
So far, the demand for dialogue has beenignored. The centre has ignored the vital roleplayed by historical perceptions in both Papuaand Aceh. Acehnese nationalists make con-tinual references to the glorious past of the Sul-tanate of Aceh and their fierce resistance toDutch colonial rule, and use this history tobolster their future-oriented claim to an inde-pendent state. Papuan nationalists lack a preco-
lonial state to reckon back to, but they recall thefoundational moments of Papuan collectiveidentity in the 1960s, even celebrating the datethe Papuan flag was first flown as their Indepen-dence Day. ‘The people of Papua are alreadysovereign as a people and as a nation, and havebeen since December 1, 1961’, the PapuanCongress declared in 2000 (Webster, 2001–2002: 507).
The official version of the integration of Papuahas shown a remarkable consistency over theyears.6 It asserts that Papua was wrongly splitfrom Indonesia, then regained by the unitedaction of all Indonesians, with the reunion con-firmed in the ‘act of free choice’. In oppositionto this historical narrative a Papuan nationalistversion of the same story has developed thatsees Papua as robbed of its right to self-determination. A major demand of Papuannationalists has been the ‘rectification’ of thehistorical record (pelurusan sejarah). Clashinghistorical narratives continue to fuel theconflict.
Conclusion
It has been argued here that regional national-ism has risen to a large extent because of repres-sion by the Indonesian centre, deliveredthrough the armed forces. It is no coincidencethat secessionist sentiment under the NewOrder was the strongest in the three ‘specialmilitary operations zones’ – East Timor, Acehand Papua. The return to a military approach inAceh did not end resentment of the centre; itonly added to resentment. Control-based solu-tions (Lustick, 1979) have failed. It seems that alasting solution to the problem of Indonesiannational unity will have to include more gener-ous policies by the centre, including in particu-lar the demilitarisation of society. More thanthat, it is likely to require a re-imagination of thenation, and a dialogue between people in Acehand Papua on the one hand, and the rest ofIndonesia on the other. That dialogue wouldrequire also that the official narrative of Indone-sian history make room for Acehnese andPapuan historical narratives that have devel-oped since 1945. Attempting to preserve ele-ments of the New Order will do nothing butexacerbate tensions. As one human rights activ-ist says, the ideals of the 75-year-old Youth Oath
are no longer enough. ‘We need a new glue tohold our nation together’ (B. Widjojanto, publiclecture, 1999).
Notes
1 This slogan is used repeatedly in nationalist documentsand speeches, most notably by President Sukarno. Somepublications even feature maps of Indonesia with onlytwo place names marked: Sabang and Merauke.
2 Papua is the current official name of the territory knownsuccessively as Netherlands New Guinea, West NewGuinea, West Irian and Irian Jaya and often called WestPapua (and occasionally West Melanesia) by indigenousnationalists and their supporters. The name Papua willbe used throughout for consistency.
3 Fence-of-legs’ (pagar betis) operations are used to clearareas of guerilla activity by employing civilian con-scripts who are forced to walk close enough togetherthat no guerilla can pass through the human net.
4 US government documents on Indonesia make thisvery clear. Some of the documents are printed inForeign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Vol.23.
5 The human rights group KONTRAS Aceh, for instance,documented more than 100 cases of human rights abuseby the army from January to May 2005 and highlighteda series of problems with aid distribution. Evi Zain,‘Post-Tsunami Human Rights Concerns in Aceh’, pre-sentation to Canadian Parliamentary Standing Commit-tee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade, 9 June2005.
6 The essential arguments are identical in early govern-ment documents such as West Irian and the World (Indo-nesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1954) and recent onessuch as The Restoration of Irian Jaya into the Republic ofIndonesia (Indonesian Mission to the United Nations,2001).
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