Freedom in a Fiefdom

            “We lost the war,” an ex-combatant told me sadly as he smoked a cigarette and watched the moon.  It was a common sentiment.  Aspinall writes that as GAM soldiers return to the same grinding poverty they experienced before the war, “one often hears angry denunciations of the 'failure' of reintegration and the peace process.” His informant explains: “‘Society is still feudal.... People who come back to the village... without becoming rich are considered failures’” (2009: 12).

It’s hard to say what would have happened if GAM’s founder, Hasan di Tiro, had returned to govern Aceh. Di Tiro was descended from the Acehnese sultanate, and the position of wali nanggroe was written into the law on Aceh’s autonomy specifically for him. By the time peace was arranged, di Tiro was suffering the effects of illness and old age. He had spent the bulk of the war exiled to Sweden along with the rest of the inner circle of GAM’s leadership. They were GAM’s diplomatic arm and ostensibly directed the conflict in Aceh.  Malik Mahmud had joined di Tiro’s cabinet as Prime Minister in the 1970s and after some intense politicking arranged to take di Tiro’s position as wali nanggroe.

With the signing of the peace agreement and the subsequent elections in 2006, Malik Mahmud and his cabinet returned after decades in exile to rule. They quickly discovered that GAM’s varied factions which had been united throughout the war were suddenly in competition with each other. To their dismay, a local GAM intelligence officer, Irwandi Yusuf and Muhammad Nazar, the leader of SIRA (the nonviolent Referendum Information Center, a movement largely driven by students) decided to contest in the election as independents on a shared ticket.  Supporting Irwandi’s campaign was Tarmizi, an alum of SMUR (Student Solidarity for the People), another student organization.  

Student movements are a powerful force in Indonesia, having been in part responsible for Suharto’s overthrow.  During the war in Aceh, SIRA, the student referendum movement, got a great deal of press for it’s nonviolent demands for a referendum on Acehnese independence. Acehnese students are incredibly active and boast many organizations. A student activist showed me a photograph with a group of men and women in red, complete with red hijabs at a SMUR protest. SMUR is perhaps the strongest student organization across Aceh, and its members are teeming with energy and ideas. Its impassioned members have a decidedly Marxist bent and are devoted to social justice. Like SIRA, SMUR is an incubator for social movement leaders where activists learn the techniques they need to mobilize the community and network with other leaders like themselves across the province. These skills were put to use by Aceh’s new political parties.

Activist techniques mobilized a portion of the electorate, but many villagers vote as their village chiefs and local commanders dictate. GAM commanders in each sub-district had their own internal politics linked to different political economies. GAM’s 17 field commanders had formed the KPA (Aceh Transition Committee) led by Muzakkir Manaf.  Only 2 of the 17 supported Malik Mahmud’s candidate. Irwandi handily won the first gubernatorial race.

With an onslaught of post-tsunami and post-conflict interest in Aceh, UN missions, foreign governments and NGOs all had “good governance” programs in Aceh.  Irwandi had a staggering 53 official advisors many of them housed directly across from the governor’s own office.  With control over the enormous Multi-Donor Fund for Aceh’s reconstruction, the World Bank’s influence over the province’s economic policies was extensive.

Countless plans for “greening Aceh” were launched, many focused on what Dryzek (1997) would classify as “ecological modernization” (eg. solar powered streetlights that have gone dark because the city doesn’t know how to replace the batteries).  While these diverse environmental endeavors were sometimes beneficial, the overarching direction of the Acehnese economy and it is impact on territory is what primarily drives the “New Scarcities” that generate economic inequality and environmental distress. Government policy on the economy and land use is the key to economic and environmental justice in Aceh.  Shortly after the governor took office, Aceh’s natural resources were rapidly distributed via a flurry of concessions.  Timber companies, rubber plantations, mines, and other primary sector investors rapidly acquired expanses of Aceh for their operations. [GET ACEH GREEN REPORT FROM ADI] These were chips used to broker relationships with bupati, KPA members, and the Indonesian military. In close consultation with the Acehnese arms dealer Zakariah Saman, Malik Mahmud solidified connections with his former enemies, military leaders and the central government in Jakarta, at times ordering Irwandi to approve concessions.

Jacob, an activist who had helped with Irwandi’s campaign, utilized his connections to launch an “Aceh Green” campaign.  With concerted domestic pressure and pressure from NGOs, Irwandi declared a moratorium on logging.  An advisory team proposed timber needs be met through reforestation.  Ultimately, the central government in Jakarta would follow suit with its own moratorium. This is important because the flooding, erosion and rainfall impacts of logging negatively impacts Aceh’s largely agrarian poor. Unfortunately, the moratorium’s enforcement was dubious. Ex-combatant illegal logging continued, and villagers became confused about whether they could use local timber�"often harvested sustainably�"for their own needs.

At the end of his tenure, Irwandi seemed to reverse his own moratorium, violating national law as well, when he granted a concession to Kalista Alam to clear large swaths of protected orangutan habitat in order to install an illegal palm oil plantation. Elsewhere palm oil proliferated as the Islamic Economic Development Foundation financed palm plantations to export to Malaysia; 30 companies opened up 130,000 hectares of palm plantations, many run by Suharto loyalists and military elites.

Despite presiding over one of the largest relief and reconstruction efforts in history, criticism of Irwandi was sharp.  Dreams of economic equality were met nepotistic construction contracts and widespread concessions, leaving the poorest Acehnese with stiff competition for deplorable work opportunities. While economic indicators and “income generation” programs myopically focused on the formal economy, rural Acehnese suffered environmental externalities, inflation, and threats to their subsistence activities. As Irwandi flaunted his wealth, many Acehnese felt that despite decades of struggle, KKN (the Indonesian term for corruption, collusion and nepotism) had continued with Irwandi.

By the time of the 2011 gubernatorial elections, Malik Mahmud had another strategy. SMUR alum Kautsar mobilized civil society, while allies were recruited from the central government in Jakarta and the Indonesian military [General Sunarko] which had formerly supported Irwandi. Forming Partai Aceh (PA) from GAM’s infrastructure, Mahmud and old guard leadership selected fellow cabinet member, the venerable Dr. Zaini Abdullah to run on a ticket with Muzakkir Manaf, head of the KPA, as his Vice Governor.  The NGO community was critical of Manaf, citing his lack of education and smuggling background, however the choice turned out to be a lucrative one.  Manaf strong-armed the KPA’s internal structure, forcibly retiring the Bireuen commander, Saiful Husein when he refused to support Manaf’s ticket.  Husein was killed shortly thereafter.  While much of the violence in the previous election had been perpetrated against Mahmud’s candidate, in this election the majority of the violence seemed to fall in favor Mahmud’s PA.  In order to prevent Irwandi from using the spoils of the state to secure votes, PA petitioned to hold the elections several months late instead of it’s regularly scheduled date.  GAM boycotted the 2011 election; when four Javanese transmigrants broke GAM’s boycott, they were killed.  Ultimately held in April of 2012, Dr. Zaini and Muzakkir Manaf won handily, nearly doubling the votes cast for Irwandi. 

Irwandi’s failure as a governor rankled PA supporters, infuriated by his corruption. At Zaini and Manaf’s inauguration, a mob of supporters were packed outside the gates of the government building.  Gleefully chanting in support as Manaf exited, Irwandi was met with boos.  The mob attacked him, and he was rushed to the hospital.

Dr. Zaini Abdullah, usually referred to as “Zaini”, was an aged medical doctor who had spent 30 years in Sweden before his recent return to Aceh.  “He still thinks Aceh can be like Sweden,” one of GAM’s inner circle said, shaking his head dismissively, “but things are done differently here.” That sentiment was echoed by many GAM elites who found Zaini frustrating. Having absorbed many ideas on sustainability from his time in Sweden, Zaini was amenable to activists and CSO leaders who called for a moratorium on mining. According to an inside source, Zaini initially tried to enforce the moratorium on a company that had been offered a concession during the interim period between administrations, but he met with angry resistance from Vice Governor Manaf.  Manaf quickly rallied Zaini’s own government against him, leaving him isolated in the governor’s office without the means to proceed with the moratorium. 

Worse, environmentalists intercepted changes in the Governor’s spatial plan that would effectively reverse Irwandi’s logging moratorium, reduce national park area, and no longer observe environmental standard in strategic areas, producing “serious long-term social, environmental and economic damage to the province of Aceh and it’s people” as well as “the loss of SE Asia’s most important biodiversity-rich landscape” (Usher, 2013).

Even with insurgents in control of the government and enormous sums of money spent in “good governance” programs, the Acehnese who endured unspeakable brutality are left with very little.  To be fair, GAM has been inundated with an army of advisors promoting development orthodoxy. Much in the way that conservative economists were positioned to advise and direct Suharto after the fall of Sukarno, World Bank economists were prepared to direct Aceh’s new government. Commanding the extensive Multi-Donor Fund, the World Bank had tremendous influence over Aceh’s reconstruction booms.  As well, the changes in the spatial plan are linked to Aceh’s 5-year development plan, which is focused on primary sector development, largely a combination of building roads and concessioning large swaths of territory to corporations. The plan was developed by a team of Acehnese economists, guided in part by Iskandarsyah Bakri, former advisor to Wolfowitz at the World Bank. This process echoes the strategic positioning of economists in Suharto’s regime at the national level, and World Bank practices throughout the world formally or informally installing “advisors,” “change teams,” or “technopols” in every government with which they have influence, with the purpose of guiding development along the right-wing approach Washington Consensus.  Unfortunately, this rarely works well for poor countries: after 40 years of multilateral aid Cassen’s widely accepted study indicated that half of all aid recipients showed no economic improvement (1994), and in those that did, there is controversy over whether that improvement benefited the poor. Sanjivi Guhan explains that the World Bank: “whilst dispensing policy advice, is not a disinterested religious or academic Guru. Its preceptorial practices begin with propaganda, extend to persuasion, and end up with leverage” (1998: 187). The Bank’s surrogates have set a plan are have set an agenda, convincing the insurgents-turned-politicians that this is the only path for development. Unfortunately, the plan will make a great deal of money for those at the top incur a great ecological cost for Aceh’s poor. 

Is democratic participation enough to stop it?

Author's Note

This section is WAY too long. I need to cut. any advice?