[Kabar-indonesia] A year of peace embraced at birthplace of Indonesia's Aceh rebels

[Joyo at aol.com]

A year of peace embraced at birthplace of Indonesia's Aceh rebels

TIRO, Indonesia, August 13 (AFP) -- Eyes red with tears, Alamsyah
Mahmud recalls how in 2001, Indonesian paramilitaries swooped on his
village in Tiro, the birthplace of Aceh's rebel movement, rounding up
people and torching homes.

The police were sniffing out members of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM),
which inked a peace pact with the Jakarta government one year ago this
week to end 29 years of conflict that had left 15,000 people dead.

"Everybody here was considered GAM ... Brimob charged into the village
like blind pigs and burnt down our houses. It was a very traumatic
experience," says Mahmud, a 37-year-old farmer, referring to the
feared Indonesian force.

That was a particularly memorable attack in Labu Adang village. But
over three decades, ordinary life too became a distant memory.

"Going to the rice fields, going to the hills, all our movements were
limited," Mahmud says.

"If Brimob saw our pick-up loaded with rice, they would arrest us,
asking for bribes," chimes in Nyok Aloh, who is just back from the
fields.

"It scares me to remember the way our people were killed in the
conflict. Now we are all traumatised. Every time a green uniform comes
to the village we think of death."

Today the rice paddies are greening in Tiro, a group of villages on
the east coast of Aceh on Sumatra island's northern tip. It was here
in 1976 that rebel leader Hasan Tiro declared the creation of GAM,
ensuring a violent destiny for the villagers: hundreds of killings,
abductions, destruction and forced labour.

But instead of harvesting their crops gripped by terror, villagers
across Tiro are gratefully reaping a peace dividend this year, with
the trauma starting to ebb away as the local economy picks up pace.

Farmer Mahmud says his income has picked up by a quarter since a year ago.

"Before, I would sometimes stay up to one week at home without working
in the paddies because of gunfights," he says, gesturing to hills once
used as a training ground by GAM fighters and skirted by abandoned
betel and cocoa plantations.

-- 'I would fall face down on the road, it was so scary' --

Eleven-year-old Tut Nurfinda, wearing her crisp blue-and-white school
uniform, says she now walks to school without being afraid.

"Sometimes we would hear gunshots. I would fall face down on the road,
it was so scary," she remembers.

Back then, a 10-kilometre (six-mile) motorbike ride with the risk of
being caught in crossfire was often too much for teacher Rohana, who
used to frequently skip school, along with many of her students.

"Many students had relatives killed, abducted or tortured," she
recalls. "They just could not concentrate."

Tiro today hosts 150 ex-combatants, most of them farmers. Since last
year, dialogue with the police has improved, as both sides regularly
meet for steaming cups of Aceh's famed coffee, they say.

Tiro police chief Idris Ousmani is providing commentary at a soccer
match between police and ex-fighters from a wooden and palm leaf shack
at Tiro's main pitch.

Pausing a moment, he tells AFP: "Before, we were like water and oil.
Now we're like egg yolk and white ... We are complementary."

Ousmani says that the situation improved when the almost 6,000 police
stationed from outside Aceh were pulled out by the central government,
as required under the peace pact. Almost 26,000 troops were also
redeployed.

"Now they have gone, things are much smoother between us and GAM," he says.

Mirza Ismail, the GAM representative to the foreign monitors' district
office, says that both sides have been cooperating to identify people
carrying weapons, whether they are ex-rebels or criminals.

"I can reach the district police head at any time, even 2:00 am in the
morning," he says.

-- 'I don't want war again' --

Still, worries persist in Tiro over Aceh's political future,
exacerbated by a dispute over the government's passage of a new law
giving the province greater self-rule, which was passed in July after
months of delay.

The law was required under the peace pact, and paves the way for local
elections due to be held before December. Under the deal signed in
Helsinki, GAM dropped its demand for independence in return for
greater autonomy and the right to form local political parties which
are banned elsewhere in Indonesia.

But GAM has expressed dismay at some of the law's provisions and wants
amendments.

"We're in peace, but we are disappointed," says 40-year-old Abdullah
Usman, the head of Tiro's Menassa Pana village.

GAM officials and activists argue the law curtails the power of the
local administration in international cooperation and management of
its national resources, while potentially strengthening the military's
role in Aceh.

"Was it planned so the conflict is perpetuated?" wonders Abdullah.

Tiro's former rebels say they would be prepared to resume fighting.

"If the people of Aceh ask us, we are ready to fight again," warns
Tiro's ex-GAM commander Iskandar Daud.

Fakruddin Muhamad, a 26-year-old ex-guerrilla with a bullet
permanently lodged in his kidney that prevents him from working too
long in the fields, would also pick up arms again.

"If our leaders want it, I am ready," he says.

In Aceh's capital of Banda Aceh, GAM negotiator and deputy
spokesperson Munawar Liza Zain says GAM may not have the power to
control the emotions of the Acehnese, but "we are committed not to use
weapons".

"We are going to use non-violent political channels" to sort out
differences with the government, he adds.

Head of the foreign monitors Pieter Feith, who believes "there has
been remarkable progress achieved in a very short time", says GAM can
seek redress using democratic, parliamentary means provided by the
constitution.

"The security situation in Aceh is stable and there is no reason to
believe this would change," he says.

In Tiro, despite the anger at the new law, a resumption of the
conflict seems out of the question for many.

Irwandi, 27, gave up fighting to sell fish at the Tiro market.

"I just want things to stay as they are now. I don't want war again,"
he says, sitting among the local crowd cheering a soccer match.

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Joyo Indonesia News Service
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