Timing and Sequencing Peace in Aceh

Transcription

1 Timing and Sequencing Peace in Aceh Damien Kingsbury, Deakin University, Australia CRPD Working Paper No Centre for Research on Peace and Development (CRPD) KU Leuven Parkstraat 45, box 3602, 3000 Leuven, Belgium Phone: ; Fax: ;

2 Timing and Sequencing Peace in Aceh Abstract This paper explores key contributing factors to Aceh s transition from war to peace. It considers the circumstances that allowed a peace agreement to be achieved and the (primarily political) context within which it has been sustained and the micro timing and sequencing factors concerning the implementation of the agreement. The paper investigates what peacebuilding reforms, interventions, and measures were implemented in Aceh in order to increase the chances of a successful peace process, and whether these were determining factors in the subsequent peace. In doing this, it considers whether there is a particular sequence in which certain measures and policies can best be implemented in order to increase the chances that a peace process will be successful. Given the incomplete implementation of conventional micro timing and sequencing factors, the question is asked whether the sequencing thesis is necessary for achieving sustainable peace outcomes. Author Damien Kingsbury Deakin University, Australia [ damien.kingsbury@deakin.edu.au] This working paper is a draft version of the chapter Timing and Sequencing Peace in Aceh in the book Building Sustainable Peace: Timing and Sequencing of Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Peacebuilding, edited by Arnim Langer and Graham K. Brown, Oxford University Press The Building Sustainable Peace project was made possible by a generous grant of Flanders Department of Foreign Affairs. 2

3 1. Introduction 1 The peace agreement signed in Helsinki in July 2005 between the Government of Indonesia and the Free Aceh Movement (Gerakan Acheh Merdeka, or GAM) which ended three decades of secessionist war in Aceh, Indonesia, has been hailed as an example of successful peacemaking. The Aceh peace settlement has since been used as an example for achieving mediated resolutions to regionally-based intra-state conflict. 2 This paper seeks to explore the key contributing factors to Aceh s transition from war to peace. It considers both the macro timing and sequencing issues the circumstances that allowed a peace agreement to be achieved and the (primarily political) context within which it has been sustained and the micro timing and sequencing factors concerning the implementation of the agreement and other related factors made available as a consequence of the peace agreement. Given the incomplete implementation of conventional micro timing and sequencing factors, this paper questions whether or not the sequencing thesis is necessary for achieving sustainable peace outcomes. The paper will investigate what peacebuilding reforms, interventions, and measures were implemented in Aceh in order to increase the chances that its peace process would be successful and durable, and whether these were determining factors in the subsequent peace. It will also consider how such peacebuilding reforms, interventions, and measures interact and relate to one and other. In doing this, it will consider whether there is a particular sequence in which certain measures and policies can best be implemented in order to increase the chances that a peace process will be successful. The area of study of this paper focuses on a secessionist conflict and its resolution. The underlying assumptions of this paper are twofold. The first is that to find a resolution to intra-state conflict it 1 The author is Professor in International Politics and holds a Personal Chair in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia. In 2005, he was adviser to the Free Aceh Movement in the Helsinki peace talks, and, under contract to the Olof Palme International Centre, advised GAM on democratization and establishing the organizational framework and policies for two subsequent political parties, Partai Aceh and Partai Nasional Aceh. 2 Most notably in Mindanao, Philippines. 3

4 is, prima facie, necessary to understand its key causes and the source of its aspirations. It is from addressing these issues that a resolution to conflict may be possible. The second underlying assumption is that the establishment of a government that is legitimate in the eyes of the disaffected community is a necessary prerequisite to the resolution of intra-state conflict. The methodology employed in this paper is based on direct participation in the 2005 Aceh peace process, subsequent political advice provided in Aceh s post-conflict environment and advice provided to other peace processes. 3 The paper also draws on relevant secondary literature. 2. Timing In terms of the timing of conflict resolution, while much can be planned, sometimes the success of a process can be attributed primarily to luck, or unintended consequences. One of the negotiators of the Aceh Helsinki talks, Nur Djuli, said that Aceh s peace agreement was 10 per cent hard work and good ideas, and 90 per cent luck. 4 The luck element was associated with the timing of the Helsinki talks, in that there had been reformist change in Jakarta, and that GAM was itself moving towards a somewhat more accountable political process. This established the framework for the macro, or foundational, timing and sequencing of peace. The 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami, which killed approximately 180,000 people in Aceh, destroyed much infrastructure and brought the international community to focus on the conflict no doubt pushed along the sense of urgency associated with the talks or their outcome. It was, however, not the motivator for the talks, given that the talks had been agreed to two days before the tsunami struck, or the subsequent agreement which could have been derailed on a number of occasions. One key idea that is reflected across most of the conflict resolution literature concerns the issue of timing, or ripeness. That is, conflicts are more readily able to be resolved when the timing is right or they are ripe for resolution (e.g. see Conciliation Resources 2008). In Aceh, it could be argued that the time was ripe for a peace agreement and the timing and sequencing of such elements of its subsequent micro implementation that were put in place. Indonesia had undergone a process of democratization and liberalization over the preceding six years, even allowing that had been patchy in its application and appeared not to apply at all in peripheral areas 3 Sri Lanka/Tamil Eelam; Mindanao, Philippines; Nagaland, India. 4 Personal conversation, 11 February

5 such as Aceh, East Timor (in 1999), and West Papua. For GAM s part, it was able to mobilise the rhetoric of recent introduction of democracy for its own purposes, using the Indonesian government s own claims to argue for a fundamentally different political arrangement for the province to that which had prevailed. It was the agreement to and application of this macro political arrangement which fundamentally allowed for the subsequent peace. In that the application of this macro arrangement had a series of sequences, they were not predicated upon a particular order, but were introduced as soon as each could be practically implemented. The most fundamental macro issue which preceded and had to precede all others in relation to achieving peace in Aceh was the election, in October 2004, of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono as Indonesia s president. Yudhoyono introduced a significant reforming element to Indonesia s democratization process. In particular, as a reformist military officer (see O Donnell and Schmitter 1986 on the role of reformist military officers in democratization), Yudhoyono was keen to fundamentally reorient the Indonesian military (Tentara Nasional Indonesia, TNI) away from its involvement in internal state affairs, to wean it away from its business and criminal sources of income (in the late 1990s up to 70 per cent of its total operating budget), which had implications for accountability and the extent of civilian authority, and to professionalize it as an externally focused defence force. In this, he was ultimately only partially successful, with reform of the TNI effectively stalling around 2007 (Human Rights Watch 2006; Hamid and Misol 2007). However, resolving the Aceh conflict was a major component of reducing the TNI s role within the state and its ability to earn an income independent of the government (see Kingsbury and McCulloch 2006). If there was a necessarily sequenced element of the Aceh peace agreement, then, its first component was Yudhoyono s election as president. GAM s own prior democratization was, perhaps, less important as a necessary sequenced event, given the relative shallowness of the claim (see the Stavanger Declaration 2002). Moreover, during the peace negotiations, GAM prime minister Malik Mahmud expressed reservations about the possible outcome of an open electoral process. This lack of a clear commitment to an open electoral process was later reflected in the troubling, if relatively limited, violence that accompanied Aceh s 2009 and 2014 elections. Specifically in relation to timing and sequencing, the peace agreement which ended the war, the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU 2005) did contain a number of stipulations regarding the order and timing of implementing the peace agreement. With one or two key exceptions, none of 5

6 these stipulations were implemented according to the prescribed timelines or in the way specified by the MOU. As with much of the document, the requirements of the MOU were aspirational and relied very largely on the good will on the parties to the agreement, as had been envisaged at the outset of its initialing. While the MOU did produce peace, the failure to adequately implement a number of aspects of the agreement did lead to longer term resentment and, if relatively contained, further political violence. 3. Sequencing The sequencing thesis essentially argues that the conditions of peace, including institutions of state such as rule of law, justice, and the institutionalization of legitimate government, need to be established prior to or alongside the peace being achieved. Indeed, the sequencing argument proposes that if state institutions are not established, the state and the peace will likely fail. In relation to the introduction of elections, it has been argued that a process which introduces elections before either accountability or nation-building [has been established] has been fundamentally flawed (Collier 2009: 186; see also Gow 2010). Ipso facto, this in turn relies on the argument that certain conditions are more conducive to conflict and that these must be addressed in order to provide the conditions in which peace can be maintained (see Braithwaite et al. 2012). As with democratization, there is considerable statistical evidence to suggest that peace is more likely to be able to find deeper roots and be more sustainable if certain conditions are in place. There have been argued to be several conditions that are necessary to allow and sustain peace. The first condition for peace, according to this argument, is that there should be a historical sequence of events that have led to its development (for a discussion of sequencing in the democratic context, see Carothers 2007a, 2007b; Berman 2007; Fukuyama 2007; Mansfield and Snyder 2007). In this, analysts skeptical or pessimistic about peace outcomes and an absence of violence rather than actual peace have suggested that there needs to be a series of preconditions, in particular rule of law and a high level of state capacity, in place before peace is likely to take root. This argument suggests that post-conflict environments are inherently poorly suited to establishing rule of law and state capacity and, thus, are prone to failure or fundamental compromise. In this sense, state capacity is understood as distinct from a strong state (see Migdal 1988), which implies the imposition of authority or power, usually in a non-democratic or illiberal environment, rather than a high level of state organization and efficiency and which may be employed in cases where state capacity is weak. 6

7 There has been a parallel debate around the necessity of sequencing events to allow democracy. The balance of views is that while such a sequence will enhance and probably better sustain democracy, it is not an absolute necessity, much less a teleological inevitability. The counter argument is that the principle conditions necessary to establish and sustain peace can be implemented more or less at one time, or that the required institutions can arrive after peace has been achieved, may be easier to implement in a post-conflict environment and do not, therefore, need to be sequenced. A parallel to sequencing peace is democratic sequencing. This involves establishing a process of building stages or prior conditions, rather than deferring full democratic claims until assumed preconditions have been met. However, some regimes overstate the extent of their gradual approach to reform and democratization and in some cases to halt the process of democratization at a point where it can be contained. This may result in a variety of democratic sub-types or partial democracies, although this again raises the issue of the over-use or abuse of the term democracy to a point where it loses meaning. Similarly, a gradualist approach to timing and sequencing peace might allow for the reduction in some forms of conflict but allowing others to continue. Events in West Papua would tend to comply with this understanding, with a range of political changes intended to produce peace and having seen a significant reduction in large scale violence, but the steady continuation of low-level violence as an acceptable form of social control. Similarly, the waxing and waning of conflict in Aceh between 1976 and 2005 also reflected, on occasion, if not an absence of conflict then at least a sustainably low level of conflict. Related to Collier and Sambanis (2005) thesis regarding preconditions for democratic success, Dahl (1989) believes that a certain level of level of socio-economic development is also necessary, including relatively high levels of public literacy; more general education; widespread and free communication; a pluralistic, non-hegemonic social order; mechanisms that limit social inequalities and prevent legal ones; political activism, subcultures, and social cleavage patterns that do not fundamentally divide a community but which allow it to contest ideas within a common framework; a relatively high degree of governmental effectiveness; and freedom from foreign control or domination. 7

8 Conversely, as with making peace, there is evidence that suggests while favourable material and social circumstances may make democratization easier and that those circumstances can be sequenced, they are not necessarily a precondition either for such democratization or for the establishment of peace. In this, there is a close parallel in the sequencing thesis between that applied to conflict resolution and that applied to democratization. This close parallel and, indeed, commonality of both arguments for and against sequencing has led some democratic theorists to conclude that sustainable conflict resolution could or perhaps should imply democratization and that, vice-versa, successful democratization can create conditions for sustainable conflict resolution. This, then, distinguishes the larger (macro) prior and post-conflict context concerning the establishment of legitimate government usually implying democratization for sustaining peace processes, and the micro mechanisms for implementing the specific elements of a peace process, sometimes reduced to the mantra of disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR). While democracy appears to be linked to peace processes, either as a facilitating condition or an outcome, the term itself is often misused and, as a consequence, sometimes misapplied. For the purpose of this discussion, democracy here is understood to comply with Collier and Levitsky s expanded procedural minimum. This is where there are Reasonably competitive elections, devoid of massive fraud, with broad suffrage; Basic civil liberties: Freedom of speech, assembly, and association; Elected governments have effective power to govern (Collier and Levitsky 1996: 10). As with some others (e.g. Carothers 2007a), Törnquist (2011) has argued that it is not only possible to jump the sequencing phase of democratic consolidation but that, specifically in the case of Aceh, it was just such a jump that created the conditions for a sustainable peace. Drawing on the commonalities between both the possible preconditions and likely outcomes of both peace and democracy, Törnquist et al. (2011) and Stokke and Törnquist (2013a) have further argued that the non-sequenced introduction of democracy can have a transformative effect on postconflict societies and that it can actually act as a catalyst for the resolution of conflict (Stokke and Törnquist 2013b). 5 5 This line of thinking has a long liberal tradition, going back as far as Emmanuel Kant and Thomas Paine and enunciated in various forms with greater or lesser intensity, primarily by liberal political actors, since then. 8

9 Evidence from Aceh suggests that the sequencing of peace, or mechanisms designed to enhance the prospect of a successful peace were not absolutely necessary to ensure the peace. However, that evidence also shows that a lack of sequenced peace enhancing mechanisms, appropriately timed, can weaken the final outcome of the process and may cause friction and test whether that peace will continue. In this respect, the teleological assumption that once a peace has been established it will necessarily be sustained may be undermined by a range of continuing or new challenges. 4. Greed and Grievance Key in the literature about the causes of conflict, and hence requiring to be addressed as part of its resolution, is the greed and grievance thesis (Berdal and Malone 2000; Collier 2000; Collier and Hoeffler 2000; see also Braithwaite et al. 2012). There is no doubt that grievance plays a considerable role in intra-state conflict, notable where ethnic minorities or other self-identifying groups feel marginalized, excluded, or victimized (Kingsbury 2012). The latter was particularly the case in relation to Aceh, where although the initial impetus for separatist violence had mixed motives, at the height of the conflict between 1999 and 2005 there was a clear sense of grievance being expressed on the part of many, probably most, Acehnese. A pro-independence referendum protest rally of up to a million people, of a population of about 4.5 million, in 1999 (Miller 2009: 32), was indicative of that widespread sense of grievance. According to Keen, separatist aspiration may result from Abuses against civilians frequently [which] create their own justification (Keen 2000: on the role of grievance, as well as material gains, in fuelling civil wars). Thought not specifically timed nor sequenced, the establishment of a human rights court (MOU 2005: 2.2) and a truth and reconciliation commission (MOU 2005: 2.3) were intended to address the grievance element as a driver for conflict. The greed element of this thesis (Collier 2006) applied less in the case of Aceh and consequently addressing this aspect was not part of the sequencing of the peace agreement. There is some evidence that the Aceh rebellion started as a result of economic exclusion, in 1974, when the Free Aceh Movement s founder Hasan di Tiro was outbid on a contract to build a pipeline for the Arun liquid natural gas project on Aceh s east coast. Di Tiro in particular and many Acehnese more generally felt they were being excluded from jobs and other benefits from the project, which gives some support to the greed element of the thesis (if not in the sense originally intended by Berdal and Malone). However, there was also anger at the displacement of local people by the 9

10 project, which returns to the grievance element of the thesis. It is notable, too, that di Tiro had earlier been an active representative of Aceh in the Darul Islam Rebellion ( , although with rebellion continuing in Aceh until the early 1960s) and that his key initial team was comprised of former Darul Islam participants (Aspinall 2009: 63 64). To the extent that the greed and grievance thesis is relevant to the resolution of the Aceh conflict, the MOU did include a number of important economic provisions, although these were intended to ensure the autonomous province remained economically viable rather than being a reward for individuals than groups. There was, after the signing of the MOU, considerable exploitation of political positions for personal gain, but these were not envisaged as part of the agreement and, indeed, only served to generate potential hostility towards the implementation of the agreement (Jusuf Kalla argued that economic incentive was key to resolving the Aceh conflict (Large and Aguswandi 2008). However, being intimately involved with GAM thinking on this issue, while economic issues did require resolution, they were among the more simple parts of the agreement and were designed to allow the viability of a self-governing province. 6 It was the establishment of a genuine, democratic autonomy, referred to as self-government, that was overwhelmingly more important to the successful outcome of the talks. The term autonomy was unacceptable to the GAM team given its long-standing rejection by GAM and association with past abuses. However, the term self-government was seized upon as offering a different rhetorical frame within which the talks could progress towards a negotiated outcome. The term self-government arose as a result of a public statement by mediator Martti Ahtisaari in Finnish, in which he used the Finnish word for self-government rather than the word for autonomy. He argued that the terms had the same meaning, but accepted GAM s argument that only the former was acceptable for continuing negotiation. The Indonesian delegation agreed to the use of the term given its own understanding that it did not make a substantive difference to its meaning. Macro timing of peace agreements can also result from a conflict having exhausted its possibilities for a victory by one side or the other, in what is known as a hurting stalemate (Zartman 2000). That is, where neither side seemed able to attain a distinct advantage, or the cost of sustaining a 6 The author negotiated the economic terms of the MOU on behalf of the GAM delegation with the Government of Indonesia delegation. 10

11 conflict for both sides exceeds the presumed advantages of continuing it, it may be possible to achieve peace. In Aceh, both GAM and the Indonesian government (if less so the TNI) were in a position of a hurting stalemate. GAM was on the defensive following two years of high level military assault, if able to survive in the mountains. Among GAM commanders was the view, conventional among guerrilla organizations, that survival equals success. The Indonesian government, on the other hand, recognized that an absolute military victory was unlikely and that the cost of sustaining the war against GAM included challenges to its young democracy by continuing to entrench the role of the military in the state (see Desch 1999), and increasingly alienating the country s international supporters. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, while both sides were edging towards resuming talks, and in fact had agreed on 22 December 2004 to hold talks in Helsinki in the following month, the 24 December Boxing Day tsunami that swept across the littoral states of the Indian Ocean fundamentally altered the context and hence dynamic of the subsequent peace talks and their outcome. That this event occurred when it did had major significance in terms of its timing in relation to the peace talks and the subsequent outcome, even though it was not and could not have been anticipated and hence not sequenced. It was simply a coincidental event that happened to have a major impact upon the peace process and which acted as a driver to achieve the type of outcome that might not have been possible had the circumstances it created been so profound. While some of Aceh s more fundamentalist Muslims referred to the tsunami as punishment by God for a lack of holiness, GAM s leadership saw it as simply an act of nature. Its response therefore was to call an immediate ceasefire to allow humanitarian aid to be delivered to those in need. The TNI initially ignored the ceasefire and continued its attacks, and initially even tried to resist and then control the flow of foreign aid. However, the TNI came under increasing pressure, allowed in foreign aid, aid workers, and, importantly for the first time in many years, journalists. This sequence of events meant that the otherwise unpublicized war suddenly became international news, with major donor governments both promising more aid if the war could be ended and threatening to withdraw aid if a resolution was not found. Notably, at this time, GAM s hopes for international recognition of the legitimacy of its claims for independence were dashed; the international community made clear that it regarded Indonesia as an indivisible sovereign state. GAM would be not just isolated but ostracized should it continue 11

12 to press its claims for independence. In saying this, however, Indonesia was also pushed to compromise, especially in the areas of improving its very poor human rights record in Aceh and improving democratization. Both parties, then, recognized that the timing of peace was being externally imposed as well as internally determined. 5. Micro Timing and Sequencing Once the MOU had been initialled, on 7 July 2005, fighting effectively stopped. Conflict formally ended on the day of signing of the peace agreement, on 15 August Following this event was the implementation of a series of activities either stipulated in the MOU or implied by it. The introduction of the Aceh Monitoring Mission (AMM), which was intended to oversee the implementation of the peace agreement and the handover and destruction of GAM weapons, the reduction in TNI numbers all commenced within weeks of the peace agreement was signed (formally, from 15 September 2005). This was followed by the formal disbanding of GAM as a military organization, limited attempts at the social reintegration of its members and the holding of elections, the passage of enabling legislation by the national government and the creation of a political party, Partai Aceh. Following his election loss as governor in 2009, in 2010 Irwandi Yusuf established the Partai Nasional Aceh (Aceh National Party, PNA) as the second key political party in Aceh. The AMM comprised both unarmed military and civilian representatives primarily from European Union states but also with a contingent from Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) states (Thailand, Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore, and the Philippines). While its initial mandate was for six months, it was extended in reducing capacities until The timing of the deployment of the AMM was as soon as practical after the signing of the peace agreement, and allowed for AMM members to be unofficially on the ground in Aceh ahead of the mission s formal start. As a sequenced arrangement, this was a necessary post-agreement first step, in order to help ensure that other conditions of the agreement, in particular GAM s nominal disarmament, would be implemented. The first task of the AMM was to ensure that hostilities had ceased and then to oversee the handover and destruction of GAM s 840 weapons, the number of which had been stipulated in the MOU. Fearing that the MOU would not hold and that it would be forced back to war, GAM had understated the number of weapons it held, and often handed over weapons that were no longer 12

13 serviceable. This led, in some instances, to the weapons being rejected as part of the count, and replacement weapons being found, quickly establishing the fallacy of there being 840 weapons. In theory, GAM was to have dissolved upon the signing of the MOU. In reality, however, a year after the MOU had been signed, the reintegration of GAM members was far from complete (World Bank 2006) and, for many, has remained so since. In particular, funds agreed by the Government of Indonesia to be paid to ex-combatants (MOU 2005: 3.2.3, 3.2.4) was not allocated as lump sums to individual combatants but rather through a number of smaller payments, managed and sometimes misused by former GAM commanders. In part, too, the lack of adequate funds to assist reintegration was due to GAM also having understated its number of active members. GAM officially said that it had 3,000 active members, in part in order to downplay the number of weapons it would have to hand over. In reality, however, it had about 8,000 active members as well as a large number of unarmed activists and dependents. In a number of cases, these funds were not fully passed on to former GAM combatants, or were passed on late, meaning that many ex-combatants were unable to reestablish themselves in alternative positions such as small business or as land owners. As Barron (2009) noted, the reintegration programmes applied in Aceh did not played a major role in the maintenance of the peace. Rather, this was a consequence of a commitment by senior leaders on both sides to maintaining the peace that had been negotiated. With little and slow progress with reintegration, in October 2005 GAM established the Aceh Transitional Committee (Komite Peralihan Aceh, KPA) as, in effect, the organization of former GAM combatants. This move was not prefigured in the MOU and was not a part of any particular sequence of events, but rather an ad hoc arrangement by GAM s leadership to manage former combatants in the period ahead of their intended reintegration. The KPA was also to form the basis of a future political party, to compete in the elections that had been stipulated under the MOU. Under the MOU, Aceh was allowed to hold elections for all executive positions, including governor, vice-governor, and district and city heads. The elections were to have been held in April 2006, but were in fact delayed until December After a dispute within GAM over who its candidate would be, former GAM intelligence chief Irwandi Yusuf, who also oversaw the handover 13

14 and destruction of GAM weapons, stood and won as an independent candidate against a candidate put forward by former GAM prime minister Malik Mahmud. While the MOU stipulated that conditions would be created for the development of local political parties within 18 months of the signing of the agreement (MOU 2005: 1.2.1), such conditions took almost two years to establish. There was from the outset and, at the time of writing continues to be, disagreement about the conditions under which such parties could exist. Notably, MOU provision which allows Aceh the right to have its own flag, sparked heated disagreement in 2013 and has continued to be hotly contested by Jakarta. The Indonesian government has claimed that the flag used in Aceh was the GAM flag and hence contradicted that part of the MOU which stipulated that GAM would cease to use military insignia or symbols (MOU 2005: 4.2). Partai Aceh responded by arguing that the flag was not a GAM military flag but the flag of Aceh that predated GAM, a claim given support by historical evidence of the use of a similar flag dating back to the first European incursions into the region. Under points 2.2 and 2.3 of the MOU, Aceh was to have a human rights court and the establishment of a truth and reconciliation commission. There was recognition, during the peace talks that led to the MOU, that implementing a Human Rights Court would be difficult and that Indonesia had a long history of avoiding genuine accountability for military abuses. Indeed, towards the conclusion of the talks, the Human Rights Court was left out of a draft of the agreement, although re-instituted prior to its signing. While GAM s senior leadership might have taken a realistic view about the chances of ever having human rights cases formally heard or acted upon, and understanding the hostility that such a court, if established, would generate within the TNI, the more general public view within Aceh was that such a court was necessary to restore an element of justice to Acehnese society. The Human Rights Court was to oversee retributive justice, necessary to give confidence in the rule of law, and the truth and reconciliation commission was to oversee restorative justice, in order to assist previously conflicting parties to move on from past events. The Human Rights Court was established in mid-2006 under the LoGA, but only had authority to investigate cases of human rights abuses following its establishment. It did not investigate the significant prior history of such abuses that was its clear intent. The truth and reconciliation process was itself hampered by a conventional reliance on cultural tradition (adat) and the destruction of most of Aceh s adat systems over the course of the conflict, its lack of application to non-acehnese, or the seriousness 14

15 of the crimes committed (see Avonius 2007, 2009). Reconciliation, therefore, was at best only partially implemented and, for many that process was both inadequate and only compounded the effective failure to establish a Human Rights Court to deal with the plethora of pre-existing cases, a fact that caused considerable local resentment. A number of other points regarding providing financial compensation, farming land, or rehabilitation funds were also not fully or adequately implemented. The passage in Jakarta by the national legislature of the Law on the Governing of Aceh (LoGA), replacing the 2001 law on Special Autonomy for Aceh, was an exercise in compromise. Progovernment parties had to negotiate with non-government and anti-mou parties, resulting in a watered down version of the MOU in legislative terms. While the LoGA enacted the MOU, many former GAM members noted that it neglected or diluted a number of MOU provisions. After its introduction in December 2005, it was finally passed in July 2006, almost four months later than the timeline stipulated in the MOU. Although not stipulated and hence not sequenced, as a result of what appeared to be the failure of the reintegration of former combatants, in February 2007, Governor Irwandi Yusuf established the Aceh Reintegration Board (Badan Reintegrasi Aceh, BRA). While the intent of this organization was sound and reflected a necessity on the ground, it was never adequately funded and ended up having little practical authority. In May 2007, the KPA formally reconstituted itself as Partai Aceh, having agreed to do so at an internal meeting in This transformation appeared to be more a part of the haphazard approach to this aspect of implementing a key aspect of the MOU rather than any pre-arranged timing. More concretely, the MOU (2005) provided for a division of income from resources (MOU 1.3.4), limitations on the number of troops to be stationed in Aceh and restrictions upon their movement (MOU 4.6, 4.7, 4.8), placing the police under the command of an Acehnese (MOU 1.4.4), local, internationally monitored elections, and, most importantly, the creation of local political parties (MOU 1.2.1). In the end, the MOU looked a lot like the type of political arrangement that Aceh had initially wanted following Indonesia s independence from the Netherlands. It was by appealing back to this earlier claim of the Darul Islam movement that GAM, who in many cases saw themselves as the linear descendants of that movement, was able to accept the MOU as an honorable outcome. 15

16 The basic premise that democracy can have a transformative effect on a post-conflict society rests on two assumptions. The first assumption is that democracy provides a regulated and agreed framework for the non-violent channeling and resolution of competing interests. As with other post-conflict societies, this was partially successful in Aceh. The first elections following the peace agreement, in 2007, were relatively peaceful. However, following a failure of an all-gam agreement for the successor party to democratically choose its candidates for political office, former GAM intelligence chief Irwandi Yusuf ended up standing against and beating Malik Mahmud s preferred candidate in the election for governor. The scene was thus set for a more confrontational election in In 2010, ahead of the 2012 elections, the successor party to GAM, Partai Aceh (PA), effectively split into two, with the pro-irwandi faction later becoming Partai Nasional Aceh (PNA). Inter-party violence increased, with three people being killed and many more injured in a series of attacks instigated by Partai Aceh cadres (former GAM fighters) against PNA cadres. While this violence cast something of a pall over the local political process, it has been shown to be a not uncommon feature of post-conflict societies transitioning to electoral politics. 7 However, this conflict remained between parties competing in the elections and did not reflect a return to the previous, wider conflict. Perhaps more importantly, however, is that a genuine democratic process tends to produce political outcomes that are generally respected and which confer upon the successful candidate or party a high degree of legitimacy (Buchanan 2002, 2003; Peter 2008; Collier 2009: 18 24). Legitimacy in turn implies acceptance of the political status quo, which by definition reduces the motivation for action (including violence) against it. In this respect, although there were questions around how the electoral process proceeded, particularly in relation to the conduct of the 2012 election, this was widely understood to be an internal Acehnese matter, rather than one which implied the involvement of or imposition by external parties. 7 There are numerous examples of this, in the region the Philippines, Cambodia, and Timor-Leste each highlighting aspects of such conflict. 16

17 6. Teleological Assumptions There is an assumption or, perhaps more accurately, a hope that particular sets of conditions will produce particular sets of outcomes and that when peace is achieved it will present its own selfreinforcing dividend. 8 This teleological sensibility has a long history, but was particularly reprised following the end of the Cold War, when there was a widespread assumption that liberal democracy would logically prevail (e.g. Fukuyama 1992; Petersen 2008). O Donnell (1996), however, warned against assuming teleological inevitabilities in relation to democratization, but with principles that can apply to peace processes. That is, just because a peace process will have gone through a carefully planned series of processes, with prior conditions in place, this does not necessarily guarantee that the peace will be successful or that it will remain successful. O Donnell (1996) starts with some conceptual clarifications, the first being to determine the cutoff point where something is what it claims to be, or is not. In O Donnell s case, he is referring to democracy but in the case the reference is to peace. In this sense, peace is not just an absence of war but the presence of justice, of law, of order in short, of government (Einstein 1988 quoted in Sandy and Perkins 2002: 6). These qualities imply legitimacy of that government and, while democracy does not guarantee these qualities, it is a useful mechanism for ensuring them or, in their absence, the election of a government more likely to establish them. O Donnell is also careful to not regard democracy as a permanent state of affairs, and as variable in its make-up. So, too, peace can exist, in some cases, without some of the prior conditions that might seem to imply peace, such as disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration, as was only partially the case in Aceh. These incomplete measures might hold longer-term dangers, but they do not necessarily of themselves constitute an absolute threat to either the absence of war or the establishment of a legitimate government. That is to say, the introduction of a democratic process may, without prior conditions, establish the fundamental underlying conditions required to sustain a peace. However, whether that democracy consolidates or not may in turn be determined, or influenced, by other preconditions. The question is perhaps not one of determinacy but more of commitment to the political process 8 This term was initially intended to describe the economic benefit of being able to reduce defence spending, but has since come to refer to the wider economic benefits that accrue to a society once war ends. 17

18 in question, as a viable alternative to war and containing within it sufficient mechanisms to subvert the key drivers of war. 7. Conclusion The Aceh peace process was, in many respects, remarkably successful, and has stood as an illustration of how to get right a negotiated end to civil conflict. Aceh s peace has been held up, at the time of writing for a decade, as a good example of conflict resolution. Some of the lessons of the Aceh resolution have been employed elsewhere, sometimes with positive effect. However, while most negotiation processes have elements in common and some have distinct parallels, no conflicts are entirely alike and no two peace processes are, similarly, entirely alike. Further, there has remained a degree of social tension and occasional outbreaks of political violence in Aceh, if not longer between local combatants and the state. If war is the mere continuation politics by other means (von Clausewitz et al. 1984: 87), then politics can also take on characteristics of war. Peace is not, therefore, just the absence of war. The Aceh peace process was a relatively good one and, had the parties to it chosen to behave as they had committed to at the outset, its results could have been very much better. How circumstances evolve depends very much on how the agents of those circumstances choose to behave. The outcome to Aceh s Helsinki peace agreement was always predicated on trust that parties would act in good faith and, while that has largely been honored, it has not been completely so. The key lesson from the Aceh peace process was that the macro timing of peace talks was critical and, if there is not a desire on the part of both parties to at least genuinely engage in the process, then it is a futile exercise from the outset. It may be that the time is ripe, that circumstances arrange themselves to create a catalyst for peace that had not previously existed (democratization, natural disaster), or that the parties to the conflict are less enthusiastic than they are exhausted. In Aceh, each of these played a role. Unlike Timor-Leste, for example, while Aceh s state institutions had been severely compromised by the military occupation, and physically destroyed by the 2004 tsunami, they continued to function throughout. Added to changes already underway in Indonesia, and that Aceh remained as part of Indonesia and hence benefited from Indonesia s own institutional continuation, some of 18

19 the macro sequencing required for a positive outcome was already in place. Yet the peace cannot be ascribed to sequencing alone. Good, experienced mediation, the demand for a comprehensive solution rather than a ceasefire, and support from and demands by the international community also all added to the Aceh outcome. But, perhaps most importantly, and that element of the whole process that was most difficult to achieve and which was the last point to be negotiated, was that Aceh be allowed to represent itself to itself, in the form of local political parties. This then gave both genuine voice to the aspirations of the Acehnese people, a sense of integrity in the decisions being made on their behalf (be they right or wrong), and legitimacy to the political process. More than any single thing, it was this legitimation of the subsequent political process that not just allowed the Aceh war to end but ensured that it did not restart. There has continued, since 2005, to be complaints that the MOU had not been properly implemented, that Indonesia has here and there tricked or tried to trick the Acehnese people, or there has been a belief that it has done so or tried to do so, has led to calls for a reconsideration of Aceh s original claims for independence. Approaching the tenth anniversary of what has otherwise been described as one of the most successful peace agreements of recent times, Aceh again appeared on the verge of being plunged into bloody conflict. Indonesia s Defence Minister, the former hardline general Ryamizard Ryacudu, had threatened to return Aceh to military conflict status following the murder in March 2015 of two Indonesian military intelligence officers. The murder of the two officers has been formally blamed on the Din Minimi gang, a small group of former Free Aceh Movement (GAM) guerrillas. The gang, which is led by Nurdin Ismail (also known as Din abu Minimi after the light machinegun), claimed it was using violence to protest against the poor treatment of former combatants. The two murdered officers, Sgts Hendri and Indra, had been investigating the activities of the Din Minimi gang in the former GAM stronghold of North Aceh. However, based on a reliable report and a photo taken of the killers soon after they murdered the two officers, while linked to the old GAM, the organizational basis of their killers had a more shadowy basis. In all of this, it appears that the TNI is keen to re-assert its military presence in Aceh. The TNI has three reasons to want open access to Aceh, and did not mind restarting conflict in the province to 19

20 do it. The first reason the TNI wanted to return to Aceh was because the 2005 MOU limited its numbers and mobility, which in turn limited Aceh as the second most lucrative area for the military s illegal income generation, after West Papua. The TNI s illegal activities have been more limited following Indonesia s democratization, reducing discretionary income to senior army officers. The second reason for the army wanting to return to Aceh is because by having an enemy of the state to fight, the TNI could again reinsert itself into the political fabric of the state. While there were some reformers who wanted to reduce the TNI s involvement in political affairs, its more hardline elements, of whom the current defence minister was a prominent member, have always bridled against this restriction. The third reason why the TNI wanted to return to Aceh was because it had opposed the peace process from the start and was only obliged to accept it under pressure from then president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. However, despite earlier hopes, president Joko Widodo is now proving to be much less reformist than his predecessor, and much more influenced by his party, the PDI-P and its leader, former president, Megawati Sukarnoptri. As president, Megawati oversaw Indonesia s largest ever military operation, which was a massive escalation of operations in Aceh in She, and her party, were always more sympathetic to a military rather than a political solution to that three decade long conflict. While Aceh has been relatively peaceful since the peace agreement in 2005, there has been growing disaffection, often by former combatants who have not benefited from the peace dividend. This has been seized on by an organization that had split from GAM in 1999, then known as the Acheh-Sumatra National Liberation Front (ASNLF). The ASNLF gave up that name for that of GAM in This new organization called itself the Governing Council of GAM (MP-GAM), but has recently renamed itself as the ASNLF. It has used this name, and much of the original material and claims of ASNLF/GAM, to recruit disaffected former GAM guerrillas. Soon after splitting, the MP-GAM had entered into negotiations with the Indonesian government and its senior leaders have been welcome in Jakarta since. Some of the leaders of the new ASNLF are understood to have had and retained a close relationship with the State Intelligence Agency (Badan Intelijen Nasional, BIN). This has led to a disturbing scenario whereby the TNI was not just taking advantage of the unstable situation that it had itself been developing, it and 20

21 BIN appeared to be at least in part manipulating disaffected militants. If this seemed extraordinary, it is important to remember that both precursor military and intelligence organizations had a long history of activity in infiltrating and manipulating sections of the West Papua independence movement and, in a previous guise, were active in infiltrating and manipulating the precursor of the terrorist organization Jema ah Islamiyah. A significant part of the appeal of this newly constituted ASNLF has come from what has been widely perceived to be the betrayal of the peace agreement and Aceh s wider struggle for recognition by its symbolic head, former GAM prime minister Malik Mahmud and his deputy and current Aceh governor Zaini Abdullah. Zaini s campaign for the governorship was supported by sections of the TNI and was strongly endorsed by Jakarta s conservative elites. In this, the TNI was playing both sides, fomenting discord for its own longer-term aims. This new ASNLF has formed a small military force, by way of returning to the simpler goal of struggling for a free Aceh. Apart from abandoning Aceh s democratic processes the first in its history for violence, the problem with this new movement was that it has no possible chance of success. Even if all Acehnese supported it, Aceh s population of 4,5 million remains hopelessly overwhelmed by Indonesian s 240 million. But it appeared that most Acehnese did not want to return to the repression, loss, and suffering that characterized its previous three decades of military conflict. Despite disappointment with what some Acehnese call the selling out of Aceh by its current government, most recognize they can change that come the next elections. The question was, however, whether they would be given that chance. It appears that as the tenth anniversary of the Aceh peace agreement moves closer, the TNI might use that date to claim that the peace has ultimately failed and use that as an excuse to return Aceh to war. Overwhelmingly, the people of Aceh believed their circumstances could be much better than they had become and were less than they had been led to believe they would be. But those circumstances were also vastly better than they were prior to 2005, the people were free to go about their business more or less without fear, and while their two elected governments have been seen to not fulfill their aspirations, in part it has been because those aspirations always exceeded the possibility of their fulfillment. The people of Aceh were left, therefore, with that democratic conundrum; one votes in a government, is disappointed by that the government does not live up to expectations, and then 21