Eric Umansky

Indonesia's Bright, Shining Human Rights Record

It looks like the Bush administration is making a new push to fully restore military ties with Indonesia. Those ties were cut back in 1999 when the Indonesia military and their drug-addled nutty militia proxy effectively burnt down  East Timor.

I've spent a bit of time in Timor and Indonesia.  And I just had a friend--an American journalist--write me from there, and offer a brief sketch of a few of the improvements in the military's human rights record in Aceh, scene of a long-running guerrilla war and an impending peace deal:

The human rights situation here is abysmal. Success of the peace deal is essential to renewing US/Indonesia army ties, because Aceh has been producing damning human rights cases. Even this week there are still mobile brigade teenagers riding around here in military trucks with 50 caliber guns mounted atop, sans uniforms, acting like a bunch of drunk thugs. At least one tsunami relief source said their drivers are still getting shaken down by the military at the point of assault rifles. Personally, I'm a little unsettled by the idea that the guns getting waved at the tsunami relief drivers are American M-16s. Local press, Jakarta-based Indonesian reporters here for the peace deal, and people I've interviewed outside Banda Aceh are still reporting firefights and disappearances.

Military-backed militia   "acting like a bunch of drunk thugs." Ah, just like I remember it.

As I was saying, etc.

Anti-secrecy mensch Steven Aftergood has posted another  batch of Congress Research Service reports.Those are the reports  that aren't classified, that you and I pay for, and that we're not allowed to see because Congress declared no-touchies. There are about a dozen new reports. Three deal specifically with jihadism:

"Islamic Religious Schools, Madrasas: Background," updated February 10, 2005:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RS21654.pdf

"The Islamic Traditions of Wahhabism and Salafiyya," updated February 10, 2005:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RS21695.pdf

"Terrorism in Southeast Asia," updated February 7, 2005:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/terror/RL31672.pdf

In an ode to procrastination, I flipped through that last report. Lo-and-behold, there's  more evidence that NYT op-ed contributor John Burnett doesn't know he's talking about. As I mentioned below Burnett said the Acehenese  rebel group, known as GAM, is tight with jihadists: "Many terrorism experts cite its links to Jemaah Islamiyah, the Islamist group suspected in the Bali nightclub bombings of 2003, and to Al Qaeda."

Here's what the CRS  report says about that:

Past efforts by Laskar Jihad and JI to become involved in Aceh have been rejected by GAM. Though GAM supporters are devout Muslims, they do not embrace the sort of radicalism embraced by JI.

 

The dangers and distortions of a single prism

Today's NYT has an op-ed about the dangers of piracy on the high seas. It's focused on the potential for terrorists to wreak havoc by taking over a ship in one of the world's choke points  such as the  Malacca Strait, which connects the Indian and Pacific Oceans and is  at one-point just one-mile wide.  It's written by  John Burnett,  author of   Dangerous Waters: Modern Piracy and Terror on the High Seas, and notes:

Despite the global decline in the number of reported attacks (many experts feel that there are hundreds more each year that go unreported), the number of attacks in the Malacca Strait increased last year to 37 from 28 in 2003. And, while many raids are likely carried out by crime syndicates, there is evidence that many have been the work of the Free Aceh Movement of northern Sumatra, an Islamist separatist organization that has been fighting to gain independence from Indonesia since 1976. While the United States does not officially call the group a terrorist organization, the Indonesian government does. And many terrorism experts cite its links to Jemaah Islamiyah, the Islamist group suspected in the Bali nightclub bombings of 2003, and to Al Qaeda.

Here's the thing: Burnett doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about.  The Free Aceh Movement, or GAM, is nationalist. No doubt GAMs hands are dirty; I've  heard reports that they shaken down tsunami relief organizations. But that doesn't make them al-Qaida loving jihadists.  The U.S. hasn't ID'd them as a terrorist group because they're not. 

GAM is in peace talks with the Indonesian government. In fact, the group's spokesman asserted  today that GAM isn't even seeking independence, it just wants   'autonomy. '  From al-Jazeera:

"The conflict cannot be solved like that and we have to come to terms with that," Free Aceh Movement (GAM) spokesman Bakhtiar Abd Allah said on Monday when asked if the goal of full independence had been abandoned in the interest of achieving greater autonomy.

 

"That (self-government) is the main thing on the table," he said in

Helsinki

where peace talks with the

Jakarta

government were in their second day. "Of course, in the negotiations we go with the tangible things that are on the table."

That sound like jihadists to you?

What's really happening in Aceh

The best coverage I've seen--by a longshot--has come from the Newsweek. Honestly. From the magazine:

Rescue teams  have to deal with the Indonesian military, which has committed gross rights abuses in Aceh, and has a well-earned reputation for corruption.

[...]

At the time the tsunami hit, Aceh had become a virtual fiefdom of the Indonesian Army. Commanders ran business empires, and oversaw smuggling, illegal logging, protection rackets and extortion schemes.

[...]

The military's initial response to the tsunami was, by many accounts, apathetic. NEWSWEEK's first reporters in the provincial capital, Banda Aceh, saw groups of armed soldiers loafing in the shade, smoking cigarettes as relief planes lined up on the tarmac at the capital's small airstrip. Their commander occupied an air-conditioned VIP lounge where he waited for senior visitors from Jakarta. Rotting bodies littered the streets, yet the most pressing concern for the brass was protocol. Commanders refused to coordinate relief efforts with the first official sent by the Welfare Ministry, deeming him too junior.

Profiteering is rampant. On a New Zealand military cargo flight from Aceh to Jakarta, about half the "refugees" being carried out were well-dressed people who paid up to $80 to Indonesian military screeners to be allowed on the plane.

Update: The wires are reporting that Indonesia has offered Achenese rebels a cease-fire. (There have been earlier reports that Indonesia's civilian leaders want that but the military won't go for it.) And in a more concrete development: Indonesia's military has told  international aid workers not to travel beyond the capital and one other city. The military said it's to protect aid workers from rebels. But the rebels have never attack aid workers and the workers themselves say they're not concerned.

And the media angle: How  is that Newsweek, CW-central, is so forward-leaning and kicking its competitors tushes? Probably answer: The  guy who wrote the piece   speaks Indonesian  and has visited Aceh plenty of times.  Just another example that local knowledge, especially language,  is invaluable--and rare--for international reporters.

Related: That's why the New York Times and others policy of rotating reporters in and out of Baghdad every three months, while understandable from a human perspective, has an enormous cost in terms of coverage.