Writer  : Maruli Tobing
Source : Kompas, 8 September, 2001

On April 25th, 1897, at Bivak Tamun in the terrifying jungles of West Acheh, the brilliant mid-ranking officer Van Daalen (later to be Dutch Governor of Acheh), wrote a letter to his beloved wife half a world away in Holland. At the time he was serving as Chief of Staff of Division XII of the Colonial Constabulary (Marsose), combing the villages and the jungle in search of Teungku Umar.

The Governor has ordered that the large homes in the villages must be burnt if the occupants refuse to pay a fine. He had wished that the occupants be shot dead, but we protested against the order Truly a shameful thing! And I wish to leave here as quickly as possible, he wrote.

But eight years later, in 1905, when he was appointed Governor of Acheh, Van Daalen's respect for humanity suddenly vanished, and he became a monster. Although before he had refused the orders of the Governor to execute disobedient villagers, now he gave precisely the same orders himself.

Scorched earth tactics were maintained as part of standard military operations. When there were reports of insubordination, an elite Constabulary force would sweep the area and burn the homes of the locals. Crops in the plantations were totally annihilated, and livestock seized to pay fines. In modern-day language we would call this plunder.

Van Daalen, who was known as Kaphe (kafir, or infidel) the Butcher, deployed all his artillery so that the Acheh problem could be settled as quickly as possible. The protracted war almost emptied the Netherlands East Indies government treasury. However before he had completed his parade of massacres, Van Daalen was removed from his post in 1908. A number of Dutch parliamentarians objected to his methods.

Their objections were not because of the sadism and aggression of the Dutch forces under Van Daalen, but because they disagreed with his strategy in confronting the Achehnese people. After three years of unparalleled brutality Van Daalen had yet to defeat the resistance of the Achehnese.

The Dutch were only able to control Acheh after the killings of the ulama [religious leaders] di Tiro, Pidie and Mata in Keureutoe in around 1913. The number of victims killed in that affair was around 3000, who joined the tens of thousands of Achehnese people martyred in the war against the Dutch in the years previous.

The Dutch, who officially declared war on Acheh in 1873, had no idea that they would be plunged into such a protracted war. Even the deaths of the ulama didn't mean the end of the Achehnese people's resistance, for guerilla war continued right up until the landing of Japanese troops in East Acheh.

Professor Doctor Snouck Hurgronje, alias Abdullah Al-Gaffar, an anthropologist and expert on Islam as well as a colonial spy, who researched Islam in Mecca from 1884-1885, was wrong when he recommended that military superiority was needed to bring down the arrogance of the Achehnese warriors. His book The Achehnese, that was published in 1893, that claimed to describe the social and cultural consciousness of the Achehnese people, failed to grasp the democratic values and policies that lived and grew in the Achehnese social order.

These values were why, when the Achehnese saw the colonial presence as oppressive, resistance broke out everywhere. Tragically, Hurgronje, whose thinking was a key reference point for the colonialists, proposed a solution based on military superiority. What happened as a result was like a flame meeting petrol.

Anthony Reid in his book The Blood of The People's Revolution and The End of Traditional Rule in Northern Sumatra said that until the end of 1936, the Dutch Governor in Acheh was still convinced that within the heart of each Achehnese person there still grew: fanatical love for independence, strengthened by a strong feeling of ethnic solidarity, causing them to loathe foreigners and to have a deep hatred of the colonial authorities.

Around 104 years after Van Daalen wrote that letter to his wife, the suffering of the people still continues. Homes are still being burnt and executions continue. Indeed it happens not just in West Acheh, where Van Daalen opened his heart in a letter, but over almost all of Acheh.

Ironically, in this Era of Reformation which values democracy, the rule of law, and justice so highly, the oppression of the Achehnese people is getting more severe. Since the formation of the reform government several years ago, thousands of Achehnese have died without any legal redress, except for the single case of the massacre of Teungku Bantagiah and his students.

Even in the Bantagiah case the investigation went no further than the soldiers in the field. Those who gave the orders and planned the operation were actually promoted. If US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright hadn't pressured the Indonesian government to examine the case, it would have disappeared into thin air.

In 1999 alone more than 100 000 people were displaced from their villages because of the grave security situation. The refugees took nothing with them apart from a change of clothes.

Since the beginning of the reform government thousands of homes have been burnt by the military, just because the troops were angry at AGAM (the military wing of GAM) for ambushing them. When Brigadier General Bahrumsyah was Chief of Police in Acheh he admitted that his men had lost control of their emotions because their comrades had been shot. Since that period there have been no more admissions, only defensiveness. The security forces accuse GAM of carrying out atrocities when local residents and NGO members clearly saw TNI soldiers and police committing them.

GAM themselves have stated that they are struggling for the Achehnese people, so it is unthinkable that they would burn the homes of those they defend. The arsons began when the TNI and police arrived, and to prove this GAM are prepared to provide eyewitnesses. They say that if people are unsure, the TNI and police should be withdrawn, so that we can see if the arsons continue or not.

In Ulee Glee, in Pidie regency, for example, thousands of people are living in misery after Police Mobile Brigade officers burnt their homes and businesses. Two years ago, on Thursday 12 October 2000, at around 17:00, shots began to be heard coming from a troop-carrier truck. The Mobil Brigade officers leapt from the truck, formed up in search formation, and began to fire into the air. The residents scattered, business owners closing up their shops, kiosks and coffee stalls and hiding inside.

The troops ordered everyone out, and gathered them together at the side of the road. A few minutes later a fire broke out at the back of a coffee stall. It didn't take long before 98 coffee stalls and 33 kiosks were reduced to ashes. That night the future of Ulee Glee, an area which had been a showcase of development in Acheh, was wiped out.

The arsons are continuing to this very day. In Central Acheh regency, arbitrary arsons followed the formation of a pro-Indonesian militia. Markets and shops inTimang Gajah district, for example, have been reduced to ruins. Thousands of people have fled the area, hundreds of homes abandoned by Achehnese are now levelled to the ground.

The process of destruction has taken place in every sector of society and in every district in Acheh. Even the education sector has become a target of military operations. At least 300 schools and dozens of teacher's homes have been burnt. Statistics record the deaths by shooting of more than 30 schoolteachers, while tens more are missing since being kidnapped by armed people. They also record tens of teachers severely disabled and traumatised.

As usual the Indonesian secutiry forces deny bruning schools, kidnapping and murdering teachers. As usual they accuse GAM of being the perpetrator. GAM responds as we would expect it to, that it's unthinkable that they would destroy the education system of the Achehnese people.

As yet, not a single independent body has carried out an investigation and made its findings known to the public. Teungku Abdullah Syafi'e, Military Commander of the di Tiro Central Command, has condemned the burning of schools and the killing and kidnapping of teachers as a process of making the Achehnese people ignorant.

Over the years of Dutch colonialism, Japanese occupation and Indonesian independence, the New Order and the era of reformasi, little more than a day has gone by without a human corpse appearing. In Indonesia arbitrary arrest, torture, kidnapping and summary execution can take place at any time to anyone.

So, what is it that makes this country continue to smoulder? Violence breeds more violence. This is the iron law of violence. Once begun, it's hard to imagine when it will end. It doesn't roll like a snowball, it's more like a plague that spreads from one to the next. It is because of this that since the French Revolution spread this realization, violence has been the monopoly of the state and must be kept firmly in check.

However, because violence is like a tempting demon, those in power, who hold the monopoly of violence, often forget this iron law. By way of violence, the straight can be made bent, just as the crooked can be made straight. In the past, this point has been dramatized by the failure to investigate cases of kidnapping, extra-judicial execution and corruption.

It's the violent approach that has been used by those who seek a solution for the conflict in Acheh. The wrong-headed theory on military superiority of Snouck Hurgronje, alias Abdullah Al Gaffar, has been put into practice for more than a century, and has resulted in continuous upheaval.

All of us, including the political elite, have arrogantly accused the Achehnese as extremists and terrorists. But we have not looked for the reasons why they act as they do, instead we have praised the central government in Jakarta that tries to solve the Acheh problem with violence.