Pantau Magazine
1 December, 2003

by Andreas Harsono

The Indonesian government's declaration of martial law and military offensive against Acehnese separatists recently drew international attention to the troubled province on the western tip of Sumatra. ANDREAS HARSONO explains in a carefully researched and thoughtful essay why many Acehnese are fighting for independence from Jakarta.

IN 1926 an Indonesian journalist who lived in Batavia, then the colonial name of Jakarta, wrote a book about his cruise from Batavia to Amsterdam. inAdi Negoro described in his two-series travelogue Melawat ke Barat ("Traveling to the West") his stopovers in more than two dozens international cities such as Singapore, Medan, Colombo, Aden, Port Said, Marseille, Lisbon, Algiers, Gibraltar and Southampton. It was an eye-opening book of the early 20th century Dutch Indies –the colonial name of this vast archipelago. Adi Negoro mixed day-to-day stories with references to classical books, ranging from anthropology, to theology, from history to philosophy.

One of his interesting pauses was the seaport of Sabang on Weh Island in northern Sumatra where the Tambora had stopped to load up coal. Adi Negoro took a car ride around Sabang and compared the Sabang harbour with the more modern British-controlled Singapore where his ship had stopped earlier.

"If we compare only the ports, Sabang is obviously better than Singapore. But Sabang's location is not that strategic. Although the Dutch government had made Sabang into a freeport, but it is not as busy as Singapore." (Both seaports are located on the Straits of Malacca.)

He also wrote a little history. The Dutch built the Sabang harbour in 1887. Sabang Maatschappij, a private company commissioned by the Dutch government to manage the freeport, further developed the harbour between 1896 and 1911. It was equipped with a 2,600-ton ship repair dock. It also had four giant cranes that busily loaded up coal into ships entering Sabang from Europe, China, Japan, Singapore, Batavia and other places. In 1924 the company built another dock, 5,000 tons, to increase its repairing capacity.

"The livelihood of most people in Sabang depends on this seaport. There was a Kampoeng Tionghoa (Chinatown) near the harbour which was packed with stores and restaurants. Behind the harbour were the workers' lodgings. On the seaside were offices of shipping companies such as Rotterdamsche Llyod Lloyd and Maatschappy Nederland," Adi Negoro wrote.

What Adi Negoro he did not write was that Sabang was a part of Aceh –the stubborn territory that had fought against the Dutch colonialism between 1876 and 1904. The Dutch built Sabang not only to get for economic gain but also to help pacify the Acehnese.

Last June, I spent one hour in a speedboat to reach Sabang from Banda Aceh, the provincial capital of Aceh. with a speed boat. The Sabang harbour was picturesque with small fishing boats and tin-roofed warehouses. Outside the harbour was a small street and 300m meters away was the Chinatown named Jalan Perdagangan where Chinatown was located.

Outside the harbour, A pedicab driver, whose motorcycle was outfitted with a locally-made sidecar, approached me and offered a ride.

Note : Reprinted from Star Magazine, 14 September 2003

FOCUS: Starting From Kilometre Zero

by Andreas Harsono, The Star Newspaper

"What kind of tree is it?" I asked him instead, pointing to one of the gigantic trees that line up along the street. " Morai tree. It is more than 300 years old," answered Liyan Ramli.

The tree, called Manila tamarind in English, was impressive. Its trunk was almost as big as a small wooden hut. I estimated that its diameter was to be more than two meters2m. In English its name in English is Manila tamarind. In Latin it is Tamarindus indicus . A row of gigantic Manila tamarind trees lined the street and I learnt from a pedicab driver, Liyan Ramli that the trees, called Morai locally, are over 300 years old.

Indeed, Weh Island is still beautiful. The Sabang administration preserves not only old trees but also two protected wildlife areas: Weh Island Marine Park (2,600ha) and Iboih recreation park (1,300ha). The Marine Park has coral gardens, while the Iboih park is located on the west coast of Weh Island and consists of beach and tropical lowland forests. Sabang also has a little volcano, a waterfall and a cave complex inhabited by birds, bats and snakes, which Adi Negoro unfortunately did not visit.

Singapore port was bigger than Sabang during Adi Negoro's trip but the difference is an extreme contrast today. Although the Singapore port was already bigger in Adi Negoro's day, today the contrast between the two is extreme. Singapore has become one of the world's busiest and most modern seaports while Sabang's harbour ironically has became smaller and even less equipped than itsit was in 1926. circumstance. Singapore now has a population of four million while Sabang has only 22,000.
Sabang Mayor Sofyan Haroen told me that during the Dutch period, Sabang had 2,700m meters of docking areas. Now it has only 572m. meters "It means we moved back 100 years," Sofyan said.

"In old photographs, we could see up to 60 ships anchored in Sabang Bay," said Husaini, the speaker of the Sabang Parliament, lamenting that under Indonesian rule the Sabang harbour had became more and more neglected. President The Suharto government closed the free port in 1985 on because of "smuggling" grounds despite protests from the people in of Sabang. Under President Abdurrahman Wahid, it was reopened it three years ago.

But I visited this little town not only because of its natural beauty or its Singapore correlation. Sabang plays a very significant role in the psyche of Indonesia's 220 million population. Sabang is located in Indonesia's westernmost tip and the name "Sabang" itself is mentioned in a national song, Dari Sabang Sampai Merauke, whose lyrics mainly says thatdescribe how Indonesia does exists in the many islands that span from (dari) Sabang to (sampai) Merauke. Sabang is in the west. Merauke, a small town in Papua, is in the east. Every school student knows how to sing that song.

The phrase term "Sabang-Merauke" becomes more frequently cited nowadays as many Indonesia's different ethnic groups have been rebelling against Jakarta. The rebellions, including the one in Aceh and another one in Papua, started decades ago but they gained bigger momentum with after the fall of Suharto in May 1998. Aceh's rebellion is apparently the most serious threat after since Indonesia had lost East Timor in a UN-sponsored referendum in September 1999. President Megawati Sukarnoputri, who succeeded Wahid, declared Aceh under martial law on May 19 this year. Hers was a popular decision in Indonesia where nationalism was on the rise.

On my second day in Sabang, I rented a motorcycle in from the Sabang-Merauke Inn to visit a monument in the Ujong Batu area, about 30km kilometers west of Sabang. Its name is It's called "the Monument of the Republic Indonesia Kilometer Nil" which symbolises the westernmost tip of Indonesia's territorial integrity.

But The innkeeper was not enthusiastic about my plan. He suggested that his staff to accompanied me.

"Isn't it safe to go there alone? Are there GAM guerrillas?" I asked him.

"No, no, it is the soldiers that I am worried about," he answered.

GAM is the Indonesian acronym of for the "Gerakan Aceh Merdeka" or Free Aceh Movement –a guerrilla organisation that seeks Aceh's independence from Indonesia. Their presence is not that strong on Weh Island although some police officers have told me earlier that the island had "20 hardcore" GAM fighters with four firearms.

I assured him that I could take care of his motorcycle, showing him my press card issued by the Indonesian military in Banda Aceh. I assumed he was worried about his motorcycle as Indonesian soldiers, who man check-points in many parts of Aceh, are notorious for their lack of discipline and are pretty rough when dealing with local people and their property.

So I left Sabang. But twenty 20 minutes later, I became nervous when I saw that an electrical distribution station was guarded by police officers. I also encountered passed a military truck with dozens of soldiers walking along beside the truck. Clad in jungle camouflages, they were fully armed and wore bullet-proof vests. Their faces were also painted black. They made no noise and some looked at me.

I entered a village and the road became quieter. "Where is the Kilometer Nol?" I asked two village women.

"Oh, it is still very far. Just follow this road. It is at the end," of this road," answered one woman.

I continued and it became quieter. and reached Iboih beach and then the forest. Tall trees, ferns, red wild flowers – the anthurium – and dried leaves covered the street. Suddenly I met surprised a crowd of monkeys. They were surprised to see me but I was more surprised to see them. My hair stood on end. The biggest male monkey looked at me sharply while sitting and showing showed off his red penis while still sitting. I sped up my motorcycle.

When approaching the peak, I encountered a military check-point. Two soldiers stopped me and asked my identity card. Clad in jungle camouflage fatigues with automatic guns, they asked me my reason to be for being there. I told them that I was a journalist. They checked my documents. We chatted for a while.

"Are you guys not boring bored in this remote area?"

"Our job is to guard this place. That's an order," said First Private Wahyu Hanes. His colleague, First Private Sutrisno, told me that they are based in Malang in eastern Java and only arrived in Sabang six months earlier. They haven't had any fire fight exchanges with the guerrillas; and they even rarely met human being other people here. Sometimes visitors came to visit the monument by cars. A German tourist, however, visited them a few days earlier by bicycle.

"When I read the newspapers about a German couple who were shot, I thought he might be him," said Sutrisno, referring to Luther Hendrick Albert Engel, a German cyclist, who was shot to death by nine Indonesian soldiers while sleeping on a beach in western Aceh one week earlier with his wife. Both Indonesian and German governments concluded that it was an accident.

Four more kilometers kilometres later and I saw a billboard, "You are entering Kilometer Nil of the Republic of Indonesia." I was tired but mesmerised by the beautiful clear waters, old trees, and serene environment of the place. I saw Deep blue sea surrounded me. It was paradise. I really love it.

The place is shaped like a circle and its centre is a white three-story monument. At the top of its dome is a zero-shaped statuesculpture. There was is a black marble stone which read gives the its geographical location: of this place: north latitude 5 degrees, 54 minutes, 21.99 seconds; east longitude 95 degrees, 12 minutes, 59.02 seconds. This is the first kilometer kilometre of the Republic of Indonesia.

In this quiet place, I sat down and thought about the meaning of Indonesia. What does it mean? What kind of nationalism does it promote? What does this symbol mean when so many people rebel against what they see as Jakarta's injustice?

In Sabang, I saw many places being named with after the nationalist phrase term "Sabang-Merauke." There is the Sabang-Merauke Stadium, There is the Sabang-Merauke Foundation which runs a kindergarten and near the Sabang-Merauke Inn where I rented my motorbike, I had seen the Sabang Merauke Telephone Counter.

It seems like a common practice to show an emotional tie between the citizens of Sabang and the citizens of Merauke. But if there is such a tie, why is there is a big rebellion throughout Aceh? Why do many Acehnese, at the least, would like to have a "special autonomy," and at the maximummost, an independence from Jakarta? Why do Sabang citizens like Liyan Ramli, or furniture merchant Nyik Siti Absyah or and Chinese baker Su Sien Jin feel bitter about Jakarta's decision to close down Sabang in 1985?

In his classic, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, the political scientist Benedict Anderson argued that a nation is an "imagined community." By definition, a community has members who are aware of each other's existence. But even for a lifetime, members of an imagined community do not meet or come to know a substantial number of the other members.

Indonesia is an imagined community. Most Sabang citizens have no idea what Merauke looks like. Yet through a number of media, which include the national song Dari Sabang Sampai Merauke, these members acquire a sense of belonging to this larger group.

When I asked Liyan Ramli what the "Sabang-Merauke" meant to him, Liyan he simply replied that it is his daily parking position. "Yeah, right there in front of the Sabang-Merauke Inn, You could you can find me there." he said.

BOUNCING along on one of Aceh's few good roads, you can easily spend three hours on the 160km–kilometer journey from Banda Aceh to the Tiro district in Pidie. The drive takes you straight into the heart of the Free Aceh Movement heartland, full of the serene-looking scenery of thetropical villages, as well as where you can see bombing potholes caused by bombs and sandbagged military posts. despite that you see in the whole trip.

I went there early one morning last in June with a driver and Murizal Hamzah, who works as a freelance photographer for the Associated Press. The road passes through some of Aceh's lushest land with paddypadi fields, idyllic villages, with where children played around in communal spaces and men went toworked their farms. Goats, cows and chickens wandered around. in the lush green grass areas.

Murizal, himself an Acehnese, gave me a lecture about how to enter a military operation area: Always report to the closest military posts. Open windshieldsWind down your windows. Never use cars with dark windshields.

"And don't use an old Toyota Kijang van. We might be mistaken for SGI," Murizal he added, referring to an army intelligence unit who which usually used old vans with dark windshieldswhich usually used such vehicles.

When I began to interview people in Sakti, a town close to Tiro, he reminded me not to greet the local men with the brotherly salutation of "Mas." I should call them "Bang" or "Abang." I immediately got the point. There is a sentiment against the Javanese –the dominant ethnic group in Indonesia – among GAM supporters. Both words literally mean "big brother." But the word "mas" is a Javanese _expression and "abang" is an Acehnese one. Many villagers declined to answer when I greeted them with the Javanese word.

We went straight to the village of Tanjung Bungoeng in Malichot to visit Aisyah Muhammad, the stepsister and the only remaining sibling of Hasan di Tiro, the founder of the Free Aceh Movement. Aisyah's residence is a big traditional Acehnese house built on stilts with a large compound. I saw a satellite dish popped up from on it's the roof.

But Aisyah was not home. "She went out. Maybe she will stay the night away," said Muhammad Abubakar, a farmer and a neighbour, who seemed to be the most senior figure in this small neighbourhood.

Aisyah is an elderly widow who keeps her house open for her fellow villagers. I saw more than two dozens children playing inside her house. Some adults were also there. Abubakar told me that she is was a KoranQuran teacher, tutoring the youngsters about Islam and how to recite the Koranverses.

When I asked him about Hasan di Tiro, Abubakar said that Hasan was born in Malichot and learned to recite the Koran Quran in the neighbouring Tiro. Hasan is a grandson of Teuku Chik di Tiro – an Acehnese leader who fought against and was killed by the Dutch and was later posthumously was awarded the title of Indonesia's "National Hero."

"I'm 55 years old and Wali is almost 80 years old now. I've never met him," Abubakar said, referring to Hasan di Tiro whose official title is " Walinegara " or "the Guardian of the State" within among GAM supporters.

It is not a surprise to see such a respect in Malichot toward Hasan di Tiro despite Indonesia 's smear campaign against him. Hasan was born in 1930 and grew up as a di Tiro – considered to be a blue blood family in Aceh. He wrote that at least 10 of his forebears — six of them sultans — died in combat against the Dutch. The last sultan to fall was his uncle, Tengku Tjhik Maat di Tiro, who was 16 when he fought to the death rather than accept a deal with the Dutch.

The family's saga might begin a century earlier, not in Aceh but in London, when the British and the Dutch signed the 1824 Treaty of London. It defined a British sphere of influence on over the Malay Peninsula and a Dutch sphere over Sumatra. But the Sumatran trade became an issue of contention, because the British resented what they saw as Dutch attempts to curtail their commercial activities. One provision of the treaty was the recognition of the independence of the Aceh sultanate.

But Aceh controlled a large portion of the pepper trade and alarmed the Dutch by actively seeking relations with other western countries. A new Anglo-Dutch treaty, signed in 1871, gave the Dutch a free hand in Sumatra, including Aceh.

Two years later, talks between the United StatesAmerican consul in Singapore and Acehnese representatives gave the Dutch the pretext for opening hostilities. Dutch gunboats bombarded the sultanate's capital, Banda Aceh, and troops were landed.

The palace was seized and the sultan died. The Dutch made a treaty with a new sultan, who recognised Dutch sovereignty over the area. But he was unable to control his subjects and Dutch forces became involved in a protracted guerrilla war in the countryside. This war drained the colonial treasury and public opinion in the Netherlands became increasingly critical.

The Dutch administration realised that their ignorance of Aceh had led them to commit serious errors. C. Snouck Hurgronje, professor of Islamic studies at the University of Leyden, was invited to advise the colonial administration. Hurgronje published a famous book in 1894 on the Acehnese. A "castle strategy," which provided fortified bases for the Dutch troops, was then introduced.

But under the leadership of J.B. van Heutsz, who was appointed military governor of Aceh in 1899, the sultanate was quickly subdued. Tuanku Muhamat Dawot, the pretender of to the Aceh sultanate, submitted to the Dutch government in January 1903. Van Heutsz conquered the entire region in 1904.

Still, many Aceh figures kept on up the guerilla war albeit in on a much smaller scale. Hasballah Saad, an Acehnese figure who served as a minister in the President Abdurrahman Wahid Cabinet, told me recently that in the 1930s many skirmishes still took place in Aceh. "I have almost never experienced peace in Aceh," said the 51-year-old Hasballah.

After World War II, the Netherlands handed over its former colonies to Indonesia, a new nation centered centred on the island of Java. Acehnese nationalists say the action was illegal: the Netherlands could not give away what it did not own.

But Daud Beureueh, a prominent Muslim figure in Aceh, decided to support the new republic. He mobilised the Acehnese to donate their money and jewellery to buy Indonesia's first two airplanes. Indonesia's founding President Sukarno promised to grant a special autonomous status to Aceh. Sukarno, however, did not fulfil his promise. Beureueh took arms against Jakarta in 1953 and continued through the rest of the decade. Only in 1961 when Aceh was granted a special autonomy status and did Beureueh dropped his fight. One of his daughters married to Malaysian politician Sanusi Junid, himself an Acehnese-descent Malaysian, who attended the burial of Beureueh when he died in 1987.

Hasan di Tiro missed that conflict. In 1951 he left Aceh as a young man and moved to New York. He gave some help by buying arms for Beureueh's men. After graduating from Columbia University, he went into business representing major American companies overseas and negotiating deals involving oil, cattle and shipping.

In 1974 di Tiro he left his American wife and son in New York and returned to his homeland. He visited Aceh Governor Muzakkir Walad in Banda Aceh and inquired about the possibilities to have of having a forest concession or a contract with Exxon Mobil with operates a natural gas field in Aceh — one of the largest in the world. Muzakkir said that the decision lay not with him but Jakarta.

Since he took taking power in 1965, Suharto had ruled Indonesia with centralising policies. He recruited American-trained economists to run the country as well as his own army generals to provide security and, if necessary, to suppress criticism. His regime controlled almost everything in this vast archipelago. Jokes circulated that officials in remote areas needed to get Jakarta's approval even to buy a pen.

Hasan di Tiro thought that it was no use to dealing with Jakarta. He was fed up with the injustice and met up with his loyal supporters, hid in the jungle and began building a rebel organisation. He introduced the concept of "bangsa Aceh vis-à-vis bangsa Indonesia" and viewed the Javanese to be Aceh's historic rival.

"Bangsa" is the Malay word for "nation." It is strange among Indonesians to hear the phrase "bangsa Aceh" as they are much more familiar with the notion that Indonesia is already a nation. But not Aceh. Hasan declared Aceh's independence on Dec 4, 1976.

In his published diary, The Price of Freedom, which covered the two years he spent in Aceh, di Tiro Hasan recounted his adventures living among the monkeys, fleeing from "Javanese soldiers," avoiding snakes and spiders and listening to his favourite cassettes of Bach and Vivaldi.

When soldiers attacked his camp, he was grazed on the leg by a bullet grazed his leg. When supplies were cut off, he went for days without food. But much of the time, leading the revolution consisted of sitting in the jungle and pounding out nationalist propaganda on his typewriter. "We have not been born to be anybody's slaves," he wrote. "We want to live as free men or not to live at all."

By 1979, Di Tiro Hasan had organised a nationalist movement, created a shadow government and appointed rebel governors for much of the province. But he was slow to get guns and his rebellion lacked international support.

Di Tiro He moved to Sweden, which had offered asylum to a small group of Acehnese refugees, and became a Swedish citizen in 1985. His decision to accept help from Libya did not win the movement any foreign friends. But by 1989, the success of the newly Libya-trained rebel army prompted President Suharto to mount a ruthless campaign that lasted until Suharto stepped down in May 1998. More than 10,000 Acehnese were killed.

The military strategy involved intensive surveillance, check-points, dawn-to-dusk curfews, house raids, and arrests on a wide scale. Already in 1989 and 1990 these counterinsurgency activities led to the killing of many civilians at check-points, arbitrary arrests and detentions, and a broader pattern of "harassment and ill-treatment of civilians in suspected rebel base areas."

Homes were raided and burned, women were taken hostage and raped, and arbitrary arrests, detention, torture, summary executions and "disappearances" were common well into the mid-1990s.

The campaign resulted in considerable social dislocation within Aceh, with thousands of Acehnese displaced from their homes and hundreds of Acehnese fleeing to nearby Malaysia.

After Suharto's fall, many Acehnese hoped Indonesia would collapse and the province would gain independence, but the Jakarta government insists insisted it will would not allow the country to break up especially after it had lost losing East Timor in 1999. Support for the rebels is strongest in Aceh's countryside, where some families have passed down a tradition of resistance from generation to generation. "We miss Wali. We want to see Wali back in his homeland," said Abubakar.

Ibrahim Alfian, an Acehnese scholar who currently works as a professor at the Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta, the ancient capital of the Javanese kingdom, said that Aceh is a legitimate part of Indonesia.

He said In an interview with the Kompas daily, he said he was involved in a heated debate with GAM leaders during an all-Aceh conference in Washington DC in 1999.

"According to the statement of the Acehnese ulemas ulamas on October 15, 1945, Aceh was to merge with the Republic of Indonesia. Aceh has since becomes a legitimate part of Indonesia. If now some Acehnese want to be independent and to separate from Indonesia, I think they don't know history and to ignore are ignoring their ulamas. In Aceh, people who don't follow their ulamas are considered to be traitors."

Ibrahim also questioned Hasan di Tiro's credibility: "How could can Acehnese trust someone who claims to be the Walinegara when he himself is married to a foreign woman? Come on! If the heir of the Acehnese kingdom married to a foreigner, then his successor will would be a foreigner, ha?"

A few kilometres away from Malichot, I visited a military post in the Tiro district, the very place where five decades earlier, Hasan di Tiro had possibly had perhaps walked every evening to visit his Koranic religious teacher.

The ir commander, Second Lieutenant Eka Andang, sat with about a dozen of his men. Some used were in uniform, others used only in black T-shirts. They chatted and exchanged jokes with me but their fingers never left their weapons, from machine guns to rifles to pistols to bayonets.

A stone's throw away from the post was a coffee shop where many villagers sat, down gossiped in hushed voices and sipped their coffee.

Next to the post was a school – the only one which was not burned in the area in during the school burning campaign throughout Aceh soon after Megawati declared martial law on May 19.

Eka told me that they had arrived from their barracks in Bogor in western Java, to man this post on May 8 and got their first fire fight just one week later.

"It was after we held a prayer when that they attacked from three different directions," Eka said.
The fight took place from about 9pm until 11.30pm. The attackers used grenade launching machines launchers which hurled 20 grenades at the post. Only three grenades exploded. Nobody was killed. Eka said his men tried to restrain when refrain from firing back because the guerrillas had attacked them from a densely populated village the housing areas behind the coffee shop and Eka he dared not to risk killing civilians.

"We need to calculate. We dare not."We could not just bang, bang," Eka said. His men nodded. "One grenade exploded near this gate," said Second Sergeant Asep Setiaman, "another one in the river and another one in the school building." Asep added that the attack was led by "Achmad Provost."

"He left behind his Kenwood handy talkie I often talked on the radio communication with them. so I used really bad language to provoke them in talking to me," said Asep. who keeps his hair long, and impressed me to be a no-bull-shit sergeant.

Eka told me that his most greatest difficulty is to encourage was getting the villagers to tell him about who identify the guerrillas. were. "Sometimes they wereare threatened by GAM but they don't talk either. We try to be friendly. It takes time, really takes time. But this shall should not be happening not happen at in the very first place. We're brothers. Look at our skin."

After having a chatchatting with the soldiers, Murizal and I went to the coffee shop where our driver was waiting. Silence suddenly hangs hung in the air. Everybody stared at us. Murizal broke the ice with his Acehnese wishy-washy casual talk, by telling them that we are were journalists and would like to have their views.

Some villagers said they are traumatised by the shootings. "It's been going on for years. In the past we could go wherever we wanted," said farmer Muhammad Husin, adding that he had to hold his youngest child the other night when the guerrillas attacked Eka's post. "My child cried loudly. We were all terrified," he said. Another villager Sapari sitting there, told me that'said they dared not going to their farms.

"Nobody forbade us from going to the farm but it's just too frightening," he said. Some young men joined us and Murizal noticed them. He later told me that there mus t be some there were GAM members in the coffee shop.

When I left Tiro, with the windshield car windows still down, I realised that this war is was a protracted guerilla war, similar to what J.B. van Heutsz had to quell a century ago.

It is a war without battle zones. Everything seems to be quiet and life seems to be normal on the surface. But every village, every school, every coffee shop, could suddenly turn into a bloody battle zone.

ONE sunny day in June, I went to the campus of Syiah Kuala University in suburban Banda Aceh, to visit Hakim Nyak Pha.

Hakim is the head of it's the Research Center for Social Science and Culture established in early the 1970s with the assistance of the Ford Foundation, one of the largest American philanthropic organisations that operate internationally. Hakim is a French-educated lawyer who got his Ph.D. from l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Sorbonne, France, in 1985.

The Geneva-based Henry Dunant Center once invited him and five other scholars to meet Aceh guerilla leader Hasan di Tiro in Geneva. They helped encourage the rebels and the Indonesian government to negotiate. Hakim's office is located in a two-story colonial building inside the campus. He is stocky and partly bald, a cheerful man who likes to crack jokes, but as an experienced social scientist, he abhors hypes.

But I was disheartened when seeing by the sight of his office building. It was intensely extremely dilapidated. The paint was falling apartpeeling with cracks and holes on the wall, the water basin on the second floor did not work, some cracks and holes were seen on the wall. It's the furniture was old and tattered. I found only one computer in this office. On the second floor , it has was a small library with complete research papers produced by the alumni as well as classical texts on Aceh such as Snouck Hurgronje's book, The Achenese, published in Leyden in 1906, and Henri Carel Zentgraaf's book, Aceh, published in 1938. But I barely saw few new collections. The book racks were also too old to accommodate the various documents and papers there.

"Lacks of funding," Hakim said bitterly as explanation for the sorry state of affairs. He said theit's the centre's financing was initially had been organised by the Ford Foundation from its inception until the late 1980s but was now it is under Syiah Kuala University whose funding and capability were limited.

"We cannot invite experts from outside anymore. We work with whatever is available, with whatever we have and with whatever we control." His centre's annual budget is only 80mil rupiah or around about US$10,000 (RM38,000).

If no money, why not close it? Why not just close the centre? Hakim replied that it was still needed to train young lecturers from various colleges or the Acehnese government bureaucracy in Acehto conduct social research even though the results are "not perfect".

"They are trained to conduct social researches. The result is not perfect," said Hakim.

The idea to set up this for the centre began when John J. Bresnan, the representative of the Ford Foundation in Jakarta between 1969 and 1973, concluded that Indonesia needed better trained social scientists. The Ford Foundation was then considered to be successful in helping train Indonesian economists. Many of these economists became influential "technocrats" who managed Indonesia 's macro economic policy. Critics called them the "Berkeley Mafia" –a reference to the fact that many of them, including Widjojo Nitisastro who headed Indonesia 's National Development Planning Agency, were trained at the University of California in Berkeley.

This because by the late 1960s, critics felt that economics alone factor was not enough for planning a the national development in Indonesia. Indonesia needed "Non-economic factors" to take into consideration. were needed and thus the idea of for a social sciences institution was born.

In 1971 while he was visiting Chicago, Bresnan met the anthropologist Clifford Geertz of Princeton University . Bresnan personally knew Geertz and asked him to write a proposal on how to develop social sciences in Indonesia . Geertz was then had just finished writing his book " The Religion of Java. " Geertz agreed to travel to Indonesia to do a survey. Geertz said he did not want any money. What he wanted was his expenses to be covered. "Geertz also appealed to me because I considered him the best social scientist of my acquaintances in the elegance of his English language. So he spent two months in Indonesia and then he spent the month of August in the mountains in New England and wrote the report there," Bresnan told me.

Geertz submitted In 1971, Bresnan got anthropologist Clifford Geertz of Princeton University (who had just written The Religion of Java) to write a proposal on how to develop the social sciences in Indonesia.

Geertz submitted a 30-page proposal in which he described the lack of funding and training among Indonesian social scientists. Instead of sending them abroad, in which he suggested the Ford Foundation to establish a research station for Indonesian social scientists to practise and to sharpen their analytical skills. Geertz also suggested that the first research station to be established outside the Indonesian main island of Java He also suggested and the project to be led by two co-directors: a foreign and an Indonesian social scientist.

The proposal was discussed among Indonesian and international social scientists. Indonesia's Education Ministry of Education eventually supported Geertz's suggestion proposal and a foundation was set up to help coordinate the project. Three local universities showed interests to host in hosting the research station: Syiah Kuala in Aceh, Padang in western Sumatra, and Makassar in southern Sulawesi.

Madjid Ibrahim, the then rector of Syiah Kuala University, promised to provide a dormitory and an office building if the project was to be given to him. Muzakkir Walad, the then governor of Aceh, also showed his support in this for the project.

"Aceh was then really impressive. Syiah Kuala was very influential in Aceh. Many governors and regents were had been recruited from Syiah Kuala," said Taufik Abdullah, the chairman of the Jakarta-based Social Sciences Foundation which helped the Ford Foundation to run the programme. His foundation and Bresnan predictably chose Aceh to host this the project which began in 1974.

In 1974 the project began in Syiah Kuala University . The first co-directors were Dr Alfian, a Dutch-trained Indonesian historian, and Stuart Schlegel, an American cultural anthropologist who had mastery on grounded theory and a specialist on the Philippines and Indonesia.

The first 12 participants were selected and came from various parts of Indonesia such as Makassar in southern Sulawesi and Surabaya in eastern Java. They stayed in Aceh for 10 months. They were given theoretical backgrounds and later dispatched to do social researches throughout Aceh.

It turned to be a prestigious programme. Aceh's Syiah Kuala University was considered to be the best place to learn social sciences. Many of its alumni became leading social scientists in their respective institutions. The Ford Foundation later set up similar programmes in Makassar, Surabaya and Jakarta. Taufik Abdullah predicted estimated that that it the centre had produced more than 400 alumni.

The co-directors also became prominent scientists which include Ibrahim Alfian (later a full professor at Indonesia's Gadjah Mada University), Syamsuddin Mahmud, Ali Basyah Amin and Dayan Dawod (who later successively became rectors of Syiah Kuala University while Syamsuddin even became the governor of Aceh), Lance Castle (co-editor the book " Indonesia Political Thinking 1945-1965 " with Australian scholar Herbert Feith), Bill Liddle (teaching at the Ohio State University and widely considered to be an influential scholar in training Indonesia's social scientists). Geertz and Bresnan were later even recently awarded the Bintang Jasa Pratama by the Indonesian government, , This award is the highest honour given by the Indonesian government to foreigners who are considered to who have contributed greatly to the Republic of Indonesia.country. Only three Americans have ever received the award. The third was the late George McTurnan Kahin of Cornell University, an outspoken critic of the Vietnam War, whose works book on Indonesia 's nationalism has became a classic.

Hakim Nyak Pha was a participant in the programme in 1978 after which he went to France to pursue his Ph D. He began to runWhen he took over the centre in 1998, when its condition it was already decliningin decline. The Ford Foundation had left since in the late 1980s.

In 1998 Indonesia also entered a huge social change with the fall of When President Suharto resigned in Jakarta in May of that year, Aceh plunged into a political chaos with more and more GAM guerrillas controlling villages and districts. Student activists became more radical, demanding the United Nations to conduct a referendum in Aceh.

I was sad to know learn of the decline of Hakim's officecentre and Proportionally, I think it also reflects which, to me, was a reflection of the overall deterioration of Aceh's educational system. AcehThe province used to host some of the best schools in Indonesia but now Aceh it is an educational pariah.

"The educational system in Aceh declines on all levels. Schools still exist in Banda Aceh and Lhokseumawe but the students and teachers are psychologically disturbed. In areas like southern Aceh, eastern Aceh, Bireuen, the school infrastructure were has been almost totally destroyed and the teachers were are running away," said Abdi A. Wahid, the rector of Syiah Kuala University.

According to the Aceh Provincial Education Department, from the declaration of the martial law on May 19 to June 10, a total of 504 schools were burnt down in Aceh, of which 259 were in Pidie and 138 were in Bireuen – the two Free Aceh Movement GAM strongholds. Schoolteachers were frequently harassed. Many non-Acehnese teachers left their schools due to the after constant harassment allegedly conducted by GAM supporters. GAM guerillas considers Indonesia's standard curriculum merely a "Javanese propaganda."

Education is indeed a political issue, not only in Aceh but also in many other places in Indonesia. Indonesian Policy makers believe that they can build "Indonesia's nationalism" through the school system.

Legislators in Jakarta recently also had a fierce fight over the education of religions in schools. Islamist politicians wanted Catholic and Protestant schools to provide Muslim teachers for their Muslim students. The nationalists and schoolteachers declined on the grounds that it was not practical.

Aceh nationalists also believe that they should fight Jakarta-based nationalism through the disruption of the learning process.

Second Sergeant Asep Setiaman, the Sundanese soldier stationed in the village of Tiro in Pidie, told me that once his platoon was "invited" to come to a nearby school building. where GAM guerrillas were already there to burn the school building. They challenged Setiaman.

"We didn't go simply because we didn't want to die. There were 500 of them and only a dozen of us. The school was finally burned down. The teachers came here and sought our assistance but we can'tcouldn't do anything," said Setiaman.

Zaini Abdullah, the foreign minister of the rebels, in his head office in Stockholm, Sweden, categorically denied that his men were involved in the school burnings. He told me, "Whatever happens they blame it on GAM. The military wants to create an image that they are sincere in helping the civilians. They burned the schools themselves."

Detereoting The deteriorating economic situation also burdened parents to keep sending their children to school. Abdi told me that at Syiah Kuala University the drop out rate had increased from one percent to three percents each semester over the last two years. Syiah Kuala University has 19,000 students, meaning that each semester around 500 students had dropped out. Abdi currently tries to keep tuition fee as low as possible. His spacious office is spartan. Frequent power blackouts have also disrupted the normal function of schools as well as other social institutions. Abdi was sweating like hell when meeting me. The air conditioner didn't work. Students complained to me about difficulties to make photocopies.

Educators who try to remain independent, from both GAM and the Indonesian military, sometimes find themselves in tremendous difficulties. Hakim Nyak Pha told me that he was very scared now, saying that he rarely goes went out at night and locked his gate in the evening.

Dayan Dawood, Abdi Wahab's predecessor as the rector of Syiah Kuala University, was more unfortunate. Dawood He was shot death dead in September 2001 by unidentified gunmen on a motorcycle in broad daylight in downtown Banda Aceh. as he was heading back from after leaving the campus in his car. It was not the first assassination of a major academician leader though.

On September 16, 2000, Prof Safwan Idris, the rector of the ar-Raniry State Islamic Institute in Banda Aceh, was murdered at his home, also by men on a motorcycle. The assassins came to his living room and gunned him down. Both murders remain unsolved to this day. Both GAM and the Indonesian military, which have been responsible for previous political assassinations in Aceh, have accused each the other of responsibility.

"The killing represents not only the loss of a respected intellectual leader – it means another major blow to civil society and fundamental freedoms in Aceh," said Sydney Jones of the New York-based Human Rights Watch. "People were already fearful of speaking out on any subject that could be misconstrued by either side; this murder is going to make them terrified."

Last January I met John Bresnan in Jakarta when he was awarded the Bintang Jasa Pratama by President Megawati. Sukarnoputri. I asked him about the sad circumstances with surrounding his social science centre in Aceh. He seemed to make peace with was philosophical about it, saying that Clifford Geertz himself was "very suspicious of anything that lasted too long."

"There were people in the Ford Foundation who were always talking about building institutions. I was always very suspicious of building institutions. Well, because But in order to "When you build an institution, you may find yourself investing in the education of some very third-rate people who are drawn to the institution or selected by the leadership, whereas if you focus on the individual and look for the brightest people you can find anywhere, they will build institutions.

"They may build different ones at different times in their career. "Not every institution has a role to play in the long-term future. Many of them should disappear, especially in a society that is changing very fast," he said, adding that such field stations were expensive and the Ford Foundation had undergone a period financial stringency.

But Bresnan, also said that he was himself busy in other places. He who was promoted to head the Ford Foundation office for Asia and the Pacific from New York, said he did want his successors in Jakarta to think he was inspecting them and their decisions all the time. "I did not want my successors (in Jakarta ) to think I was inspecting them all the time and looking too closely into their decision making. But it also was true that the field stations were expensive, and Ford was going through a period of financial stringency, so the budget was being reduced. "I think it lasted a few years longer than it might otherwise would by getting the help from other aid agencies," said Bresnan.

But money and security are apparently not the only underlying issues concerning Acehnese education. Abdi Wahad told me that the decline could also be attributed to the fact that Hakim Nyak Pha himself was busy with his side job at another institution in Banda Aceh.

Hakim simply replied that he could not survive on his professor's salary. "This country doesn't respect intellectuals," he added. I should survive right?"

Hakim got another job when he was appointed to be a Supreme Court judge in Jakarta in March.

It is a pity to know that Aceh has lost not only its schools but also its best sons. How can the people develop without their schools and their best sons?

YULI Suriani is a female student at the Syiah Kuala University who also works as a part-time radio broadcaster in Banda Aceh. She is petite and usually wears blue jeans and a canvas jacket. But like most women in Banda Aceh, Yuli uses she wears a jilbab to cover her head too. They are usually used to match the color of her dresses. "I feel like imperfect without jilbab. It is a symbol of women with status," she told me.

The 27-year-old Yuli decided to use the cotton scarf since in 1999 to cover what she considered to beher aurat (literary means "scar" or "hole") –an Arabic word which literally means "scar." In in accordance to an interpretation of the KoranQuran. the "scar" mus t be covered. One major interpretation says that a man's aurat is an area between his belly button and his knees, meaning that a Muslim man should not wear shorts. A woman's aurat is from her hair to her knees. But a stricter interpretation says a woman's aurat includes her face, prompting some women to use jalabiya (dark robe) and cadar (face cover).

Karen Amstrong, the author of the book, A History of God, wrote that the Koran Quran does not prescribe the veil for all women but only for Muhammad's wives, as a mark of their status. She wrote that Muhammad had encouraged women to play an active role in the affairs of the community and they expressed their views forthrightly, confident that they would be heard.

Unfortunately, as in Christianity, the religion was later hijacked by the men who interpreted texts in a way that was negative for Muslim women. Once Islam had taken its place in the civilised world, however, Muslims adopted those customs of the Oikumene which relegated women to second class status. They adopted the customs of veiling women and secluding them in harems from Persia and Christian Byzantium, where women had long been marginalised in this way.

Despite the difference different interpretations and her own dress code, Yuli disagrees with a recent government regulation that rules requires all Aceh women to wear the jilbab. She believes that faith is an individual matter.

There are people whose appearances seem to be easy-going but who knows what deep inside their hearts. "Islam is flexible. Islam It does not force people. Jilbab or not, it's your own business with God," she said.

Aceh is one of Indonesia 's most Muslim-dominated provinces. About 98% percent of its 4.4 million people are officially Muslims. Its towns and villages are graced by thousands of well-kept mosques. Arab merchants introduced Islam to the region 900 years ago, and from there it spread to the rest of what is now Indonesia.

In January 2002, with the special autonomy law passed by the new Indonesian Parliament, Aceh was granted the privilege to implement of implementing Islamic shariahsyariah. The Aceh government at once set up a 27-member council of ulamas, whose main duty is to produce fatwa (Islamic decisions) and positioned itself as the forth branch of governance in Aceh – in addition to the judiciary, the legislature and the executive.

Muslim Ibrahim is the elected first chairman of the Ulamas' Consultative Assembly which has 27 seats filled by ulamas from Aceh's districts who are considered to have the most understanding of syariah and are fluent in Arabic.told me that the members were initially selected from the districts. level. Each district nominated 10 ulamas considered "to who "understand the syariah the most and to master were fluent in Arabic". These nominees from all the districts in regency were selected down to 10 ulemas. These 10 nominees will represent that regency in a provincial contest. meaning that 130 ulemas from the regencies plus 20 representatives from the universities will contest for 27 seats in the Assembly. They conducted the voting themselves. Ibrahim was elected the first council chairman Ibrahim represents the academic world. He finished his Ph D in syariah from the famous al-Azhar University in Cairo in 1984 Ibrahim and teaches "modern fiqih (law)" in the Banda Aceh-based ar-Raniry State Islamic Institute. He was one of many Acehnese ulamas who applauded the government decision to implement syariah in Aceh, arguing that the now defunct sultanate of Aceh had used syariah to run the country for centuries.

"Islam could always be appropriate in places and times," Ibrahim said, adding that The Council is now busy preparing local regulations on almost everything in accordance to Islam. Ibrahim said the sources for their regulations are the Koran, the words ( hadith ) and practice (sunnah ) of Muhammad and his early companions. It also included iqtihad (interpretation).

Nothing is new in Ibrahim's statement. The pro and con about Islamic interpretations is an old debate. In the early days of Islam, this resulted in the formation of the shariah law, a code similar to the Jewish Torah, which was based on the Koran and the life and maxims of the Prophet. These words were collected during the eighth and ninth centuries by a number of editors, the most famous of whom were Muhammad ibn Ismail al-Bukhari and Muslim ibn al-Hijjah al-Qushayri. Today Ibrahim and his peers are trying to enact those maxims into action.

However, it is not yet clear how Islamic law will be practically be implemented in daily life. Many are still puzzled how the courts will try those charged with criminal acts or other illegal actions. How will the syariah will deal with the guerilla war and the so many atrocities in Aceh? It is also not clear how syariah will apply to non-Muslims. How will the orthodoxically-understood syariah will deal with the questions of modernity i.e. democracy, civil liberty, non-believers, etc?

But among the first actions areas that Ibrahim's council immediately ruled on was the dressing code. Women were asked to use jilbab. "It's in the text," Ibrahim said.

On the contrary, the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) said GAM and human rights watch groups which argued that the Acehnese did not need the implementation of a law to prove that Islam was alive in Aceh. They argued that the Acehnese practised Islam in almost everything they did. Acehnese had already been formally practising syariah law in daily life for decades in areas such as marriage, divorce, and the ban on alcohol. But they also largely reject strict punishments such as the amputation of hands for theft that the syariah in theory can dispense.

"Syariah law is not what the Acehnese have been striving for, nor is it the cause of the conflict between Aceh and Jakarta. Indonesia is trying to raise this issue just for political reasons – a new, tricky move to divert your and the world's attention from the real issue, namely the right to self-determination of the people of Aceh," said GAM leader Husaini Hassan in a letter sent to ambassadors of Islamic countries in Indonesia in December 2000.

"In my opinion, if the syariah is to be implemented, those who will suffer the most are will be women. All interpretations and decision are made by men," said Lily Zakiah Munir, the director of the Jakarta-based Center for Pesantren and Democracy Studies, who which has completed a survey on the syariah campaign in Aceh. She also pointed out that the 27 ulamas are all men.

In other parts of Indonesia, large Muslim organisations such as the 30-million strong Nahdlatul Ulama and the 20-million strong Muhammadiyah, have openly opposed the syariah campaign, saying that the campaign is merely rhetoric. The two organisations believe d that the ideal of Islam of social justice and human dignity is already being implemented in Indonesia under the state ideology of "Pancasila."

Under Pancasila, Indonesia was established in 1945 as a rather secular state with an official ideology called "Pancasila" –believe the belief in one God, humanity, unity of Indonesia, democracy, and social justice. Islam was not made into a state religion. Over the years, however, many Islamists had campaigned that for Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim majority country, should to adopt Islam as the state ideology. Since the 1950s, some Acehnese rebellions had demanded syariah Islam to be implemented. since the 1950s.

Nowadays stories are circulating in Banda Aceh about that women without "proper attire" were are being stopped on the streets and asked to cover their heads by the syariah police. Some female students had been also asked to go home and to change.

When I was staying in Banda Aceh in June, every woman seemed to be wearing the jilbab in public spaces although many of them wore "modish" clothes that also showed their figures. I also saw young women who covered their heads but showed their cleavage. of their breasts. A popular joke was that even prostitutes in Aceh wore jilbabs. I visited one "beauty parlour" and a karaoke bar in Banda Aceh but never meeting their met prostitutes using veils.

"Necks are still seen, jilbabs are seen only as a formality," said Yuli.

At the School of Economists Economics at the Syiah Kuala University, girls used the jilbab at the least as a formality or at the most as a model. In some other places in Banda Aceh, I found more women without the jilbabs in the rural areas or in freeport Sabang where women went about freely, in jeans or shorts and without veils. To Muslim Ibrahim, these women are considered not religious enough.

But to many women like Yuli Suriani, Islam is a presence, not an obligation. Waving the syariah like an olive branch has shown how little Jakarta understands the Acehnese way of life and also their needs for not syariah law, but a law that does away with impunity and brings soldiers to justice for rights abuses and which are would still be indeed in accordance to with the teachings of the Koran Quran that stresses on justice.

I visited Imam Syuja, the chairman of the Muhammadiyah in Aceh, one of the largest Muslim groups in Indonesia, to know his views about on the syariah. I asked him the relevance of the many killings that taking place in the province while it is exactly still campaigning and implementing the shariah.

According to Syuja, "Our ulamas are busier talking about the syariah than about justice. Our ulamas are busier to getting closer to the power than nurturing an independent mechanism towards the for (self) government. It is an irony, isn't it?"
He lamented the complexities of the Aceh problem, a mix between a rising nationalism among the Acehnese, a sentiments against Jakarta and the syariah campaign amidst the war.

When I reminded him about his status as a member of the 27-strong council, Imam stopped and took a deep breath. He smiled a bitter smile and did not answer my questions reply.

THERE is a popular coffee shop across the Baiturrahman grand mosque in Banda Aceh where many people, mostly Acehnese men, usually read newspapers, chat with friends, smoke and sip their black coffee. The prices are fair. It has a view over the Kreung Aceh River, the mosque and the only Catholic church in town.

In the morning it provides nasi gurih. In the evening one could order mie Aceh which is basically a bowl of noodles cooked with a lot of spice.

ON the morning of June 12, while having my nasi gurih (coconut milk-flavoured steamed rice) at a popular coffee shop across the Baiturrahman grand mosque in Banda Aceh, I noticed that the traffic outside that coffee shop had became extremely heavy. Sedans, minivans, military trucks, jeeps, motorcycles and pedestrians passed this coffee shop in a were rushing to go to the Blang Padang square, a recreational park next to the mosque, where more than 5,000 civil servants were expected to attend a ceremony to pledge "loyalty to the Republic of Indonesia."

I walked with them. In to the square where the civil servants had been asked to line up in accordance according to their respective offices. Military officers, many of whom had brought their weapons, were issuing the orders and asked to the civilians. servants. to do this and that. The civilians were asked to stand They were standing before a flagpole which was erected in the centre of the square and wearing red and white armbands red and white. It is – the colours of the Indonesian flag.

"We worked the whole night to sew them," said an engineer with the state-owned PLN electrical company.

"Bete," quipped a woman who worked for the state-owned TVRI. "Bete" is an Indonesian slang for "bad tempered." It was a reference to the traffic jam and the other difficulties that she had to face just to attend this military-styled ceremony. Thousands of these civil servants were cowed to follow the government line. It appeared to be a case of "Join the ceremony or have difficulties with your job!"

Aceh governor Abdullah Puteh had some days earlier told the media that the government would have a "screening" process on screen the civil servants about their stance on the Free Aceh Movement. Hypothetical questions included what they would do if they had family members who were sympathetic towards GAM. Would they report it to the authorities or to remain silent? What did they think about the unity of the Republic of Indonesia?

Puteh, himself an Acehnese, said that those who were "double faces" would have to deal with the "consequences," adding that he had found out that quite a number of civil servants who were sympathetic toward GAM. He did not recognise such dualities; civil servants should be loyal to those who paid their salaries.

the civil servants lined up in the field facing the flagpole. On the other side of Blang Padang was a stage and tents which sheltered VIPs sitting comfortably in their chairs out of from the sun. Huge banners encircled the field, displaying messages such as "GAM, people are tired of you" and "We civil servants are loyal to the Republic of Indonesia."

While waiting for the arrival of Puteh and Major-General Endang Suwarna, the military commander of Aceh, each office coordinator circulated a file on which the civil servants had to sign. Attendance was compulsory and absentees might be questioned.

When Puteh and Suwarna have arrived, the master of ceremony began. the loyalty campaign. The Aceh The civil servants pledged their allegiance and loyalty to the Republic of Indonesia, in the form of oaths. They sang the Indonesia 's national anthem and recited the Quran. Speeches were delivered.

That morning ceremony turned out to be the first of so many flag raising ceremonies organised throughout Aceh. Military officers and their civilian counterparts mobilised the ceremonies in districts, villages and schools. Students, villagers, farmers, fishermen, civil servants and others were asked to show up in the fields, to wearing red-and-white armband. If they failed to do so, they would be putting their school or job at risk.

or risk their schools or jobs if they were absent. This is the type of nationalism that Jakarta is trying to promote to win "the hearts and minds" of the Acehnese. It tries to persuade the Acehnese to see autonomy under Indonesian sovereignty as a desirable alternative to independence campaigned by the Stockholm-based GAM leader Hasan di Tiro.

Will it work? Many people doubt it.

Sydney Jones, an American political analyst who had been workingspecialising on Indonesia since the 1970s, and used to head the New York-based Human Rights Watch, and currently and works for the Jakarta office of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, wrote in a report that everything that the martial law administrator was doing was counter-productive: "It is not possible to force loyalty to the Indonesian state by holding rallies to pledge allegiance to the Indonesian state, or by forcing people to fly the red and white flag."

Jones further wrote, "I was in East Timor just before the 1999 referendum when militias were forcing people either to fly the flag or have their house burned. Most chose to fly the flag rather than face the loss of all their belongings, but in the process, they came to hate the flag. It had become a symbol of repression."

Another example: Jakarta might have thought it could win the loyalty of villagers by evacuating them from villages where operations against GAM were planned, and by giving them temporary shelter in refugee camps.

But many of the tens of thousands of refugees have found that they had almost no warning of the need to evacuate. They were forced to leave at short notice. There was a shortage of clean drinking water and food at the sites to which where they were moved. Their livestock, electronic goods and other valuables were gone when they were allowed to go home. The looters could have been anyone but it was the government that was blamed, particularly when Puteh and Suwarna had promised that homes would be guarded and that there would be no looting.

Two soldiers were recently tried for allegedly stealing during raids on the home of a suspected GAM member. Military prosecutor Major Maryanto Bandji accused the pair of taking two 2mil rupiah (US$242 or RM919) in cash and 2.6gm of gold jewellery from the house in North Aceh. They faced a maximum of seven years in jail.

Three other soldiers were sentenced for raping four women, with the heaviest sentence being just three years and six months. These three soldiers were also discharged from military. Another military court jailed six soldiers for between four and five months for beating up civilians at Lawang village in Bireuen during operations.

Maybe this is considered progress in Indonesia where soldiers, especially high ranking officers, are mostly immune from punishment. But it is hardly enough to win the hearts and minds of the Acehnese.

There is no question that Jakarta has the right s wage the war to try to quell the rebellion in Aceh as it is an internationally-recognised territory of Indonesia. The question is how Indonesia it is doing it.

The Indonesian military is notorious for their human rights recordabuses. It also has a narrow understanding of nationalism. Jakarta issued a new policy In June, Jakarta issued identity cards were issued for residents of Aceh. The purpose was to differentiate GAM members from ordinary citizens. But the card design is different from the than common ID. The cards in Aceh have a red-and-white background . Isn't it a symbol that which seem to be saying that Acehnese they are different from other Indonesian citizens. Other government officials in other parts of Indonesia have also issued instructions asking to their subordinates to keep a watch over all Acehnese living in their areas.

Jones wrote that this war has also some serious flaws as it has no clear criteria on its success nor has no an exit policy and human rights campaigners like Hasballah Saad, who used to be a minister in the Wahid Cabinet, have questioned openly whether Jakarta had maximized the diplomatic solution.

"My operation in Aceh was aimed at winning the hearts and minds of the Acehnese so I will not excuse such violations," said General Endriartono Sutarto, the Indonesian military chief, who openly apologised to the Acehnese, especially the villagers, for his men who had committed wrongdoings during the military operation.

It was a positive statement. But it is very unlikely to be enough for the Acehnese: return the death nor the looted goods of the Acehnese. Many Many of the so-called GAM members killed in this operation were in fact civilians.

With the screening of civil servants underway, the government will have also lose more support. Not only is this a decided throwback to the Suharto regime, despite all claims to the contrary; it is virtually guaranteed to be a source of bad information. Business rivals, jealous neighbours, and others could report suspicions about someone and without questions asked, that person could be isolated, fired, or arrested.

The Aceh military commander, Endang Suwarna, also angered many media organisations when by preventing foreign journalists and observers from entering Aceh. He said that Indonesian journalists should be "nationalists" and "not to interview GAM," as if trying to say that the media should only cover his side of the story.

What kind of nationalism does Suwarna recognise? Is it only the either-you're-with-us-or-with-them nationalism, which is blind itself from to social injustice, or the more logical understanding that citizens do live with their many complex identities?

BBC journalist Michael Ignatieff wrote in his book Blood and Belonging: Journeys Into the New Nationalism that culturally, nationalism provides men and women with their "primary form of belonging." Morally, it can serve to be an "ethic of heroic sacrifice, justifying the use of violence in the defence of one's nation against enemies, internal or external."

Ignatieff identifies two types of nationalism: (1) civic nationalism, in which the predominant belief is that all those within a nation who subscribe to the nation's political creed should be its citizens; and (2) ethnic nationalism, in contrast, holds to the idea that belonging and attachment to a nation is inherited, not chosen. "It is the national community which defines the individual, not the individuals who define the national community."

Hasan di Tiro obviously tends to use the second type of nationalism. He believes that bangsa Aceh or "the nation of Aceh" is being exploited by bangsa Jawa or "the nation of Java" which uses the Greek pseudo name pseudonym of "Indonesia".

The Indonesian government, on the other hand, theoretically uses citizen-based nationalism to unite the various ethnic and religious groups scattered throughout this vast archipelago. But inconsistencies took place both during the Sukarno and the Suharto regimes. Many ethnic groups were discriminated against, prompting dissatisfactions among the Acehnese, the Papuans, the Dayaks in Kalimantan, the Chinese minority, the Madurese migrants in Kalimantan, and the Muslims in the Moluccas.

Suharto also didn't stop massive killings that took place in the mid-1960s against left-leaning activists or Sukarno supporters.

Many Much blood were was spilt in the history of this archipelago. Now another more blood is being spilt in the name of nationalism. Aceh nationalists might lose have lost the battle but they have not lost the war yet. Whither now the project that was Indonesia begun in 1945?The project of Indonesia that was started in 1945 is now seemed to get appears to be lost.

The day I left Banda Aceh for Jakarta, I sat inside the economy class of a Garuda Indonesia plane and met Sofyan Haroen, the entrepreneurial mayor of Sabang. He was quiet and seemed to be courteous towards other passengers. I remembered him saying, "Let's build Indonesia from Kilometer Nil."