Local Truth and Reconciliation in Indonesia
Mass graves abound in Indonesia. The hole into which Gatot Lestario’s body was lowered is one of many sites, marked or unmarked, where the victims of 1965 lie buried.
Mass graves are not of the past alone. Indonesian nationalism has had remarkable success in knitting together a diverse society. The accomplishment of Indonesians from many different faiths, ethnicities, and religions should not be underestimated. Yet unity has come at times with a high cost in human life. Timor-Leste, annexed after the 1975 invasion and never part of the Dutch East Indies, was finally and with great difficulty able to gain its independence. For the rest of the Indonesian national space, its frontiers defined by the Dutch-drawn borders of their Indies colony, “territorial integrity” is sacrosanct.
This is not for lack of challenges. West Papua, the subject of the next section, has never been entirely reconciled to the Indonesian rule that began in the 1960s. At the far end of the archipelago, Aceh was wracked from 1976 to 2005 by an armed conflict between the Indonesian government and the Free Aceh Movement (Gerekan Aceh Merdeka, or GAM). And “horizontal conflicts” painted as ethnic struggles span large areas of Indonesia.
The end of the New Order brought hopes that human rights would improve, that democracy would take hold, and that different groups across the country might gain more control over their own lives. To a large extent this has happened. In most of Indonesia, human rights violations are no longer an everyday affair. Democratic elections are entrenched and parliamentary contests have replaced much of the former dictatorship’s ways of ruling. Non-governmental organizations are mostly free to organize and to campaign. The country has decentralized much of its administration, offered special autonomy packages to some provinces, and even allowed some minority groups to secede from one province and form their own new province (eight of them since 1998).
The creation of possible truth commissions has been mooted since the New Order’s demise, and promised in writing to the two “autonomous areas” with active armed independence movements (Aceh and Papua). These talks and pledges went nowhere. Meanwhile, the end of the New Order regime took the lid off local tensions, with contesting factions—including the Indonesian army—becoming involved in local conflicts in the Molucca Islands (Maluku), parts of the large islands of Sulawesi and Borneo (Kalimantan), and elsewhere. These conflicts have cooled in many regions, with communities managing to reconcile with each other. In other regions, however, reconciliation efforts have failed.
This section takes a close look at two regions of past or present conflict: the special autonomous region of Aceh and the kabupaten (regency or district) of Poso in Central Sulawesi province. Both experienced lengthy pre–truth commission periods, with civil society mobilizing with demands for some form of transitional justice but no institutional response in place.
In Aceh, this phase ended in 2016 when the provincial government, run mostly by former GAM fighters, authorized its own Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Komisi Kebenaran dan Rekonsiliasi, or KKR). Chapter 13 describes the campaign to form a commission, outlines the form this embryonic commission is taking, and assesses its prospects and structure.
Aceh has a special place in Indonesian history. As an independent sultanate, it was fiercest in its resistance to Dutch colonial rule, fighting off Dutch attacks for many years. Some Acehnese still insist their land was never conquered by the Dutch. It was a stalwart of independence during the Indonesian national revolution against Dutch rule in 1945–49. After Indonesian independence, Aceh fought hard for autonomy within the Indonesian Republic. With a reputation as the most fervently Islamic region of a mainly Muslim but pluralistic Indonesia, Aceh was one of the centres of the Darul Islam (House of Islam) rebellion in the 1950s. That rebellion ended in 1959 with the Indonesian government agreeing to grant Aceh the status of an autonomous province. But tensions simmered on. Meanwhile, the discovery of natural gas brought an inflow of wealth to Aceh but created enclave economies rather than enriching local people. Aceh finally felt the full force of international capitalism in its new role as resource exporter, but few people felt better off. Instead, growing income inequalities sparked resentment and continued tensions in Aceh.
In 1976, the Free Aceh Movement declared independence. It never controlled large areas, but the GAM insurgency helped to militarize Aceh as the Indonesian army struck back with brutal force, often against civilians. Non-governmental organizations were often branded as “separatists” and then repressed—a theme common in Indonesia’s daerah operasi militer (military operation zones): Aceh, Timor-Leste, and Papua. Economics and politics combined in a toxic brew that cost many Achenese lives, shattered Acehnese civil society, and polarized the province.
Boxing Day 2004 saw a huge tsunami strike Aceh, along with other areas bordering the Indian Ocean. Close to the epicentre of the earthquake that caused the tsunami, Aceh was especially hard hit. Thousands died; half a million people were left homeless. The disaster drove GAM and the Indonesian government to the bargaining table, where, through the mediation of a non-governmental organization based in Finland, they struck a deal to end the war. Indonesia’s government was able to end the secessionist rebellion and maintain unity at the cost of granting Aceh new powers as an autonomous region. GAM was allowed to form a political party which dominates provincial politics. Both the first and incumbent governors of Aceh are former GAM members.
Post-conflict Aceh was home to a highly active civil society. It was voices within that civil society that called for a truth commission, seeking to end silences and impunity. In 2016, the provincial government agreed to form one. Though the new truth commission lacked a national government mandate, it had a strong mandate from the local governing authority. It clearly drew on outside inspiration, too. Its name reflected global trends, translating directly the TRC title that has been used in South Africa and many other places since then, from Solomon Islands to Canada. It drew also on the Timorese experience of truth and reconciliation.
Uniquely, as chapter 13 recounts, the Acehnese truth commission is to be permanent. It will not end with a bulky final report. It will continue indefinitely, with no post–truth commission phase at all. In this aspect, Aceh strikes out in a new direction not attempted by any previous truth commission.
In other words, there is hope in Southeast Asia’s newest commission. Hopes are lower in another area where political and economic factors have formed a toxic brew: Poso, Central Sulawesi. This region, as chapter 14 explains, has long been divided between different religious communities. The eastern half of the Indonesian archipelago is majority-Muslim, but it is also home to a substantial Christian presence and to other religious communities, including followers of traditional Indigenous belief systems. Much of eastern Indonesia is seen as less developed, closer to the diverse Indigenous traditions of its diverse parts.
Despite religious division, there is little history of religious conflict in areas like Poso before 1998. The end of the New Order saw tensions increase, partly fueled by forces within the Indonesian army. Poso became one of the more intractable conflict regions. Insurgent forces there are increasingly linked to terrorist groups claiming to fight in the name of Islam. Local groups brand themselves with the names of global terrorist outfits. The Indonesian army fights back, often viciously, alienating still more local people through its harsh tactics. The reconciliation methods used in other conflicts have brought paltry results. Chapter 14 argues this is because reconciliation efforts have been top-down, largely driven by government. They have viewed the Poso conflict as a fight along ethnic or religious lines, and tried to solve it with a template drawn from other areas of ethnic or religious conflict. They have ignored social class, which may be the key line of division.
To put it another way, the assumptions on which these reconciliation efforts are based may be false assumptions. If tension in Poso is driven more by economic than religious factors—if income inequality and the workings of extractive capitalism are the key causes of conflict—then reconciliation has to be done differently.
Doing things differently is a common note to be found in the two diverse Indonesian case studies presented in this section.