This is the peace the tsunami brought.
After 29 years of fighting, a group of separatist rebels and the Indonesian government agreed to a formal peace deal eight months following the tsunami that wreaked havoc in Aceh province. In minutes, water erased a 480-mile stretch of coastline and killed at least 167,000 people–almost three-quarters of the tsunami’s entire death toll.
Though the rebels and the government had negotiated in the past, the December 2004 tsunami spawned a quick agreement — with Aceh shattered, they realized war was no longer important.
Since then, 2,000 rebels have been released from prisons, rebel soldiers have turned in 840 weapons, and 31,700 Indonesian soldiers and police have left Aceh. There are no more military checkpoints. The streets are bustling at night. And one-time rebels such as Sulaiman are finding normal jobs, sometimes helping rebuild their communities.
Sulaiman, 31, who like many Indonesians uses one name, has traded his weapon for a set of blueprints. He gets tired after walking down a few rows of half-built houses, though he remembers how he used to carry a gun for miles without breathing hard. Instead of ordering soldiers into battle as a rebel commander, he supervises construction workers.
“Finish up the roofs,” Sulaiman tells a worker. “On Monday, we’re going to have our evaluation. . . . If you can finish them by Monday, then we can all get paid.”
Destruction everywhere
There is much work to be done. More than a year after the tsunami, the destruction is still everywhere. Bricks, wood and concrete confetti cover beaches. A boat sits on top of a house. Parts of the coastline remain under water. Progress has been made, but the challenges are considerable–housing needs to be found for a half-million people.
Despite record donations, tens of thousands of survivors still live in tents, and some are becoming bitter. “How long will we be left this way?” asks one hand-painted sign posted near the coastal road. One man in the hard-hit village of Tongkol has painted his tent with windows, a door, a brick wall. Across the street, only eight people show up for a meeting on loans to set up a dried-fish factory. Others say they no longer believe promises by aid groups and the government.
But out of the devastation has come peace, an end to a conflict that had taken 15,000 lives, mostly civilians.
Aceh, on the northern tip of the island of Sumatra, has been part of Indonesia since the country’s 1945 declaration of independence from Dutch rule, but many Acehnese have always believed that the region should be a separate country. Citing oppression, the rebels started fighting in 1976.
Although the Indonesian government and Acehnese separatists had negotiated truces in the past, the tsunami was the major catalyst leading to this peace deal. The tsunami killed hundreds of Indonesian soldiers and rebels. But these losses alone did not cause peace–instead, both sides seemed tired of death. Such a massive disaster seemed to spark massive compromise.
As part of the agreement signed in August in Helsinki, Finland, the separatist Free Aceh Movement dropped its call for independence in return for a form of local government. The Indonesian government granted amnesty to ex-fighters.
The future is not guaranteed –a contentious law cementing the peace deal still must be adopted in Jakarta, local elections must be held and the Acehnese rebels must hand over a list of 3,000 former soldiers. The Free Aceh Movement would like to become a political party–a step some nationalist lawmakers in Jakarta oppose. International monitors will observe the peace process only through June.
But still, there is progress in Indonesia, and it is in marked contrast to Sri Lanka, where the tsunami seemed to reignite fighting between the rebel Tamil Tigers and the military.
Signs of progress
Two months ago, leaders of the Free Aceh Movement even went public, the ultimate sign that peace might stick. They set up an office in Banda Aceh, renting a two-story house with white pillars and a red tile roof. A government-made calendar celebrating the peace agreement hangs on the office wall. A car in the parking lot one afternoon displayed a bumper sticker bragging about a family member in the Indonesian special forces–former enemies of the Acehnese rebels.
Most likely, this building will be the political headquarters for one-time rebel leaders, now becoming community leaders. Local elections are expected in the spring, although it’s not yet clear who will be allowed to run.
Today, the office is a place where former rebels, government officials and international observers meet. The rebels talk about strategy; they remember the old days. One afternoon, a former rebel slumps in a couch in the lobby, saying he now raises sweet potatoes.
Some visitors still cannot believe peace is true, cannot let go of their fears. Teungku Rakna, in his late 50s, rode the bus for 12 hours from his village to bring a letter of complaint against the Indonesian military signed by 111 parents of former rebels. Rakna says he is afraid to take the letter to the international monitors because soldiers might be nearby.
“A lot of my friends died,” he tells the former rebel leaders. “A lot of our belongings were stolen. A lot of our houses were burned. None of this was replaced by anyone.”
The peace agreement outlines the formation of a truth and reconciliation commission to handle such complaints. But neither side seems to be pushing it. During the years of the conflict, both sides were accused of atrocities. Several Indonesian officials say they believe the past should be forgotten.
“If we talk about the past, there will be no end to talking,” says Soleman Ponto, the Indonesian military’s representative to the international monitoring mission.
Despite such uncertainties, evidence of the truce is everywhere in Aceh. Former rebels point out the police who once arrested them. A market has been built where the tsunami washed away a prison.
Where another prison stood, houses are being built for government employees. Sulaiman lives in a temporary shelter built on a former military shooting range.
A former rebel sips coffee and reminisces about the Indonesian soldiers he killed years ago at another coffeehouse. Another one-time rebel has finally allowed his younger brother to enter the military academy. Some sell bricks; others fish. Some complain they have no skills, no work. Many say they are happy to be done with war.
“Sometimes I miss it, but I’m also sick of it,” says Heri Nurmasyah, 24, freed from jail in the peace agreement. “I just want to sit around in my house and do nothing.”
A few doubt that peace will hold. Azhari Ayub Samson, 35, grew up with the conflict. He went to the mountains when he was 8 as an errand boy, cooking rice and washing clothes for the rebels. Samson keeps the symbols of the Free Aceh Movement–graphics of a flag and a gunman–saved on his mobile phone. When he saw his weapon being cut up after he turned it in, he wanted to take it back.
“I don’t think peace will last,” Samson says. “The Indonesian government is not consistent.”
Accepting the peace
But Sulaiman and his childhood friend Abdul Rasyid say they accept peace. As construction workers, they’ve learned to swing hammers, use saws. Rasyid also has kept up with his career as a wedding photographer. He carries a camera and photographs of tsunami victims with him everywhere he goes. He wants to remember what happened.
The two men are almost an advertisement for peace: They are helping the government they once fought rebuild houses for tsunami victims.
“I would not have believed this a year ago,” says Sulaiman, a chicken farmer before he joined the rebels. “We thought it would take our whole lifetime, and there still would not be peace.”
Sulaiman, Rasyid and four friends joined the Free Aceh Movement about the same time, in 1995. The men trained together and fought together. Like other rebels, they led double lives, coming home for days or weeks before returning to the mountains and war. Rasyid continued to work as a wedding photographer. Sulaiman continued to raise chickens and hide his secret from his family.
They had nicknames to hide their identities. Sulaiman was called “Bule,” the Indonesian word for “Westerner,” because of his foreign features–a narrow nose, sharp cheekbones, long hair. The men slept in the mountains, trained in the mornings and made handicrafts–baskets or miniature Acehnese houses–to sell in villages for money. They carried out guerrilla attacks on Indonesian soldiers.
The tsunami changed the landscape of the conflict, even if some people did not know it. Sulaiman and the others felt the earthquake, but they had no concept of a tsunami. For a week, they patrolled the mountain valley 10 miles from the nearest coast. Then a scout returned from down below.
“There’s no more Aceh,” the scout announced.
The men returned to the coast to search for loved ones. Sulaiman and Rasyid were lucky–only distant relatives died. Others lost their entire families.
After a few days back home, the rebels returned to the mountains, chased by Indonesian soldiers. For months, they waited, largely avoiding clashes with Indonesian troops because of rumors of a peace agreement. After the deal was signed, the men left the mountains.
At first, Sulaiman and Rasyid were hired as security guards for the construction site. Then Bambang Subagio, who had contracted with a Buddhist relief group to build 750 homes, trained Sulaiman and Rasyid to read blueprints and supervise workers. The homes are bare-bones, erector-set buildings with strong aluminum frames and walls guaranteed to last only 10 years. They are not difficult to build, so Subagio made the former rebels subcontractors.
“They have a lot of potential,” Subagio says. “I was eager to give them a chance.”
Sulaiman and Rasyid then gave jobs to 12 other former rebels. They say peace is tough to get used to. They have a hard time sleeping longer than 15 minutes. They miss their guns like an old romance.
The men still work as security guards for the construction site but patrol empty-handed. Yet they say they are not worried about safety. They figure, no one would ever attack them. In Aceh now, it would not make sense.
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kbarker@tribune.com
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