[ETAN-key] Andre Vltchek: The Ruin of Aceh

[John M Miller]

China Dialogue
March 18, 2011

The Ruin of Aceh

Andre Vltchek

Ravaged by a giant tsunami in 2004, war-torn Aceh 
went on to sign a truce with Jakarta. But the 
natural destruction of the province didn’t end, 
writes Andre Vltchek, returning after seven years.

“The people demonstrate against the roads that 
take their country’s wealth away, they 
demonstrate against logging, mining and land 
grabs and they even demonstrate against corruption.”

Additional reporting by Rossie Indira

Anyone who visited Aceh after the devastating 
earthquake and tsunami of December 2004 will 
never forget the scenes: tens of thousands of 
flattened dwellings, desperate faces of men and 
women searching for their loved ones, human 
bodies rotting in open pits or drying under the 
merciless tropical sun, boats thrown by the giant 
wave onto the roofs of collapsed buildings. 
Around 230,000 people died here, on the northern 
tip of Indonesia’s island of Sumatra ­ victims 
not just of “nature’s wrath”, but even more, the 
ill-prepared Indonesian state, its crumbling 
infrastructure and poorly constructed housing.

Six years ago, in January 2005, I landed in Aceh 
to begin mapping the disaster for US-based 
think-tank The Oakland Institute, interviewing 
dozens of victims and international relief 
workers, as well as leaders of Gerakan Aceh 
Merdeka (GAM), or the Free Aceh Movement, a 
separatist group that fought for independence 
from Indonesia in a bitter insurgency that lasted 
almost 30 years and left 15,000 people dead.

My report was titled “Aceh Abandoned ­ The Second 
Tsunami”. The first “tsunami” came in 2003, when 
the Indonesian military launched a major 
offensive against GAM, declaring a state of 
emergency, and committing human rights abuses against Aceh’s civilians.

After the tragedy of 2004, Aceh remained in the 
global spotlight for several months ­ long enough 
for foreign governments and NGOs to get involved 
and negotiate a peace agreement between the 
rebels and Jakarta, which was signed in Helsinki, 
Finland, on August 15, 2005. But the agreement 
was such that, after 29 years of civil war, Aceh 
did not receive full independence, instead 
settling for something called “special autonomy”.

Jakarta made sure that this time there was no 
misunderstanding. The options for Aceh were 
twofold: strive for independence and meet with 
force and continued suffering; or take peace and 
settle for “semi-autonomy”. They opted for the 
latter compromise. Aceh was exhausted and wounded 
by almost three decades of conflict and the near 
complete destruction of its capital by the forces 
of nature. Most citizens remained deeply 
sceptical about the new order, but others 
believed that the end of the conflict could trigger positive change.

Six years later, I returned to Aceh, this time to 
carry out research for a book on Indonesia.

It was raining. From the window of the plane I 
could see the coastline, outlying islands and 
green rice fields. New settlements were clearly 
visible on the hills. They looked neat and orderly.

At the new Sultan Iskandarmuda International 
Airport, we disembarked straight into the 
building, in stark contrast to practice in most 
Indonesian airports, where passengers are forced 
to make their way across pothole-marked tarmac. 
The terminal was clean. My luggage arrived 
promptly. Then the real surprise: driving on a 
well-paved road to the capital Banda Aceh, 
crossing modern bridges with pedestrian walkways 
and passing neat villages along the way. After 
more than 20 kilometres, we entered the city, now 
arguably the most attractive in Indonesia, with 
its well preserved historical and colonial 
buildings, riverfront and modern services.

 From the window of the car, Aceh looked like a success story.

But, as always in Indonesia, the euphoria did not 
last long. With the first words from locals, I began to sober up.

“The masterplan of Banda Aceh is actually not 
good,” said Salma Waty, a lecturer at Syiah Kuala 
University, as her husband kindly drove us around 
the city and province. “Drainage is a total 
disaster. Now all the big contractors are coming 
from Jakarta, not from here. The city is a 
hostage of so called ‘projects’ ­ there is never 
an integrated solution, roads are repeatedly 
opened up and digging is done again and again to satisfy business interests.”

“There is continuity in plundering Aceh from 
outside and from within Indonesia,” said Hendra 
Fadly, Aceh coordinator of the Commission for the 
Disappeared and Victims of Violence (Kontras) and 
his deputy Ferry. “In the 1970s, the gas company 
PT Arun and its counterpart Exxon Mobil sent all 
their profits abroad and to Jakarta; only 1% 
remained in Aceh. After the Helsinki Peace 
Agreement, 30% was supposed to go to Jakarta and 
70% remain here. But that is only on paper. 
Acehnese politicians keep asking about this 
agreement, but Jakarta uses all sorts of tricks not to fulfil its obligations.

“So many clauses of the Helsinki agreement are 
not addressed at all. If people could vote freely 
tomorrow, most of them would opt for independence.”

Shadia Marhaban, one of the Helsinki,negotiators, 
is now president of Aceh Women’s League (LINA). 
“The plundering of the natural resources of Aceh 
is a serious problem. We should stop logging and 
mining,” she said. “Aceh is being exploited once 
again, but often in different ways than before. 
In the past, exploitation was mainly because of 
TNI [the Indonesian military] but now even former 
GAM are involved
GAM lacks experience in governing.”

Just outside Banda Aceh, we started to see the 
extent of the region’s natural disaster. Entire 
mountains, or at least big parts of them, 
appeared to be missing. Heavy trucks were driving away piles of rocks and sand.

“We are facing a dilemma,” said Salma Waty. “We 
have to accommodate people who lost their homes 
[in the tsunami], and therefore we need 
construction materials. But we also have to think what is happening to nature.”

Modest but neat rows of social housing stood near 
the excavation site. Among their inhabitants were 
people who were given their dwellings and people 
who were renting. The owners were those who were 
already in possession of the land before the 2004 
tsunami ­ they had received “compensation”. 
Poorer residents ­ those who were only renting in 
2004 ­ had received nothing. Now, as then, they 
were at the mercy of the market.

I met two people living on the same row but with 
very different stories. A housewife with one 
child, surnamed Fatmawati, lived in her own 
dwelling. Three years ago, she received 
compensation “from the government”. In fact, the 
house was built by CARE, an international 
organisation, but packaged as “government help”. 
Next door, a man named Mundzilin rented a house 
from someone who received compensation and had 
made a business out of it: “Since I didn’t have 
land when the tsunami happened, I didn’t get a 
house from the government,” he said. Both were 
too poor to think about the environment. They 
were glad to have roofs over their heads. Heavy 
trucks driving past, mountains being destroyed in 
their neighbourhood ­ these things are of no concern to them at this time.

The road to Lafarge

The coastal road outside Banda Aceh was built by 
the United States Agency for International 
Development (USAID). Many here believe its sole 
purpose was to facilitate further plunder of 
Aceh’s natural resources. Much of the surface is 
now smooth, almost perfect. But to build this 
thoroughfare, mountains were blown up. The scars will never go away.

What exactly is this road connecting? It links 
Banda Aceh with the huge French-owned cement 
factory Lafarge Cement Indonesia and the mining 
business PT Lhoong Setia Mining, plus other 
mining and logging sites further away.

Mr Maarif from regional political party Partai 
Rakyat Aceh (PRA, or The Aceh People’s Party) 
explained: “After the tsunami, the people of Aceh 
accepted foreign aid because they were in great 
need. But there were, naturally, very serious 
consequences. With the aid, they also had to 
accept the presence of organisations that were 
building roads, bridges and other infrastructure 
simply designed to further plunder Aceh.”

It is no secret that the war in Aceh was largely 
driven by Jakarta’s desire to keep the area’s 
vast natural resources under its control. Western 
companies that had signed lucrative business 
deals with Indonesia’s former dictator Suharto 
were always firmly opposed to independence for 
Aceh, as well as Indonesia’s largest province, 
Papua, and, for decades, East Timor.

The 2005 peace agreement offered some hope, but 
soon the people of Aceh realised that promises on 
profit sharing, and other clauses of accord, 
would never truly be implemented. Jakarta’s greed 
and corruption were simply too great. A small 
territory like Aceh was unable to resist the 
pressure from the capital. Soon after signing the 
peace agreement, even the former independence 
fighters became part of the problem. Instead of 
defending their own people, some members of GAM joined the corruption racket.

Rachmat Junaedy, another member of PRA, spoke 
sadly about events since 2005: “The plundering of 
Aceh is the same as before. There is hardly any 
benefit for the people. Almost all the big 
national and multinational companies are 
exporting natural resources from Aceh. And TNI ­ 
the Indonesian army ­ is actually protecting 
logging and mining sites. It is paid to do so.”

Recently GAM began playing the same game. Now 
every investor in Aceh has to have two 
“protectors” from TNI and GAM: former enemies, 
now accomplices. It is an unwritten rule that 
investors who don’t use men from GAM for “protection” have to pay extra tax.

The enormous Lafarge Cement factory sits on the 
coast, some 20 kilometres from Banda Aceh. At the 
nearby fishing port, people complained about 
unusual fatigue and a lack of medical facilities 
to help establish its cause. Many believed there 
was a connection to the factory. I met a group of 
women sitting on a bamboo bench by a food stall. 
“It has been a month since my child began 
coughing and I don’t know why,” said a woman 
surnamed Nurlaili. “I took her to the local 
medical centre in Lampisang but she is not yet 
feeling any better. The factory has its own 
medical centre, but we can’t go there. I really 
don’t see any benefit from the company being here.”

There are no environmental studies on the 
factory’s operations available online or in Indonesian libraries.

Another woman, surnamed Ida, described evenings 
when dust blowing from the factory became 
unbearable. But two members of her family worked 
for Lafarge Cement Indonesia, one of whom made 
1.3 million rupiahs a month (US$140). By 
Indonesian standards, this is a decent income. In 
Aceh, it is considered a very high salary. Ida 
would never complain, let alone protest.

But others do. They demonstrate against the roads 
that take their country’s wealth away; they 
demonstrate against logging, mining and land 
grabs; and they even demonstrate against corruption.

Further down the USAID road, we entered a deep 
forest. For just a few dozen kilometres, we were 
again in unspoiled nature. Monkeys played freely at the sides of the road.

“It may not always be visible from the car, but 
illegal logging is everywhere,” said Salma Waty. 
“It can be near the roads like in South Aceh, or 
it can be in the interior. In Aceh, we still have 
tigers and elephants. But because of illegal 
logging, elephants become desperate and 
frustrated and they try to get back at people. In 
some cases, they have destroyed entire villages.”

The tropical forest ended abruptly and the 
horizon filled with vast rice fields and the 
green beauty of the Bukit Barisan mountain range 
­ but only briefly. A few more minutes drive and 
devastated mountains came into full view as we 
entered a town called Lhoong. The main 
“attraction” is PT Lhoong Setia Mining (LSM), a 
controversial and well “protected” iron ore 
mining enterprise. According to Rachmat Junaedi 
of the PRA, the mining firm’s owner is Jerry 
Petras, a former high-ranking officer in the Indonesian army.

A man surnamed Mudzakir had a warung (a small 
shop) just a few kilometres from the company. “We 
don’t get any benefits from the operation of PT 
LSM here,” he told us. “Only a risk of future 
disasters. At the mining site, they don’t bother 
with erosion prevention, so there is the danger 
of landslides and floods that could ruin rice 
fields in the area. I have a rice field not far 
from the site and I am afraid that it will be flooded and my crops ruined.”

He paused for a while, before continuing: “The 
company’s land in the mountains used to belong to 
the village, Tanah Adat. Villagers got a very bad 
deal: only 5,000 to 10,000 rupiahs per square 
metre [US$0.55 to US$1.05]. The company is now in 
the middle of disputes with the villagers about 
both the compensation and unwillingness to pay village tax.”

According to Muhajir, a civil-society coordinator 
in Lhoong, after the peace agreement in 2005, the 
Department of Mining and Energy issued 105 mining 
licenses in Aceh. “Some are already in operation. 
A licence for Lhoong and its PT. LSM was issued 
in 2006. Analyses on the environmental impacts were done in 2007!”

Local people are frequently forced to sell their 
land to big companies. Those who refuse to sell 
face intimidation, even violence, says Muhajir.

“The trick against the villagers is called 
‘stupid argument’,” he explained. “Much of the 
land here is communal and was inherited by the 
present owners. Most of the people here have no 
written proof of ownership. The company would 
come and say that the land belongs to the state 
and that it is all in accordance with chapter 33 
of the constitution. They say that, if the 
villagers don’t go away, they could be arrested. 
At that stage, some 5% of the people accept ­ 
they simply leave because they are too afraid.

“The former soldiers do intimidation. They say 
some ‘very important people’ back them. Often 
there is physical violence against the villagers: 
some are taken away and beaten. The problem after 
the peace agreement is that there is always this 
triangle of intimidation: the company, TNI and the government.”

Back in Jakarta, Haris Azhar of Kontras spoke 
about the fear in Acehnese society. Naturally, 
fear comes mainly from the past, when people were 
randomly killed, disappeared and underwent savage 
torture, he explained. But now it appears that 
the peace agreement has brought new fears. Aceh 
is efficiently and quickly being stripped of what 
it possesses. If deforestation, mining and gas 
exploration continue at this speed, Aceh will be 
left with nothing more than its scarred land.

Andre Vltchek is an author , filmmaker and 
investigative journalist. His latest non-fiction 
book ­ Oceania ­ deals with western 
neo-colonialism in Polynesia, Micronesia and Melanesia.

Rossie Indira is an architect and writer. Her 
latest book is Surat Dari Bude Ocie, a 
compilation of her letters to her nephews from her travels to South America.