10 Years since the Aceh Peace Agreement: Internal Strife Continues

8/19/2019 10 Years since the Aceh Peace Agreement: Internal Strife Continues

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4 AUGUST 2015

On December 15, 2014, with the tenth an-niversary of the Aceh Peace Agreement nearing,the Aceh government opened a peace memorialhall inside the building of the Kesbangpol Lin-mas, the bureau for citizen protection and politi-cal and ethnic unification. This memorial hallstores various documents and materials datingfrom the Aceh conflict up to the peace agree-ment. The stated goal was for the hall to become,by the Aceh Peace Agreement’s tenth anniversaryon August 15, 2015, a museum for studying the

Aceh peace process.

In late 2014, the Konsorsium Aceh Baru(meaning “New Aceh Consortium”), organizedby several Acehnese NGOs, set up a peace mu-seum website on the Internet 1 for people to pro-

vide materials relating to the Aceh peace processand contribute to peace education. The website’spresentation ceremony was attended by Acehneseas well as people from conflict zones outsideIndonesia, such as the Bangsamoro region inMindanao, southern Philippines, and the Pattaniregion in southern Thailand.

Although the Aceh peace process sti ll faces anumber of problems, these developments makeevident that it has proceeded smoothly so far.

At least we have not observed any signs that thearmed conict might reignite.

The delegat ion from Bangsamoro that came tomonitor the state of the peace in Aceh also hopedto learn from the experience of the Free AcehMovement (GAM), which succeeded in makingthe transition from armed conict to ghting ina democratic political arena. Bato MohammadZainudden, the head of the Bangsamoro delega-tion, stated the purpose of the trip on December8, 2014, on this visit to the headquarters of the

Aceh Party (Parta i Aceh), whose parent organiza-tion is the GAM: “The purpose of our visit is to

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10 Years since the Aceh Peace Agreement:Internal Strife Continues Osamu Inoue

No Return to Armed Conflict

Flag of Aceh Darussalam (wikipedia)


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take lessons from the political system and strate-gies adopted by the Aceh Party as a local politicalparty in Aceh, which, like us, has been grantedspecial autonomy from the central government toformulate its own local rules” (Atjehpost.co/m,08December 2014).

In the peace agreement of August 15, 2005,Indonesia’s central government recognized theformation of local parties that are active onlyin Aceh. This was then written into law in 2006

when the Law on the Governing of Aceh wasenacted, and detailed regulations were written on

March 16, 2007 when Government RegulationNumber 20 of 2007 on Local Political Parties in Aceh was issued.

In response, on June 4, 2007 GAM namedMuzakkir Manaf, the movement’s mil itarycommander, as the head of their newly formedparty, the GAM Party (Partai Gerakan AcehMerdeka, or Partai GAM for short). However,the government expressed strong reservationsagainst the GAM participating in local politicsas a GAM party with the GAM flag as the par-ty banner. Then, on December 10, 2007, Gov-ernment Regulation Number 77 of 2007 onLocal Symbols was issued, banning the use offlags and logos used in separatist movements.GAM, which very much wanted to use theGAM abbreviation in a party name, changedthe name to the Aceh Independence MovementParty (Partai Gerakan Aceh Mandiri, or Par-tai GAM for short) on February 23, 2008 andreapplied, but the government urged them toagain reconsider the party name.

Indonesian Peace Institute Interpeace, a bodyorganized by Interpeace, 2 an international peace-building organization, mediated between the gov-ernment and the GAM as tensions arose over theparty name. They reached comprise after sevendays of meetings that began on April 6, 2008,and on the following April 22 the GAM changedthe name to the Aceh Party.

The Aceh Party’s rules list

the following four goals of the party.

1) To achieve the vision of the citizens of Aceh in

order to decisively maintain their ethnic, religiousand national pride and honor.2) To achieve the vision of the peace agreementbetween the GAM and the Republic of Indonesiasigned in Helsinki , Finland on August 15, 2005.3) To achieve justice, prosperity and equitable

welfare both material istically and spir itual ly forall the citizens of Aceh.4) To respect the truth, justice, the law and hu-mans rights, and to achieve the sovereignty ofcitizens who develop a democratic lifestyle.

Furthermore, the party’s mission is stated asfollows: “To increase transparency for the sakeof prosperous lifestyles for the peoples of Indo-nesia—most of all the citizens of Aceh—andto transform or improve the thinking of Aceh’s

citizens so they think of the party as a party ofdevelopment rather than a party of revolution.” 3

The Aceh Party showed its powerful strengthby garnering 46.91 per cent of the votes in the2009 election for the Aceh Legislative Council,gaining 33 of the 69 seats. This dropped to 35.34per cent in the 2014 election, but the party stilltook 29 of 81 seats and maintained its position asthe top party in the Legislative Council.

However, the Aceh Party was not the only oneto compete in the 2009 and 2014 elections as a lo-cal political party. After the peace agreement, 12parties put their names forward in the 2009 elec-tion as local Aceh parties. Of these, the followingve parties—including the Aceh Party—actuallyparticipated in the election.

Prosperous and Safe Aceh Party (Partai AcehSeujahtera; PAAS): The party’s basic ideology isIslamic law. Ghazali Abbas Adan of the Devel-opment and Unification Party (PPP), a nationalparty, led the formation of the PAAS.

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From Monopolization to

Decentralization: Aceh’s Local Parties

The log o of the Aceh part y


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Aceh Sovereignty Party (Parta i Daulat Aceh;PDA): The party’s basic ideology is Islamic law. It

was formed by Islamic legal scholars (ulama) ledby Teungku Harmen Nuriqman, a member of thePeople’s Consultative Assembly (MPR; Indone-sia’s national legislature) who is afliated with the

Reform Star Party (PBR).

Independent Voice of the Acehnese Party (Par-tai Suara Independen Rakyat Aceh; SIRA): TheInformation Center for a Referendum on Aceh(Sentral Informasi Referendum Aceh; SIRA),

which was formed in February 1999 with the pur-pose of settling the long-running Aceh conflict

via a referendum, formed th is party in 2007, afterthe peace agreement. Its leader, Muhammad Na-zar, who also led the former organization, took

ofce as Vice Governor of Aceh in 2007.

Aceh People ’s Pa rty (Pa rta i Rakyat Aceh ;PRA): The Acehnese People’s Democratic Resis-tance Front (FPDRA), a group of student activ-ists, feminist activists, urban poverty organiza-tions and others, formed this party in 2007.

Aceh Unity Party (Partai Bersatu Atjeh; PBA): Thissecular party was formed by Ahmad Farhan Hamid,an MPR member afliated with the National MandateParty (PAN), which contests elections nationwide.

Apart from the 33 seats in the Aceh Legisla-tive Council that the Aceh Party won in the 2009election, the Aceh Sovereignty Party was the onlyone of the other parties listed above, winningonly one seat (see Figure 1). Put simply, there wasstil l a very strong idea among the Acehnese that alocal political party is synonymous with the AcehParty, that is GAM.

Figure 1 – Aceh Legislative Council (DPRA)

Political Parties by Seats (2009–2014)

Five years later, however, the situation changedsomewhat in the 2014 election. The followingtwo parties participated in the 2014 election aslocal Acehnese parties in addition to the AcehParty.

Aceh Peace Party (Partai Damai Aceh; PDA): The Aceh Sovereignty Party (PDA), which wonone seat in the 2009 Aceh Legislative Councilelection, changed its name in September 2012. Itsleader is Teungku Muhibbussabri A. Wahab.

Aceh Nat ional Par ty (Par ta i Nasional Aceh;PNA): Irwandi Yusuf, who was the top GAMrepresentative in the Aceh Monitoring Mission(AMM), established in accordance with the peaceagreement, and who ran for and won the Acehgubernatorial election in late 2006, formed thisparty on December 4, 2011. Irwandi Yusuf is

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PARTY NAME

Aceh Party (Partai Aceh)

Democratic Party (Partai Demokrat)

Party ofthe Functional Groups(Partai Golongan Karya)

SEATS

33

11

8

NOTE

Localparty

Nat’lparty

Nat’lparty

National MandateParty(Partai Amanat Nasional)

Developmentand Unication Party(Partai Persatuan Pembangunan)

Prosperous JusticeParty (Partai Keadilan Sejahtera)

PatriotParty (Partai Patriot)

National

Awakening Party (Partai Kebangkitan Bangsa)

Indonesian Justiceand Unity Party (Partai Keadilan dan

Persatuan Indonesia)

Aceh SovereigntyParty (Partai Daulat Aceh)

Crescent StarParty (Partai Bulan Bintang)

TOTAL

5

4

4

1

1

1

1

1

69

Nat’lparty

Nat’lparty

Nat’lparty

Nat’lparty

Nat’l

party

Nat’lparty

Nat’lparty

Nat’lparty


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on the party’s consultative council. The party’schairman is Irwansah, a former GAM command-er for Aceh Besar Regency, and its secretary-general is Muharram Idris, who was the AcehBesar Regency committee chairman for the Aceh

Transitional Committee (KPA) that helps armed

groups to reintegrate into society. In short, theGAM is split between the Aceh Party and the Aceh National Party.

The Aceh Peace Party gained one seat in the2014 Aceh Legislative Council election with 3.03per cent of the vote. The Aceh National Partygained three seats with 4.73 per cent. Meanwhile,the Aceh Party suffered a 10-point loss down to35.34 per cent from 46.91 per cent in the 2009election, and gained no more than 29 seats (see

Figure 2).

Figure 2 – Aceh Legislative Council (DPRA)

Political Parties by Seats (2014–2019)

As the date of the pol ling on April 9, 2014 ap-proaches in Aceh, where the GAM split is public,there has been a dramatic rise in violence, includ-ing murders.

According to an April 7, 2014 report by the Aceh NGO’s Coalit ion for Human Rights (KoalisiNGO HAM Aceh), there were 61 cases of vio-lence and assault (including shootings) in Acehagainst party personnel and supporters in thepast year since April 2013. Seven have died, of

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Aceh (Google Maps)

Internal Strife in the GAM:

Creeping Political Violence

Aceh NationalParty (Partai Nasional Aceh)

National Awakening Party (Partai Kebangkitan Bangsa)

Aceh PeaceParty (Partai Damai Aceh)

Crescent StarParty (Partai Bulan Bintang)

Indonesian Justice

and Unity Party (Partai Keadilan dan

Persatuan Indonesia)

TOTAL

3

1

1

1

1

81

Localparty

Nat’lparty

Localparty

Nat’lparty

Nat’l

party

PARTY NAME

Aceh Party (Partai Aceh)

Party of

the Functional Groups(Partai Golongan Karya)

DemocraticParty (Partai Demokrat)

NationalDemocratic Party (Partai Nasional Demokrat)

National MandateParty (Partai Amanat Nasional)

Development andUnication Party(Partai Persatuan Pembangunan)

Prosperous JusticeParty (Partai Keadilan Sejahtera)

Great IndonesiaMovement Party (Partai Gerakan Indonesia Raya)

SEATS

29

9

8

8

7

6

4

3

NOTE

Localparty

Nat’l

party

Nat’lparty

Nat’lparty

Nat’lparty

Nat’lparty

Nat’lparty

Nat’lparty


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whom three were members of the Aceh NationalParty, while the other four were ordinary citizens.

KontraS (the Commission for the Disappearedand Victims of Violence), an Indonesian humanrights monitoring organization, compiled the

“Report on the Violence and Shootings in AcehPrior to the 2014 General Election,” which indi-cated the following ve causes behind the sharpincrease in violence in Aceh.

First is the feud between the Aceh Party andthe Aceh National Party. Even if the ghting be-tween the members and supporters of these twoparties was not organized, the parties’ leadersdid try to stop the violence. In addition, the factsindisputably show that much of the violence was

committed by the Aceh Party members and sup-porters.

Second, Muzakkir Manaf, leader of the AcehParty and Vice Governor of Aceh, ridiculedthe Aceh National Party (Partai Nasional Aceh;PNA) by coining the pun “Aceh Christian Party”(Partai Nasrani Aceh; PNA) and calling the PNAbetrayers to the GAM, thus severely straining therelationship with the Aceh National Party. OnMarch 18, 2014, North Aceh Regency GovernorH. Muhammad Thaib said in a speech in supportof the Aceh Party that, “nobody will get free ricehandouts unless they are Aceh Party supporters.”On March 24, the head of the Lhokseumawe citycouncil, Saifuddin Yunus, publicly said, “We willrun those who do not support the Aceh Party outof Aceh.”

Third is the presence of third parties who areusing the hostility between the Aceh Party and

Aceh National Party to try and intensify the feud. There is a high likel ihood that the unattributedacts of violence are sabotage perpetrated by mem-bers of the political elite who belong neither tothe Aceh Party nor the Aceh National Party.

Fourth is that the police are not rmly clamp -ing down on the prolic violence, and instead areleaving it be. The Acehnese people even suspectthat perhaps the police are trying to foment thechaos.

Fifth, the Governor of Aceh has a strong ten-dency to tolerate violence and is not adequatelycarrying out his role as a leader. Likewise, the

Wal i Nanggroe, a tradit ional leader who rules

Aceh according to the Law on the Governingof Aceh, is also not sufficiently contributing to

Aceh’s polit ical stabil ity.

The rst signs of a GAM spl it came soon afterthe peace agreement. In the Aceh gubernatorial

election held on December 11, 2006, the GAMleadership and a group of elders backed Hu-man Hamid (a faculty member at Syiah KualaUniversity) as their candidate for governor, andGAM leader Hasbi Abdullah for vice governor.Meanwhile, the GAM and its young sympathiz-ers backed Irwandi Yusuf, who was the top GAMrepresentative at the AMM, as their candidate forgovernor, and Muhammad Nazar, the standingchairman of SIRA, for vice governor.

Irwandi Yusuf, who won this electoral battleand became vice governor, ran for reelection in2012 as an independent cadidate, and again the

Aceh Party made various efforts to sabotage hiscampaign, including trying to convince him todrop out.

The GAM leadership and group of elders— who backed H. Zaini Abdullah (a GAM foreignminister who also worked for many years inSweden as a doctor) as their candidate for gov-ernor, and Muzakkir Manaf (the former GAMmilitary commanders and Aceh Party leader) for

vice governor—again was opposed to Irwandi Yusuf in 2012, and they succeeded in tak ing thegovernorship and vice governorship. The duo ofZaini Abdullah and Muzakkir Manaf won 55.75per cent of the votes, while Irwandi Yusuf andMuhyan Yunan (a high-ranking Aceh governmentofcial who nominated himself for vice governor)garnered 29.18 per cent of the votes.

Irwandi Yusuf led for the nullication of theelection at the constitutional court for reasonsincluding the 27 acts of violence against his sup-porters during the campaign, but the case wasdismissed. Yusuf was again subjected to violence

when he was surrounded outside the Aceh Leg-islative Council building on June 26, 2012, as he

was attending the governor and vice governor’sswearing-in ceremony in the capacity of formergovernor.

The relat ionship between Zaini Abdullah andMuzakkir Manaf—who became Aceh’s governorand vice governor, respectively, in 2012—did notremain friendly. The rift between them became

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public in July 2014 during the election for Indo-nesia’s president and vice president.

In this election, the Indonesian DemocraticParty of Struggle (Partai Demokrasi Indonesia

Perjuangan; PDIP), a national party, and othersbacked former Governor of Jakarta Joko Widodoas the nominee for president and former VicePresident Jusuf Kalla for vice president. Mean-

while, the Great Indonesia Movement Party (Par-tai Gerakan Indonesia Raya) and others backedformer Lieutenant General Prabowo Subiantoas their candidate for president and former Co-ordinating Minister for Economic Affairs HattaRajasa for vice president. Aceh Governor Zaini

Abdu llah suppor ted Joko Widodo and JusufKalla, while Muzakkir Manaf supported PrabowoSubianto and Hatta Rajasa.

Vice Governor Muzakki r Manaf, who is alsothe leader of the Aceh Party, ordered his party’ssupporters to give their full support to the Prabo-

wo Subianto and Hatta Rajasa ticket, saying this would assure efforts to wipe out poverty and develop Aceh. Meanwhile, he warned that support-ing the opposing camp, the Democratic Party,

would be haram, a forbidden act under Islam.

In response, Aceh Governor Zaini Abdullah, who is also a member of the Aceh Party’s con-sultative council (the Tuha Peuet), criticized suchsupport for Prabowo Subianto and Hatta Rajasa,as this decision was not the party’s but rather anindividual choice by Muzakkir Manaf. Abdullahdeclared his full support for the Joko Widodoand Jusuf Kalla ticket. One reason that Gover-nor Zaini Abdullah supported Joko Widodo and

Jusuf Kalla is that former Vice President JusufKalla was the biggest contributor to achieving the2005 Aceh Peace Agreement and that he could beexpected to have the understanding and coopera-tiveness to solve Aceh’s problems in the future.

Other reasons included former Jakarta Governor Joko Widodo’s understanding of Aceh due to hisexperience working in a state-run enterprise thereand his mass appeal due to his clean image.

Aceh Part y Leader Muzakk ir Manaf, whose

order to support Prabowo Subianto and HattaRajasa was criticized for not being an officialparty decision, retorted in writing that the statusof the party’s consultative council is no morethan honorary and that it has no right to formu-late policies. Such developments exemplify themudslinging that occurred during the election forpresident and vice president.

Joko Widodo and Jusuf Ka lla won the 2014presidential and vice presidential election in

which the Governor and Vice Governor of Acehsupported different camps, although in Aceh theyonly received 45.61 percent of votes, while Prabo-

wo Subianto and Hatta Rajasa garnered the most(54.39 per cent).

A number of f issures l ike this one opened within the GAM organization over the 10 yearsafter the peace agreement. In one respect this isfuel for destabilizing public order, but it is prob-ably an inevitable result when one considers thatdistrust of the Indonesian central governmentand military has always existed among various

Acehnese organizat ions and individuals under theGAM. The Aceh Party, whose leader is MuzakkirManaf, a former GAM commander, retains mili-tary control even after its formation. One couldsay that criticism of the party over this and thepeople who have left the party are proof of thespreading peace in Aceh.

Although the GAM has shown signs of inter-nal splits as democracy has advanced, none of thefactions have changed their stance on respectingand complying with the Law on the Governing of

Aceh, which was enacted the year after the 2005 Aceh Peace Agreement.

The problem is that even though the peaceagreement is marking its tenth year, a number ofits provisions have still not been implemented.Specific examples include the establishment of ahuman rights court in Aceh, the establishment of

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Towards Full Implementation of

the Peace Agreement


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a joint committee by the Indonesian governmentand the Acehnese government to settle unresolveddemands, and the establishment of the Truth andReconciliation Committee (KKR). On December27, 2013, the Aceh Legislative Council passed anordinance (a qanun) concerning the Truth and Rec-

onciliation Committee, giving it the authority topreside over cases of past human rights violations.However, the Ministry of Home Affairs nullifiedthis ordinance because it argued that the Law onthe Governing of Aceh only prescribes the Truthand Reconciliation Committee’s establishment, not

Aceh’s exclusive authority over it. In other words,the ministry determined that the MPR has the rightto pass laws concerning the Truth and Reconcili-ation Committee, and that Acehnese ordinancesmust be passed within the scope of those laws.

Likewise, implementation of the rights of the Acehnese government concerning the use of natu-ral resources and land, as prescribed by the Lawon the Governing of Aceh, has been slow becausethe Indonesian government has not dened exactrules. Although Joko Widodo finalized a presi-dential decree in October 2014, soon after takingofce as President, granting the Acehnese govern-ment full authority over the National Land Agency(BPN) within Aceh, there have also been strongopinions arguing that granting one region author-ity over the agency’s functions is tantamount tosplitting the state and is unconstitutional.

While the central government is also workingto fully implement the Aceh Peace Agreement,

we can also say that the fact is that it is workinghard to urge caution in Indonesia to maintainconsistency with the Constitution and other In-donesian laws.

Osamu InoueProfessor, Takushoku University

Notes:

1 The peace museum website: www.museumper-damaian.org2 Interpeace (International Peacebuilding Alli-ance) is an independent, international peacebuild-ing organization and a strategic partner of theUN, created originally by the UN in 1994 andbecoming independent in 2000.3 The Aceh Party mission statement can befound here: http://www.partaiacehm2.blogspot.jp/2012/02/prol-partai-aceh html

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10 Years since the Aceh Peace Agreement: Internal Strife Continues

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