March 2005
Post Tsunami (In)security
Introduction
Zachary Abuza, USIP Senior Fellow
It is hard to think that a tragedy that claimed the lives of more than 220,000 people could have any silver linings. Yet the rehabilitation and reconstruction efforts presented a unique chance for two of the governments to do some fence mending if not help resume formal peace negotiations in two of the region’s most intractable conflicts, between the Sri Lankan Government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (Tamil Tigers), and between the Indonesian Government and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM). In both those cases there is a considerable opportunity for the government’s to take some of the wind out of the insurgent’s sails, to demonstrate to the local population that the rebels are unable to provide an ample amount of support, and for the militaries to prove that they can do something other than raze villages and engage in human rights abuses.
Although there has been a wonderful opportunity to build on the momentum generated by the relief efforts and the outpouring of international assistance, neither government has capitalized on the potential. To a degree, the governments’ mishandling of relief and reconstruction has reinforced the rebels’ assertions that the central governments have little concern for the well being of the people, and that they are using the tragedy to improve their position vis-a-vis the rebels. In both cases there is palpable mistrust amongst the local population and the central government’s and their armed forces. Already there has been conflict over the distribution of aid: both the governments and the rebels are cognizant of the political importance of controlling humanitarian supplies and food to traumatized populations. At the same time, it raises the question, is ethno-nationalist mobilization preventing the distribution of humanitarian aid?
1. Aceh
In Aceh, where the death toll is between 165,000 and 200,000 people, GAM has been fighting for an independent homeland since 1976. There have been a number of past agreements to give the Acehnese more autonomy, including the implementation of Islamic law, and greater revenue sharing from the region’s vast natural gas and oil deposits, but neither has been enough to get the two sides to sign a durable peace agreement. An Internationally brokered peace deal was reached in December 2002 but collapsed in May 2003 when the government of former President Megawati Sukarnoputri renewed the war. At the time of the Tsunami, the province was still under martial law.
The civil war has complicated relief efforts in several ways. Indeed the slow response to the crisis was in part because for the last 18 months the Indonesian government had all but banned NGOs and aid agencies from operating in the region. Journalists too were precluded for fear that they would report on the TNI’s egregious human rights violations.
In the wake of the tsunami, GAM announced a unilateral ceasefire to help aid distribution to some 800,000 homeless and destitute. The Indonesian government has raised the issue of the security of international volunteers; but this seems to be unfounded. "Our main concern right now is the relief operation in Aceh," said the rebel’s spokesman. There have been assaults by the TNI on the rebels; and by the TNI’s own count 120 GAM members were killed for allegedly raiding aid convoys (GAM says most were innocent civilians- only 20 were militants). No aid agency has reported harassment or attacks by the GAM rebels. This has led to concerns that the impetus for the Indonesian government’s 26 March timetable for the withdrawal of the 1,700 foreign troops and 2,500 international aid workers is so that they can resume their offensive. Indeed, both GAM and Acehnese officials have appealed for the international community to stay on, both to forestall the offensive as well as deliver aid. The TNI asserts that two-thirds of its troops in the restive province are engaged in relief efforts, yet, with the influx of 15,000 additional troops, the number engaged in combat operations remains almost the same.
When peace talks resumed in Helsinki, Finland in late January 2005, hopes were high. The Indonesian government offered an amnesty to all rebels and an offer of even greater autonomy. The Indonesian government sent the highest level team that they had ever sent to meet GAM’s exiled leadership. Yet talks achieved nothing and the government rejected outright GAM’s proposal to drop their bid for independence in return for a referendum on the province’s future. Talks remain deadlocked.
When President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono took office in September 2004, he announced that he was committed to working out a durable political solution. A former soldier, he is cognizant of the inability to have a military solution. He does have clout within the military establishment and has the popular mandate to break some of the vested interests in maintaining this conflict. However, the government was foolish to continue to engage with the exiled and elderly leadership of the rebel organization. They are long removed from the situation on the ground and GAM, itself is small, brutal and not representative of the majority of the Acehnese who do not necessarily support independence. The Indonesian government must engage civil society to resolve the conflict.
2. Sri Lanka
Like Aceh, the Tamil Tigers have been fighting for a homeland for nearly three decades. The situation in Sri Lanka, however, is complicated by the fact that the Tamil Tigers control vast territory and have established effective government institutions over their constituent population, and exercise police-state like control over the population.
A Norwegian-brokered ceasefire was signed in February 2002, but despite the Tiger’s renunciation of an independent homeland, the peace talks broke down over issues of power sharing and autonomy. In March 2003 the Tigers quit the peace process though a tentative cease-fire has held. In December 2004, their leader threatened to resume the civil war.
The most contentious issue in Sri Lanka is really over who distributes the aid. The Tamil Tigers believe that they should: two-thirds of the 31,000 victims were Tamils (as the Tamil homeland comprises the North and much of the east coast). Moreover they have a government structure in place, including a quasi independent body called the Tamil Rehabilitation Organization.
In some cases they have set up joint teams and pledged to work together, but that cooperation quickly dissipated. Both sides ratcheted up the propaganda: the government accused the tigers of stealing aid and diverting it to their troops, while conscripting orphans into their ranks (child soldiers has been a serious problem of the Tigers in the past). Tigers accuse the government of withholding aid and of sending in more troops to rebel claimed regions.
This has been true particularly in the East where Tiger control was significantly weakened in the summer of 2003 when a top commander Colonel Karuna and thousands of troops defected from the rebel leadership. The Tigers have not fully regained their influence in the region, and are paranoid that the government is seeking to further dissipate their strength by bribing the population with aid.
The Tigers were infuriated that the Sri Lankan government blocked UN General Secretary Kofi Annan from visiting the afflicted areas; the government did not want to hand the rebels a propaganda victory by having Annan pictured next to the shadowy rebel leader Villupillai Prabakharan, being protected by rebel troops, or having him steer international aid directly to the nominally independent Tamil Rehabilitation Organization (TRO) or other Tamil Tiger agencies.
Tamil leaders have called for “equitable distribution of aid” and blasted Sri Lankan government agencies: “The have proved to be inefficient and corrupt,” said one Tiger leader. While the government has tried to prevent the Tamil’s from receiving international aid directly, the World Food Program is providing aid to some 90,000 people in the rebel-controlled north.
If there is any cause for optimism, it is two-fold: the Norwegians are using the opportunity to dispatch their top negotiator to Sri Lanka to try to revive the talks. Second, the Tamil Tiger’s naval force was wiped out by the Tsunami. They have relied on this not just to attack Sri Lanka forces in the isolated Jaffna peninsula, but also to smuggle weapons from illegal arms markets in Southeast Asia.
3. Conclusion
In both cases, formal peace talks have resumed as a result of the tsunami tragedy. And yet, the intractable nature of the conflicts, ingrained mutual suspicion and enmity, coupled with government-rebel jockeying for control over the relief efforts suggest that this opportunity will slip by. Both governments are seeking to use the tragedy to convince the local population that the rebel groups have little to offer in terms of emergency aid and long-term rehabilitation funds. While the international community should no make their aid conditional on progress of peace talks, they must use their influence to depoliticize rehabilitation and foster a durable political solution.
Recent U.S. Institute of Peace Publications Relating to South and Southeast Asia
Update from the U.S. Institute of Peace Grants Program: Grants related to South and Southeast Asia
The Institute’s Grant Program is currently supporting 35 projects totaling over $1,486, 000 on South and Southeast Asia. Most of them are taking place in Asia, although some are research or curriculum development projects that are based in the U.S.
In Indonesia
Several projects take stock of Islamic thought and political movements inthat country. Rizal Sukma and Clara Joewono at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Jakarta are examining the spread of new Islamic groups by looking at their place within the wider Islamic community in Indonesia. Their study includes a survey of the ongoing debate within Indonesia’s Islamic community on key issues such as terrorism, the relationship between Islam and the state, gender issues, and Islam and the West. Leonard Sebastian of the Nangang Technological University in Singapore is writing a book on the emergence of radial Islamic groups in Indonesia. His analysis focuses on their ideological backgrounds, goals, organizational structures and funding; on their relationships with Indonesian political parties and the military; on the perceptions about them by moderate Islamic organizations; and on these groups' connections with other Islamic organizations and movements in the region and the Middle East, particularly in Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan. Zachary Abuza, currently a Jennings Randolph Senior Fellow at USIP, recently finished a grant-supported project on radical Islamic groups in Indonesia that assessed the implications of such movements and ideas for stability, democracy and policy; examined and evaluated the two-way linkages between Islamist and jihadi activities in Indonesia and neighboring Muslim populations; and suggested appropriate responses by the U.S. and Indonesian governments and by non-state agencies. Initial findings from the research were published as "Muslims, Politics and Violence in Indonesia: An Emerging Jihadist-Islamist Nexus?" NBR Analysis Vol. 15, No. 3 (September, 2004).
In Sri Lanka
K. M. de Silva of the International Center for Ethnic Studies is directing research to examine the factors motivating the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to enter into negotiations in early 2002 to end the longstanding conflict in Sri Lanka. The resulting monograph and series of policy papers will probe the local, regional and international dynamics that led to the current negotiations and draw lessons for dealing with terrorism in other settings. Jacqueline Park of the International Federation of Journalists recently completed a project aimed at improving reporting on violent conflict in Sri Lanka in an effort to strengthen democracy and tolerance and to improve the prospects for peace. The project will produce a handbook on conflict reporting in Tamil, Sinhala and English. Paula Green and Olivia Dreier of the Karuna Center for Peacebuilding are providing 25 activists with advanced training in multi-communal dialogue and assisting them to work in under-served war-affected communities. The training program is designed to promote trust, post-war cooperation, and reconciliation among Tamil, Muslim and Sinhalese ethnic groups and to build the capacity of Sri Lankan peacebuilding NGOs. The trainees will, in turn, train about 1,500 to 2,000 individuals, including local NGO staff, educators, scholars, journalists and other professionals. The objective is to support sustainable reconciliation and development of social capital in Sri Lanka.
In the Philippines
Four projects focus on conflicts and ways to promote peace in that country. Lee Becker of the University of Georgia is working with colleagues at several other centers to convene two workshops for print and broadcast reporters, editors, publishers and producers in the Philippines. The project will produce curricular materials designed to improve media coverage of conflict and to promote religious tolerance. Jeffery Milligan of Florida State University is writing a book on three faith-based initiatives in the southern Philippines that seek to preserve the religious identity of Muslim Filipinos and/or to promote tolerance between Muslims and non-Muslims. The project examines the educational practices of a new madrasa offering a curriculum of both secular and Islamic studies, an Islamic "missionary" movement originating in Pakistan aimed at propagating a "purer" expression of Islam in the region, and an organization of Christian and Islamic religious leaders devoted to the promotion of tolerance through non-formal education, all three of which are located in Mindanao). Nymia Simbulan of the Philippine Human Rights Information Center is running a teacher training initiative for 100 teachers to promote mutual respect, nondiscrimination and social and community involvement among young people, targeting educators in high conflict areas of Mindanao in the Philippines. Francisco Lara of Voluntary Services Overseas is running a training and workshop program to improve relations between Muslim and Christian youth in the provinces of Lanao del Norte and Lanao del Sur in Mindanao, the Philippines. The initiative is developing develop training modules and will implement workshops for some 600 high school and college students as well as out-of-school youth.
Other grant related activity of note
Rodd McGibbon published"Democracy and Secessionist Conflicts in Aceh and Papua: Is Special Autonomy the Solution?" (Washington, DC: East West Center, 2004), pp. 107. Cicilia Lazaro of the Probe Media Foundation in Quezon City aired a three-part documentary film depicting how the war in the Southern Philippines affects children. The film appeared on Philippine television during the summer of 2004. The episodes, two of which ran during prime time, were called "Mga Batang Mandirigma (Children of War)," "Sa Kamay ng MILF (In the Hands of the MILF)," and "Sa Bitag ng Abu Sayyaf (Hostage)."
Recent U.S. Institute of Peace Events relating to The Muslim World
Pathways to Peace: The United States and the Middle East Peace Process
January 27, 2005
Conference Papers: In these papers, three respected Middle East experts assess new opportunities for putting the regional peace process back on track. The authors provide a range of options for American involvement and offer different views on how recent developments can contribute to a permanent, negotiated settlement. Earlier drafts of these papers were presented at the conference "Pathways to Peace: the United States and the Middle East Peace Process."
Muslim World Experts
The work of the Muslim World Initiative is being coordinated by Dr. Abdeslam Maghraoui who joined the Institute in September 2004 as Associate Director of the Research and Studies Program. Beyond Dr. Maghraoui, the Institute's expertise on the Muslim World is extensive. Please click here for more information.
