Indonesia's Aceh adds golden page to peace-making

PEACE PROCESS: Peace at last or a stepping stone to a separate state? This question is likely to be posed by the more cynically-inclined among observers on hearing that Indonesia's once-rebellious Aceh Province is forging steadily ahead in its peace process by going to the polls in an effort to consolidate for itself a measure of political autonomy.

The elections are being held in Aceh in terms of a peace deal which was struck between the Indonesian government and the militant Free Aceh Movement (GAM) in August, 2005.

INDONESIA : Irwandi Yusuf, the former spokesman of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) and a front running Governor candidate, talks to a female journalist, in front of electoral posters of his rival candidates at his office in Banda Aceh, December 12 , a day after the landmark election. AFP

Prior to the clinching of the peace agreement, violence in the rebellious Aceh province which raged for decades, claimed the lives of nearly 15,000 persons.

With the launching of the peace agreement - which enjoyed Finnish mediation - the Acehnese, among other things, are in a position to vote for persons of their choice for filling top governing positions in the province, such as the post of Governor, his deputy, 19 regents and a number of mayors.

This amounts to granting the Acehnese a degree of political self-determination, a factor which is at the heart of a number of separatist rebellions in South and South-East Asia.

Thus far, the Acehnese peace process has unfolded without any major hitches and if everything continues to go well, Indonesia's Aceh province will be another glowing success story in ending bloody separatist rebellions by political means.

A parallel process of sorts could be said to be occurring in Nepal where years of bloodshed and violence seem to have been brought to a close as a result of the peace deal which was clinched between the Nepali-Congress led government and the Maoist rebels.

In the Nepalese situation, though, a number of unresolved issues seem to be stalling the pace of the settlement process although no major disruptions of the peace effort have occurred so far.

There is in Nepal, for instance, the issue of bringing the rebels into the government before or after the sealing of their arms under UN supervision.

The Maoist demand is that they be included in the Cabinet, independent of the process of the complete handing over and locking-up of arms. The Nepalese government, however, insists that the arms-sealing process be completed before the Maoists are brought into government.

Such issues remain to be completely resolved, but, on the whole, the peace process in Nepal seems to be going well.

Along with Indonesia's Aceh province, Nepal's settlement process seems to be a living refutation of the position taken in some quarters that those groups which have been fiercely and inveterately militant should not be engaged in efforts at resolving intra-state conflicts by political means.

These parties prefer to address the political and socio-economic aspirations of the ethnic and other groups figuring in separatist rebellions, rather than address the power aspirations of the militants in an effort to contain the conflicts concerned.

There is much merit in this policy position, but Aceh and Nepal seem to be substantiating the perspective that the rebel groups per se need to be brought into the political process too for a substantive defusion of intra-state separatist conflicts.

What needs to be realised is that it is prolonged exclusion and alienation from the political process which gives rise to the formation of these rebel groups.

Usually, they articulate the socio-economic and political grievances of national groups which suffer long and unredressed alienation.

Once these militant groups are brought into the political process, the chances are they would moderate their policy positions and adjust themselves to hard ground realities. This process is currently on in the Palestinian Authority areas.

In the latter case, Hamas is now proving relatively moderate in its policy perspectives on the Middle East conflict.

So, in the jaw, jaw, jaw vs war, war, war dichotomy, historical and current experience seems to suggest that greater weightage should be given to the former approach rather than the latter in particularly resolving intra-state identity-based conflicts.

The essential requirement for the settlement of such conflicts is a moderation of policy perspectives on the part of all relevant stakeholders.

Usually, such conflicts prove difficult to resolve when one party seeks to exercise total hegemonic control over the State. This is a sure recipe for prolonged, endemic and wasting conflicts.