Blood for oil

Aceh bleeds as Jakarta generals wage war of terror in Indonesia's western oil fields

They ripped off his fingernails, beat him with rifle butts and applied electric shocks to his genitals until he lost consciousness.

Nurdin Abdul Rahman (left) spent 12 years in an Indonesian prison, without trial. Now he dedicates his life to counselling the men and women of Aceh, especially the young, who have also been subjected to the brutality of the Indonesian military.

"Some have watched their mothers being raped and killed by soldiers. Even those who see the raids on neighbouring homes may suffer trauma."

This is life in Aceh, Sumatra, a land and people who have fought colonisation for more than 500 years.

Rahman has visited the union's Sussex Street rooms to let maritime workers know of the plight of his people. Soon after his visit the full-scale military occupation he predicted materialised.

Aceh was the last region of Indonesia to be subjugated by the Dutch. The oil rich province played a leading role in the Indonesian independence movement after World War II. Today it has a strong independence movement, suppressed by the military, who are accused of sabotaging government attempts at brokering peace.

The Australian based academic George J. Aditjondro notes that Aceh makes Indonesia an estimated US$15 billion annually.

Oil and gas production and exploration is under a joint venture between Mobil Oil Incorporation (USA) and Pertamina (Indonesian state oil company). It has caused extensive environmental damage.

A long list of environmental disasters includes the oil spill created when the Maersk Navigator supertanker collided with another ship near the entrance of the Malaka Straits, gas leaks, explosions, contamination of waterways and farmlands, fires and destruction of villages, as well as human rights abuses -- all well documented by Aditjondro in his: "Notes on Environmental Degradation and Human Rights Violations in Aceh."

"The Acehnese people feel injustice," said Aditjondro. "They saw that the wealth generated by Aceh for Indonesia's national coffers was mainly 'rewarded' with large-scale pollution. This has catalysed the birth of an independence movement, the Free Aceh Movement (GAM = Gerakan Aceh Merdeka ). The movement was launched in 1976 and followed up with attacks on the Mobil Oil Indonesia liquified natural gas project in Arun, North Aceh."

The latest military operation began in May last year after the government of President Megawati Sukarnoputri broke off internationally brokered peace talks and authorised a 'shock and awe' campaign in Aceh.

The Indonesian military parachuted 30,000 troops into Aceh, many of them battled hardened in the bloody occupation of East Timor. They were joined by 13,000 police supported by artillery, aircraft and naval craft - all against an estimated 5,000 lightly armed guerrillas.

Falcon F-16 and OV-10 Bronco bombers bombarded suspected rebel positions in two days of air strikes in Aceh. The military claimed 752 Aceh separatists killed in 100 days.

But the war in Aceh has been eclipsed by the much larger military operation under way in the Middle East.

Allegations of a deliberate campaign of mass terror against the civilian population - schools torched, boys as young as 12 killed, irrigation systems providing food for the 150,000 Acehnese sabotaged, journalists fired at and an estimated 20,000 people forced to flee their homes -- have gone largely unnoticed in the West.

By June BBC News reported the discovery of the first mass grave. Reports of mass rape also widespread.

Indonesia's state-appointed National Commission on Human Rights, which sent a fact-finding team to Aceh, reported summary killings, arbitrary arrests, the torture of unarmed civilians, sexual harassment and forced displacement.

An AP reporter allowed to interview some of the 1,200 alleged Acehnese rebels being held in detention noted: "Suspected rebels in Indonesia's war-torn province of Aceh get multi-year prison terms after one-hour trials. Many have no lawyers. Confessions, by many accounts, are extracted through torture."

Like Iraq, the 'shock and awe' operation in Aceh was all supposed to be without complications. The TNI and President Megawati Sukarnoputri claimed it would take no more than six months. But the offensive has dragged on, claiming at least 1,000 lives. Aceh bleeds.

The oil and gas reserves in the province are important to Indonesia's ruling elite. But there are also allegations that the Indonesian military cultivates special security arrangements for a price with the foreign companies operating there. Sometimes it is outright extortion.

Does the US and Australia turn a blind eye to the abuse in Aceh based on their decades-long reliance on the Indonesian military to protect their commercial interests in the archipelago?

If so it may go a long way to explaining the hatred Australians are generating in Indonesia. Like the war on terror, the war on Aceh can only backfire and create more unstable conditions.

After Ogoniland, Will It Be The Turn Of Aceh?

Notes on Environmental Degradation and Human Rights Violations in Aceh By George J. Aditjondro

And other links for further reading on Aceh:

http://acehnet.tripod.com/mobil1.htm