Insurgency in Aceh - Possible Factors For Prolonged Conflict - Indonesian Military's Interests in Aceh

Indonesian Military's Interests in Aceh

Damien Kingsbury, who served as informal advisor to the GAM leadership in Sweden during the Helsinki peace talks in 2005, contended that the Indonesian military had vested interests to keep the conflict at a level which would justify their presence in the restive province. The ICG also asserted in a 2003 report that, "Aceh is simply too lucrative a place for military officers who rely so heavily on non-budgetary sources of income."

Kingsbury outlined the following business activities allegedly conducted by the Indonesian military in Aceh:

• Drugs: Security forces encouraged local farmers to grow marijuana and paid them prices far below the black market value. One instance highlighted was a police helicopter pilot admitting after his arrest that he was flying a 40 kg consignment of the drug for his superior the police chief of Aceh Besar (note that at this point the Indonesian Police or Polri was under the command of the military). Another case was in September 2002 in which an army truck was intercepted by the police in Binjai, North Sumatra with a cargo of 1,350 kg of marijuana.

• Illegal arms sale: Interviews in 2001 and 2002 with GAM leaders in Aceh revealed that some of their weapons were in fact purchased from the military. The first method of such sales was for the Indonesian military personnel to report those weapons sold as having been seized during combat. Secondly, key Indonesian military personnel with access had even directly provided GAM with a reliable supply of weapons as well as ammunition.

• Illegal/unlicensed logging: Military and police were paid by logging companies to ignore logging activities which took place outside of licensed areas. The Leuser Development Project funded by the European Union from the mid-1990s to combat illegal logging had in fact discovered that the Indonesian military and police who were supposed to assist in preventing illegal logging were in fact facilitating and, in some cases, even initiating such illegal activities.

• Protection: The military ran "protection rackets" to extract payments from companies such as Mobil and PT Arun in the oil and gas industries as well as companies operating plantations in Aceh. In return for the payments, the military would deploy its personnel at the properties and areas of operations of these companies.

• Fishery: Local fisherman were forced to sell to the military their catches at prices far below market rates. The military would in turn sell the fishes to local businesses at a much higher prices. Personnel of the Indonesian Navy might also waylay fishing vessels to extort payments from fishermen.

• Coffee: Similar to fishermen, coffee planters were compelled to sell coffee beans to the military at low prices.