http://www.thejakartapost.com/detaileditorial.asp?fileid=20060109.E03&irec=2

Post-tsunami aid and building civil society in Aceh

Olle Tornquist, Oslo

Donors often say that the major obstacle in the post-tsunami relief
and reconstruction work is poor co-ordination of the organizations
involved. This may be true, but the observation does not help much
unless we discuss why.

International development co-operation has become neo-liberal. A
myriad of state and private actors compete for funds and influence on
imperfect markets in order to reach diffuse goals. In addition, there
is little trust in the state. In Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam it has even
been repressive and suffers still from authoritarianism, corruption
and inefficiency. To improve co-ordination, these factors should be
addressed. But then the reconstruction work and the peace- and
democracy efforts must be combined -- and this is not being done. That
is the basic problem!

In principle, everybody wants to combine peace- and development work,
at best by means of democracy. The question is how. In Sri Lanka
several years of Norwegian facilitation of negotiations between the
government and the Tamil guerrilla indicates that it is not always
fruitful to avoid the political conflicts and to use instead "neutral"
development aid as a carrot to promote peace. By now, the post-tsunami
aid suffers from hidden politicization. Actors on the government side
and the guerrilla give special privileges to their respective
constituencies and sympathizers. At times this even increases the
conflicts.

In Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam the situation has instead improved by way
of explicitly political peace negotiations. Enlightened politicians,
military officers and guerrilla leaders have made compromises on the
division of power and the government of Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam. This
has been followed by an international monitory mission and some space
for civil society and media to act as watchdogs.

Many say that this was possible only because the tsunami made people
around the world deeply concerned about the problems in Nanggroe Aceh
Darussalam. But that was true of Sri Lanka as well. The major factors
were rather that both Free Aceh Movement (GAM) and the new Indonesian
government realized that they would not be able to win the battle
militarily -- and that the fledgling democracy in other parts of
Indonesia stood out as a potentially more fruitful method to handle
the conflicts than violent struggle over independence.

The bottom line is thus that the Indonesian democracy must be
strengthened -- so that it does not only stand out as a potential but
also real alternative. But while the progress in Nanggroe Aceh
Darussalam is due less to the regular reconstruction work than to the
peace- and democracy efforts, the problem is that the former is
swamped with money while the latter is neglected.

Even so it is true that the implementation of the peace accord has
been more successful than expected. GAM and the Government have both
demonstrated the best of intentions. The guerrilla has contributed to
its own decommissioning and dissolved itself. The military and police
withdraw their non-organic forces. The peace monitors are effective.
Local combatants are being compensated to facilitate their
reintegration into society. There are fruitful broad dialogues between
all relevant parties (including civil society groups) on the
governance of Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam.

But the real obstacles remain. Sustainable integration of the
combatants in society presupposes new jobs within reasonably
non-corrupt reconstruction work. This calls for supervision by a
strong civil society and a working democracy. The Indonesian
Reconstruction Agency is not even mandated to work on post-conflict
issues (but obviously even wants to engage Indonesian soldiers in
supposedly civil rebuilding).

Further, the implementation of the locally approved proposals on the
governance of Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam presupposes the approval of
Jakarta. The President, the Vice President and the Government honor
the intentions of the peace accord, but the nationalist opposition and
conservative officers resist it. One method is trying to divide
Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam into several provinces, which would nullify
the peace agreement and the reconstruction work. Another is trying to
block the chances for GAM and various civic groups to participate with
their own parties and independent candidates in local elections.

The important thing is not if the first elections in April are
postponed for a month or two. What is crucial is that both GAM and
civic groups are not marginalised but can participate in a meaningful
way. How would it be possible otherwise to transform violent conflicts
into peaceful politics? The peace accord and the reconstruction work
are at stake. This calls for more than the extension of the mandate of
the peace monitors until after the elections. It calls also for quick
and strong support for civil society and non-partisan political
education among various democratic groups.

So what are well intending donors and other actors doing to promote
this? So far, not much. I fail to understand why. Support for civil
society and human rights based democracy in Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam
might have been controversial before the Helsinki agreement, but at
this point it is the very basis for the successful completion of the
treaty as well as the reconstruction work, as recognized by both
parties. What can now be less controversial and more productive than
to strengthen, develop and spread Indonesia's own democracy? What
would be more prestigious to Indonesia than to offer the world a
successful model for peace and development by way of meaningful
political democratization?

Of course, I may be wrong. But it is not only the research of Demos
(the Indonesian Centre for Democracy and Human Rights Studies) that
emphasizes the importance of combining efforts at peace- and
reconstruction by way of democratization. The most recent reports from
the two internationally most reputed research institutes on the
problems in Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam, the East West Centre and the
International Crisis Group, point in the same direction. So if there
are strong objections on the basis of better analyses it would be good
to know.

The writer is Professor of Political Science and Development Research,
University of Oslo and Academic Co-director of Demos' Research. He can
be reached at olle.tornquist@....