Hasan Tiro and Aceh peace

The Jakarta Post Fri, 10/24/2008 1:35 PM Opinion
Hasan Tiro is not only a symbol of the Acehnese people's identity, but also a maker of and witness to history. Alongside Buya T. Daud Beureuh, Tiro is a promising figure for developing sustainable peace in Aceh. Tiro played a great role in Helsinki in August 2005 to help the Indonesian government and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) achieve a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that contains a comprehensive and progressive agreement for embracing a peaceful future for Aceh.
Tiro's homecoming to Aceh this year on Saturday, Oct. 11, after several decades of living abroad, should be widely appreciated. He represents not only the Acehnese people's long journey through the peace-building process, but also that of all Indonesians.
The 2009 election has already raised some tensions in Aceh. Thirty-eight national political parties will be competing with six local ones. Research conducted by an early warning team from the SERAP program of CCA-CIDA has shown that from June to September 2008 several potential causes of conflict emerged. Political terror increased, as did negative media headlines. The lack of political knowledge in the community is challenging the emergence of local parties. Controversy between national and local parties occurred under the poor performance of the Independent Election Commission (KIP) and the Election Monitoring Team (Panwaslu).
Meanwhile, to achieve a peaceful election in Aceh, all functional actors are strongly expected to perform at their best from now on. The KIP must get accurate data on voters immediately. The police must carry out their tasks in dealing with political terrorism. Local governments must learn not to control, but to cooperate and collaborate with other institutions. Local political parties must seek some capacity-building support to increase their members' political knowledge.
After the Helsinki MoU in 2005, the House of Representatives passed a Law on the Government of Aceh (Law No. 11/2006). But to this day, there has been only one government regulation on local political parties (PP No. 20/2007).
Aceh still needs 11 regulations to support the implementation of the peace agreement, as cited in the Helsinki MoU and Law No. 11/2006, such as the regulation of law enforcement for human rights and the regulation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (KKR).
The latter is subject to different points of view. The first view is that the KKR Aceh could be established after a nationwide commission had been established. However, our Constitutional Court (MK) annulled the regulation on the national KKR. Another view states that the KKR Aceh could be established without the national one using local community mechanisms. A third view is that the KKR Aceh has already been established, via Articles 229 to 259 of Law No. 11/2006.
To this day, the Aceh Reconstruction Council (BRA) has not effectively contributed to the reintegration process. Held up by bureaucratic procedures in the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas) and the Social Services Ministry, only 30 percent of the reintegration fund has been dispensed. Furthermore, instead of using the money to strengthen conflict victims' capacity, the council has dispensed it in a mostly charitable manner. With such an enormous allocation of funds, the BRA has been focusing only on physical activities or construction. It has not contributed to capacity-building activities toward the development of peace in Aceh.
Tiro's homecoming was a beautiful moment for the official leaders and elites to reunite in developing a sustainable peace in Aceh. There is still a lot of work to be done since the peace agreement; such work can easily be done collaboratively.
The establishment of a reconciliation council (KKR), to name one of the tasks, will come before the spoilers of peace can be detected. They could be individuals, or any programs that would lead to social envy, injustice, inadequate economic access for tsunami and conflict victims, and wealth and employment issues.
Other tasks are: 1) strengthening local democratic instruments by empowering ex-combatants to become politicians; 2) expanding marginal groups' access to political, economic, bureaucratic and other governmental institutions; and 3) accelerating the establishment of the Human Rights Court and the KKR to resolve former cases of conflict and maintain a sense of justice among conflict victims.
Moreover, for all of the people of Aceh, the upcoming election is the right time to vote for their best representatives and leaders. It is a breakthrough toward sustainable peace. We shall then put our focus and energy toward supporting Aceh in creating a peaceful democratic party in 2009.
The writer is chairman of the Titian Perdamaian Institute. He can be reached at ichsanmalik@gmail.com