The Decentralization of Colonialism

[The promises of democracy, decentralization and autonomy only brought new forms of exploitation to Aceh.]

In 1998, Suharto resigned following a combination of economic collapse, international pressure, domestic rioting and a powerful student movement. Western experts feared the divisions that democracy would bring to Indonesia’s 6,000 islands inhabited by 300 ethnic groups speaking 250 languages. The World Bank and USAID immediately launched one of the most ambitious decentralization programs in the world, devolving not just decision-making but budgetary pressures to the district level, controlled by district chiefs or bupati. Democracy and decentralization produced neither a regime change, nor an end to violent authoritarianism. Indonesian political scientist Hadiz explains: “This is most vividly illustrated by the rise of political gangsters and thugs �" perhaps the ultimate of predators �" in the leadership of parties, parliaments and executive bodies at the local level.” (2004: 716).

Each bupati quickly went to work scouring their districts for products to be exported, mines and plantations to concession so they could turn a profit. Decentralization, Hadiz writes, “has had little bearing in terms of pushing forward a governance agenda based on transparency and accountability... but has been instrumental in the development of newly decentralized, predatory networks of patronage” (2004: 699). 

            In Aceh, democracy brought an intensification of violence. Under pressure to control strategic business interests and contain the spread of dissidence to other provinces, the military had launched another operation in Aceh in 2003. Human rights organizations reported an increase in abuses as the generals who had been instrumental in campaigns of terror against civilians in East Timor were reassigned to Aceh (Human Rights Watch, 2003).  Schools were burned, children recruited as spies for the military, villagers tortured and executed, women were raped.  Behind the violence was economic encroachment serving military, business and political elites.  Military business expanded in Aceh: plantations, illegal logging schemes, drug trade and weapons smuggling (Kingsbury and McCulloch, 2006).

            When I first visited Indonesia in 2003, GAM’s influence had expanded considerably. They operated their own governance structures operating the villages, sang their own national anthems, told their own histories in their own schools.  Acehnese human rights observers reported that military sweeps often involved requiring villagers to sing Indonesia’s National Anthem.  If they hadn’t learned it, they would be classified as GAM and beaten or killed.  Meanwhile, GAM expanded its financial base, extorting taxes and fees from businesses in the territories they controlled in much the same way the Indonesian military has always done in the areas it operates (Aspinall 2009).

            In December of 2004, the Indian Ocean Tsunami devastated Aceh, which suffered 90% of the casualties, 1 in 4 people were killed, with bodies rotting in the streets.  The rebels immediately declared a unilateral ceasefire. For days, the military denied international relief organizations access to the province, until they agreed to let the military control relief efforts. The military continued it’s killing spree, adding 200 new deaths to the humanitarian disaster, until the Vice President was able to rein them in.

            Vice President and business magnate Yusuf Kalla had already brokered peace pacts in other parts of Indonesia, in the process furthering the business interests of his extended family. Kalla approached peace in economic terms: Prasetyo and Aditjondro summarize, “the logic behind Kalla’s peacemaking is to foster profitable business for all the main players, for the local combatants, militias and in-fighting elites to the military and big business at the expense of ordinary people and sustainable development” (2010: 174). For liberal peace to prevail, rebel elites were forced to abandon the social justice agenda that motivated the war in the first place.

GAM initially resisted these elite pacts (Törnquist, 2010) but after the tsunami their bargaining position was devastated; Kalla went to work in Aceh. New investors included hydroelectric projects financed by Kalla’s family and timber concessions run by Jakarta-based military elites like Presidential hopeful General Prabowo.  Local-level military businesses also continued after the tsunami, in the form of legal and illegal activities, most notably logging (Nivada, 2007).

            Interviews with top GAM officials, CSO leaders and villagers revealed disturbing patterns. Former rebel soldiers often returned home to find they had no place in their villages.  The land promised by the government rarely materialized, as villagers often refused to give up their land for the returning rebel soldiers.  Many ex-combatants turned to illegal logging, supplying their former enemies, military-business networks, with the timber for processing and export. Others received work as security forces protecting the onslaught of mining operations that flooded into the province.

            Peace and tsunami aid brought new contact with foreign NGOs, government and investors. Roads expanded, and Aceh’s bupati were able to catch up to the rest of Sumatra in replacing forest and small farms with expansive rubber plantations, coffee plantations, mines, and other corporate-sponsored primary sector exports. Acehnese scholars Nazamuddin, Agussabti and Mahmud view this pattern with dismay: “Government policies often favor producers over consumers, capitalists over workers, urban society over the village community and modern over traditional sectors.... One effect of this has been a widening gap between those with capital and the workers, and between the modern and traditional sectors” (2010: 85). 

            The tsunami generated an economic boom of its own, perhaps one of the largest in the history of Indonesia.  Reconstruction funds were twenty times that of post-conflict re-integration funds, creating an explosion of construction. Contracting became the basis of Aceh’s post-conflict economy: 40% of Aceh’s public expenditures were in construction. Aspinall (2009) notes that throughout the world, the construction sector exhibits more corruption than any other sector.  GAM inserted itself into the predatory practices that characterize construction throughout Indonesia.  This generated a patronage machine in which KPA’s elite controlled the spoils of the state.

The construction boom had ecological effects as well. While timber for illegal logging was exported, the French concrete company Lafarge began its concrete operation in Aceh, effectively cutting the scenic mountain along the coastline in half to provide concrete for the lucrative reconstruction projects.  Local environmentalists were outraged, local farmers suffered floods, and local workers suffered deplorable working conditions.  After widespread protest, Lafarge closed its doors, only to reopen with expatriate management and Chinese prison labor.  Lafarge did hire Nazar, the Vice Governor and former student movement leader, as a high-level broker.

            Nazar was part of a new slate of local politicians that took over after the peace accords, displacing the nationalists that had previously dominated political offices. Election politics after Aceh’s peace agreement were a new phenomenon in Indonesia. In order to avoid sectarianism, Indonesia had long required that only candidates from national parties be allowed to contest in elections, thus establishing national control over local electorates.  As a part of the peace accords, Aceh was granted the historic right to form local parties. 

            Nonprofits like conservative American-funded International Republican Institute (IRI) worked to convert the rebellion into a political party. IRI brought consultants from American presidential campaigns to train campaign strategists for the nascent rebels-turned-political party. They weren’t taught to consult or empower constituents.  In words I heard repeated from former GAM members and IRI staff alike: “they were taught to take power using democracy,” to use politics to influence, not consult people.  During the war, GAM held secret rallies at night, majeruese, where they promised “independence is just one cigarette away” in order to recruit rebels.  PA used the same infrastructure in their campaigns.

            Throughout Indonesia, citizens expect immediate benefits from hopeful candidates, either in the form of money to individuals or substantial gifts to the village chief�"such behavior is considered far more pragmatic than expecting candidates to keep their promises.  However it fuels a system in which the candidate must recoup his/her costs with corrupt practices once in office. Surveys in Aceh reflected this pragmatic attitude toward bupati elections, though the gubernatorial elections appeared to be on more ideological lines (Clark and Blair 2008). Supporters who were involved in the campaign often want contracts or money in return once in office.  Clark and Blair explain the precarious position of elected officials: “A bupati who pays off supporters can face attempts to remove him based on charges of corruption or collusion brought by his rivals, whereas a bupati who does not pay off his supporters can face attempts to remove him driven by disgruntled former supporters” (2008: 47).  Idealists within GAM’s elite found the experience with politics upsetting. As one informant lamented: “Here nobody thinks about how to end corruption.  They just think about how to take their turn.”

As in the rest of Indonesia, the bupati were notorious for corruption; tsunami aid funded construction contracts for roads, schools and hospitals comprised the bulk of the Acehnese economy for the five years following the peace accords, it also comprised the bulk of the funding.  Bupati often demanded shopping trips to New York to sign MOUs, then usually expected to siphon 50% of the funds.  CSOs doing government-funded social programs reported a similar percentage.  Beyond the bupati, Indonesian Corruption Watch estimated over half of the funds disbursed by the agency set up for relief and recovery were lost to corruption (Prasetyo and Aditjondro, 2010).  Such corruption is relative. A former World Bank employee explained the hypocrisy: “They say the international community spent so much money here, but most of that was paid to expatriate consultants.” Once they close the project, she said, they leave the host community with very little. Lucrative aid contracts often went to expatriate engineering firms, housed in the country that funded them, to build an endless series of schools with no teachers and hospitals with no doctors. Of the government funds earmarked for reconstruction, 60% leaves the province, largely to outside contractors. (Prasetyo and Aditjondro, 2010). Siphoning was a way to keep a more of the money in Aceh.

The distribution of this wealth generated a pernicious system of patronage.  As former rebel soldiers and war victims made heartfelt demands of bupati and wealthy contractors, they exchanged their ideological goals of changing Aceh’s imbalanced economic structure for one of disempowering clientalism. In place of ameliorating economic inequality via political demands on the state, ex-combattants were placed in competition with each other.  As in so many other conflict zones (Steenkamp 2009), political violence converted to criminal violence, as groups once united in a political goal fought each other for spoils. Merdeka [freedom], Aceh’s poor argued, hadn’t been achieved.

The colonial center has changed throughout Aceh’s history: from the Dutch to the Japanese to the Javanese in Jakarta to the bupati in the districts. This history demonstrates that the struggles against exploitation in Indonesia, be it against the Dutch or national elites in Jakarta have resulted in the decentralization of the center-periphery arrangements of colonialism to new centers exploiting peripheries that have only grown more expansive over time as globalization proceeds.  Neither democracy nor decentralization changed this pattern because they are only effective to the degree that they succeed in enhancing accountability of government to its constituencies as opposed to enhancing the vulnerability of government to exploitative economic relations.

In contrast to the opportunists described above, idealists both inside and outside of Aceh’s new government continued to struggle for accountability and social justice. During the war large numbers of men and women bravely risked their lives and suffered horrible atrocities for their ideals. They are far more representative of the indomitable Acehnese spirit. What happened to their idealism?

Reviews

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:: brilliantly written... i relate to some of these themes a lot... i don't know if you know but some days back there were terrible communal riots near where i live... and many politicians were caught on camera indulging in hate speeches... in the last two days, terrible honour killings took place and politicians are again seen backing violence... :: once i'm done reading your paper, i'm gonna re-look at the situation here and understand it better...