Conict, Security & Development, 2013 Vol. 13, No. 1, 3156, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14678802.2013.

770258

Analysis
Gangster, ideologue, martyr: the posthumous reinvention of Teungku Badruddin and the nature of the Free Aceh Movement
Bobby Anderson
This paper, which is based upon the authors experiences in Aceh from 2006 to 2010, illustrates the dangers inherent in and disarmament, demobilisation and contained within it numerous discrete, and violent, failures; the emergence of the Pasukan Peudeung was emblematic of this. GAMs conict-era economic activities, encompassing illegal forms of extraction and other rent-seeking behaviours, did not end with the conict: they simply evolved, as did Pasukan Peudeung. Further, GAM was and remains in its current iterations a criminal network; its members constantly reinterpret their ideologies to suit their actions and interests, usually in reaction to crimes committed by members.

Downloaded by [Bobby Anderson] at 19:55 14 March 2013

reintegration (DDR) policies that allow for the transfer of reintegration assets through ex-insurgent command structures. The manipulation of such transfers in Aceh, Indonesia, led to the creation of a new insurgent group, the Pasukan Peudeung, from the splintering corpus of the Free Aceh Movement. The author argues that Acehs DDR process, while widely heralded as a success, was inherently awed in its execution

Bobby Anderson worked in Aceh for three and a half years, most recently as the Post-Conict Reintegration Programme Co-ordinator for the International Organisation for Migration, where he managed the largest excombatant reintegration and stabilisation projects in Aceh. He also worked in Afghanistan and the former Yugoslavia. Bobby currently manages a USAID project, SERASI, in eastern Indonesia.

q 2013 Kings College, London

32

Bobby Anderson Badruddin was not so much opposed to peace itself as to the way GAMs elite was, according to him, betraying the aspirations of Acehs people in the name of their own personal ambitions [ . . . ] The commandeering of a Cardi NGO car by Badruddin in 2007, a crime for which he later served a seven-month prison sentence, was justied by his supporters as a way to draw the attention of the international community to the failure of the MoU.1 You give me thirty million rupiah or CARDI cant work here anymore. If you come back without the money, Ill set your car on re.2

Downloaded by [Bobby Anderson] at 19:55 14 March 2013

Introduction
Teungku3 Badruddin, alias Barot, alias Badreum, was a member of the Free Aceh Movement (Gerakan Aceh Merdeka, hereafter GAM): an insurgent group that fought the Government of Indonesia (hereafter GoI), in numerous discrete phases of conict and retreat, from 1976 until the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding between the GoI and GAM in Helsinki on 15 August 2005. Badruddin broke away from the GAM corpus and embarked upon a violent anti-GAM insurgency and simultaneous crime spree until he was shot dead in December 2007. One of his children and numerous followers pre-deceased him: collateral damage from his war. Badruddin, and others of his ilk, despite being members of a demobilised insurgency, never got to the stage where they could be called ex-combatant: their war continued past the peace process, and the ramications of that war continue to the present day. And while DDR practitioners (of which the author is one) highlight Aceh as a successful example of their work, discrete and bloody failures occurred within this broader success, of which Badruddin was one of the most notable. Badruddin and others discussed below fell into the category of GAM Sakit Hati (Bitter GAM): sidelined by GAMs successor bodies and cheated out of reintegration assistance. Acehs post-MoU period witnessed the demobilisation of an insurgency and a simultaneous increase in crime.4 One might infer that the interpretation of acts and events is what changed, rather than the events themselves; there were no more categorically revolutionary or rebellious activities, and the remaining crimes that once had an insurgent or revolutionary bent, now simply stood as crimes after the ideological veneer was stripped away. GAM did not end when the conict ended; the many tenets of the GAM structure continued, as did their rent-seeking activities. The stressors that emerged between GAMs

Posthumous reinvention of Teungku Badruddin

33

haves and have-nots boiled over into violence regularly, of which the most spectacular was the rural war in northern Aceh that GAM and one of its splinter factions waged against one another over the course of half a year in 2007. This paper describes that war, as well as the post-conict tension that emerged between the GAM movements mythology and its underlying criminal nature. This tension remains. This paper begins with an analysis of GAMs structure, which was mostly apparent in upward capital ows emanating from what were essentially armies of entrepreneurial units. The paper then analyses Pasukan Peudeungs emergence. It outlines the personal experience of the author with Pasukan Peudeungs original incarnation in Aceh Utara in 2007, principally through his dealings with Badruddin, the groups leader, who along with his men were denied reintegration funds by GAMs successor body. This resulted in attacks by Badruddin on GAM afliates in his territory, as well as robberies and extortion directed at the humanitarian projects that the author managed. Badruddins inability to receive reintegration funds was converted from a nancial to a political grievance, as he began to denounce GAM as traitors to the cause of Acehnese independence. This conict resulted in the murder of GAM members, Badruddin afliates and family members and, ultimately, Badruddin himself. Alternate approaches to reintegration in Sawang may have ameliorated the pervasive insecurity that obstructed development projects there for years.

Downloaded by [Bobby Anderson] at 19:55 14 March 2013

Gerakan Aceh Merdeka: organisational structure

After the MoU, GAM remained: a movement rather than an organised group with a comprehensive command and control structure. On paper, GAM had a hierarchy and chain of command5a political wing with an overseas leadership and a military wing, the Tentara Nasional Atjeh (TNA), under the command of a Panglima TNA, the last of whom was current construction contractor and Partai Aceh6 vice-governor Muzzakir Manaf. Under the Panglima TNA there existed 17 regional Panglima Wilayah; four district-level Panglima Daerah existed under each Panglima Wilayah. Under the Panglima Daerah were an unknown number of Panglima Sagoe,7 who generally operated at the sub-district level.8 Under the Panglima Sagoe existed combatant cells, support networks, afliates and sympathisers. GAMs upper-level hierarchy was intact and traceable to the Panglima Daerah level. From there downward, GAM functioned, not as a hierarchical structure along the lines of Nepals Maoists or Sri Lankas LTTE, but as an umbrella under which like-minded persons and groups existed according to their own classication of what they were. GAMs

34

Bobby Anderson

day-to-day insurgent activities were conceived and executed by local groups in an entirely local setting. These activities were in the name of the insurgency: they generated funds for members and their families, and they established control over geographic areas. GAM wasnt just a belief. It was also a profession. Under respected mid- to high-level GAM eld commanders such as Darwis Jeunib, Isaq Daud and Tgk Ahmad Blang, this system functioned whereby the local command sought permission for operations and political actions while exercising autonomy in simpler matters including nancing and low-level operations. Therein lies the strengths of a cellular movement. But other local bands lacked the sense of their place within a chain of command that the commanders above had; in short, they lacked the loyalty of men such as those mentioned above, not just to a cause, but to a command. These local bands did not always seek permission from above, and they often did not operate in the interests of their nominal leadership. Motivations for identifying with (or joining) GAM at the grassroots varied. Ideology played a role; GAMs political and military leadership articulated the view that Aceh was colonised by Indonesia, and they drew upon a rich history focused upon both Aceh as a centuries-old independent sultanate and that sultanates ferocious, decades-long resistance to the Dutch. The people of Aceh had ample grievances with Jakarta for GAM to make use of; the Darul Islam rebellion,9 which lasted from 1953 to 1961, pre-dated di Tiros rebellion by a scant 15 years. GAM articulated anti-Javanese sentiments and an ethno-centric Aceh for the Acehnese discourse, especially in relation to the exploitation of Acehs rich natural resources during the Suharto era,10 that found a ready audience. Javanese transmigrants were painted as colonists by GAM, and di Tiros 1984 autobiography makes no distinction between the Indonesian military and Javanese civilian migrants: they were the same instrument of oppression. During the conict the entrenchment of this articulation in the movement resulted in the ethnic cleansing of an estimated 50,000 Javanese migrants from Aceh Utara, Aceh Timur and sections of Bener Meriah between 2000 and 2002 alone.11 This was the culmination of earlier mass expulsions dating back to 1993.12 Most of these internally displaced persons (IDPs), as of 2013, have yet to return. At the grassroots, reasons for joining GAM were immediate and palpable, and were related to the abuses committed by state security forces upon civilians, and the constant and pervasive atmosphere of fear and insecurity imposed by these forces. The wrongs committed by security actors during the to and fro of action and reaction, that characterised the conict upon the civilian population, are well documented:13 the GoI manufactured their own enemies through their own lawlessness. And many of the states victims, real or potential,

Downloaded by [Bobby Anderson] at 19:55 14 March 2013

Posthumous reinvention of Teungku Badruddin

35

desired to align with a movement that offered a possible end to such insecurity, and the removal of those outside forces that had control over their fates. For an abused civilian base, such a movement is empowering. For many, this was the motivation; but economic motivations existed next to the ideological, noble and desperate ones.

Gerakan Aceh Merdeka: economic activities

Within groups outside the scope of the law, there exists the need to raise funds from illicit and illegal activities, both for anti-state acts and to cover organisational and personal costs. And considerations of prot existed separately from the ideology in some members. Illegal activities funded attacks on the Indonesian military. They also funded large homes and personal savings. This is a given in any group but is often not considered by a groups celebrants. There also exists the question of when sustenance funds cross the line and become prots: where survival stops and the amassing of wealth begins. At the Sagoe level, this was open to autonomous interpretation. Predation occurred in the activity of every Sagoe, especially through extortion. GAM positioned itself as a shadow government, and thus claimed a shadow tax on its citizensthe Pajak Nanggroe. The payment of this tax was not optional. Other fundraising activities included marijuana cultivation and trafcking,14 as well as illegal logging, trafcking in endangered species, opportunistic extortion/protection rackets (roadblocks, etc)activities that the Indonesian Army (Tentara Nasional Indonesia, hereafter TNI) and the special police mobile brigades (Brimob) also indulged in across Aceh, sometimes in collaboration with GAM. 15 Activities within the Lhokseumawe industrial zone were a favoured target of illegal taxes from GAMs earliest inception, and the GAM unit there was known for violence and a level of corruption that put it at odds with the hierarchy it supposedly was a part of.16 By 2003 intelligence sources cited by Schulze estimated that GAMs tax system was collecting roughly US$130,000 per month across the province from personal and business incomes as well as schools.17 Many groups operating under the GAM umbrella pre-dated GAM, and assumed the GAM title in the hope of networking possibilities, in addition to accessing more advanced weaponry than the locally manufactured zip guns (colloquially referred to as rakitan in Aceh) common in the province. Again, this is illustrative of the problems underlying the notion of a group versus a member. Some joined GAMthe insurgency. Others joined GAMthe self-defence group. Still others joined GAMthe criminal syndicate. The motivations of individual members dene what GAM was to each member, and what

Downloaded by [Bobby Anderson] at 19:55 14 March 2013

36

Bobby Anderson

each member undertook either in GAMs name or as an individual. A member, in his or her own way, denes the group both by their acts and to whom their acts, positive or negative, are imposed upon. The member creates the denition of the group within the mind of any victim of the crimes, or targets of the activities, of any given individual operating under the GAM mantle. Although it is obvious that the act of a member denes the group to outsiders, this is something insurgent groups (or even recognised armed forces) are loathe to admitespecially GAM afliates who engage in the fallacy of parading the infallibility of the structure whilst refusing to take responsibility for the actions of members. Its a winwin scenario for a group that says criminal acts are the actions of individual group members, rather than the group itself, while the criminal activities committed by these same members bring prot to the group. GAM existed with the support of citizenry at the village level. There was active and willing support and, in many areas, assistance was freely given; in other areas, it was coerced. Two persons who worked for the author in Aceh Utara in 2006 were proponents of GAM; however, in May 2006 their car was halted by a group of men who identied themselves as GAM and said they needed the car for some ofcial purpose. The two handed over the vehicle out of fear. The police negotiated the return of that vehicle; ironically, the persons who claimed to be GAM were actually SIRA activists. This ties into GAMs claim that crimes are committed in their name rather than by them; however, their name is used in the commencement of crimes because of the fear it inspires, and the compliance it guarantees from victims. Most pointedly, when crimes are committed using the GAM moniker, most Acehnese believe it. Reconciling the active support GAM received with the fear they inspired is a complex exercise. Post-Helsinki, the fear has supplanted support. Those collecting the Pajak Nanggroe were not selling protection from outside groups. They were selling protection from themselves, and this is an important difference that separates tax (provision of services etc.) from extortion (give me money or Ill set your car on re). GAM disingenuously stated that the taxes levied by the GoI were the illegal ones. In reality, there was little difference between the two fees. Basic services had broken down most severely in the areas where GAM was rooted most deeply; taxes paid to the GoI simply disappeared into the pockets of a highly corrupt Acehnese technocracy on the GoI payroll, whilst GAMs Pajak Nanggroe either paid GAM salaries, paid prot or paid for acts that would inevitably invite retribution upon the civilian base paying the Pajak Nanggroe in the rst place. While no study has been made of the way the Pajak Nanggroe funds ow ( ow is used in favour of the past tense because this illegal tax is still being collected in GAM strongholds,

Downloaded by [Bobby Anderson] at 19:55 14 March 2013

Posthumous reinvention of Teungku Badruddin

37

although GAMs successor groupings either atly deny that such collections are occurring or they blame unknown persons, using the GAM name for nefarious ends), the majority of the funds stayed local, and a small amount was passed upwards through to the organised chains of command. Village GAM pays a percentage of earnings to the Sagoe level, Sagoe to Daerah, Daerah to Wilayah, and Wilayah to abroad. This ow of funds was the clearest structure GAM took on. And this system of illegal taxation has outlived the insurgency it once supported. From this, two things are apparent: (1) GAM members and afliates functioned as organised criminal structures according to standard measurements,18 and (2) the GAM name was, and is, regarded as a franchise by some local groups who essentially pay a user fee for the brand.

Downloaded by [Bobby Anderson] at 19:55 14 March 2013

Post-Helsinki GAM: the Komite Peralihan Aceh

After Helsinki, GAMs military wing, the TNA, became the Komite Perilihan Aceh (Aceh Transitional Committee, hereafter KPA), a group ostensibly concerned with the reintegration of former GAM members into peacetime lives and professions.19 Against common practice in other disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration contexts worldwide, KPA replicated the TNA command structure, further strengthened by the ow of reintegration funds. KPA was led by the last GAM military leader (and current Aceh vice-Governor) Muzakkir Manaf, with a provincial governing body, regional leadership, and under it, the KPA Sagoe, and under them, the KPA Gampoeng (village).20 What KPA does actually varies by Sagoe. It sometimes acts as a social welfare organisation but this is entirely determinate upon the Panglima Sagoe. Structurally, KPA acts as a bridge linking ex-GAM persons with reintegration funds (via the governments Badan Reintegrasi Damai Aceh, or Aceh Peace Reintegration Agency, hereafter BRA), and this enables the fund structure that fed the Pajak Nanggroe upwards, to now feed reintegration funds downwards. While many KPA members are now ordinary members of their communities, other KPA members continue to extort communities and businesses through a levying of the Pajak Nanggroe, but not KPA itself, KPA leaders assert. As with GAM before them, KPA maintains space to allow for plausible deniability and to decline to discipline members carrying out extortionate activities in its name. This is an implicit acknowledgment that KPA commanders themselves cannot provide nancial and other support to followers in the same way as wartime GAM once could have. KPA often acts as an apologist for criminal acts committed by KPA members (again, though, not acting in a

38

Bobby Anderson

KPA capacity), while occasionally trying to curtail such activities. KPA provides monies to its members and signicantly more to its leaders; it diverts contracts to its afliated contractors; its afliated contractors demand no-bid contracts and justify such demands by claiming KPAs nancial contribution to widows, orphans and other conict victims (its members often make the same justication whilst collecting the Pajak Nanggroe); it offers its lowliest members as workers (especially to outside contractors, at extremely high daily labour rates) whilst providing them with Uang Rokokcigarette money. Of late, KPA extorts funds for the coffers of Partai Aceh, the GAM/KPA political party which in 2009 won nearly half the legislative seats in Aceh,21 and which unseated popular ex-GAM governor Irwandi Yusuf in 2012. Through extortion, protection and other criminal activities at the lower rank, as well as the more acceptable criminal activities within the realm of Korupsi, Kolusi dan Nepotisme in the upper echelons of the organisation, KPA members undertake self-enriching activities in the name of an espoused ideology that actually contradicts that ideology. This is positive for the peace in an unfortunate way: KPA members have a vested interest in the peace and the reconstruction and other activities its members can extort, contract to, prot from and maintain its core support base with. In the eld of reintegration, a question not often asked is, reintegration into what, exactly? As Aspinall posits in Combatants to Contractors, this behaviour essentially constitutes GAM/KPAs relatively peaceful reintegration into the deep-rooted, pre-existing political structure of Indonesia, which consists of networks of corruption, patronage and rent-seeking.22 It is generally assumed that those Acehnese who possess grievances against Indonesia, support GAM by automatic inference. This is incorrect: many would not necessarily have chosen GAM to represent their aspirations if there were alternatives.23 GAM represented rebellion; they represented hatred; they represented vengeance. For many, that was enough. They were not intellectuals; in fact, they seemed to dislike them, and the emergence of Partai Rakyat Aceh and Partai SIRA,24 as distinct from Partai Aceh, is emblematic of such intellectuals distancing themselves from GAMs current entity. GAM, independence aspirations, a demand for justice, the numerous brave and often dead activists who spoke out against the government and TNI and demanded accountability, are not one and the same. For those ex-GAM combatants who did not join for monetary gain or criminal opportunity, the struggle they engaged in is now tarred by the activities of persons that, over seven years after the peace agreement, often only have an ex-combatant

Downloaded by [Bobby Anderson] at 19:55 14 March 2013

Posthumous reinvention of Teungku Badruddin

39

category to t into. Ex-combatant is a status. But in Aceh, among a criminal minority, it is often used as an employment category in lieu of an actual trade. In 2013, when someone describes themselves as GAM, a better word may be criminal. Eight years after the peace, one wonders what reintegration possibilities remain for this minority.

Inlaws and outlaws

The December 2006 Aceh elections saw ex-GAM assume political power across the

Downloaded by [Bobby Anderson] at 19:55 14 March 2013

province. GAM veterans of a pragmatic ideological slant, voted into ofce, became part of the Government, with Irwandi Yusuf elected as governor and numerous others elected to District Head (Bupati) and Mayoral positions. These men, after December 2006, found themselves in charge of and integrated into the same corrupt government bureaucracies they once tried to usurp. They serve the government: to hardline GAM ideologues, especially those found in the Diaspora and in the MP GAM faction,25 they are traitors. Many less-ideological criminals who made up a portion of GAMs soldiery in the waning years of the insurgency have continued the same criminal acts that used to be carried out in the name of the insurgency.26 The acts of those with KPA afliation are tolerated and whitewashed by that body. Others are less lucky; they have become outlaws. KPA, at this stage, seems to exist as a bridge between the legitimate and the criminal sides of the movement that remains afliated. The post-conict spoilsreintegration funds, construction contracts and so onare simply not large enough to provide adequate funds to the criminally inclined GAM afliate corpus still existing. Much of the senior membership is bound up within Partai Aceh and KPA; the struggle is in providing for their own foot soldiery.27 Within the GAM corpus, some have turned to licit opportunities available to them. Others have not. GAM has splintered, in the prism of outsiders, into what many of them always were; into legitimate and illegitimate actors, into those who extorted and taxed as a means to keep alive an insurrection, and those gangs and cartels who undertook such activities as a way to make a living, and who continue to make a living by robbery, extortion and other activities, albeit without ideological cover. And it is this cover that some try to regain through proclamations that their deeds do not match.

40

Bobby Anderson

The Pasukan Peudeung and Sawang

His supporters portray (Badruddin) as a respected ulama, a compassionate leader who denounced the way many ex-combatants had been abandoned by the peace process.28 The Pasukan Peudeung was the most telling example of this split. The group traced their origin to Teungku Badruddin: they referred to themselves as his followers. Badruddin was an ex-TNA commander in Sawang sub-district, Aceh Utara (he once identied himself as Panglima TNA, or overall commander), who broke away from the GAM corpus. Badruddin

Downloaded by [Bobby Anderson] at 19:55 14 March 2013

was assassinated in 2007: the name Pasukan Peudeung (PP) emerged after his killing. Until its dissolution, PP was a loose-knit structure of un- and under-employed rural men, some with pesantren educations, from villages scattered throughout Sawang sub-district and into neighbouring Bireuen district. The group levied its own Pajak Nanggroe on a tax base of poor villages: Jurong, Paya Rabo and others. Until recently (2010), there were few development activities in PP areas because of their attempts to extort funds from contractors as well as local and international NGOs who previously attempted to work in the area.29 This trend, which will be discussed below, was started by Badruddin. The PP claimed that funds channelled through others would be misspent (a claim that, in Indonesia as a whole, is not without merit) and that the money they demanded was for the implementation of their own development projects. This lack of activity due to their own attempted extortion from development and post-conict actors, in turn, let PP speak disparagingly of the aid that bypassed the areas they claimed to represent. Sawang is an extremely poor and remote area, with a notable breakdown in transportation infrastructure that enhanced the ability of peripherals such as Pasukan Peudeung to control the area. The group articulated vague grievances against the government: Services do not reach communities or nothing is done to bring out the truth about what happened.30 PP demanded an improvement in the lives of the community members they purportedly represented, insisting upon development projects that they would implement directly; they also demanded that the international community audit the (provincial) government.31 PP, just as Badruddin before them, claimed to not recognise the MoU. PP claimed to represent those ignored by the provincial government and the Law on the Governing of Aceh. Their greatest anger was reserved for KPAwho they roundly denounced as proteers. According to one PP member, the group existed pre-Helsinki:

Posthumous reinvention of Teungku Badruddin

41

were ex-combatants, but not under KPA; we are a separate group, and were not part of the peace negotiations.32 Other PP members stated that the split occurred after Helsinki. What is real, however, and what underlay the PPs (and Badruddins before them) refusal to acknowledge the Helsinki MoU, is their exclusion from some of the particular benets articulated within it. What PP actually wasa rebellion against the KPA, or a simple criminal gangremains open to debate. To answer this question, the origins of the group need further examinationespecially the groups founder, and martyr, Badruddin. In 2006, Badruddin and his afliates were excluded by Sawang Sagoe-level KPA from monetary (US$2,500 per GAM member) and other assistance provided to ex-combatants by BRA. They were cut off from this lucrative funding stream because they were considered by local KPA to be cuak, or traitors: KPA alleged that Badruddin and his men surrendered to the government prior to the MoU and provided undescribed services for the Indonesian military. These reinsertion funds were intended for GAM ex-combatants as part of the broader disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration programming which was occurring in Aceh at the time, as stipulated in section 3.2 of the Helsinki MoU. This section, dealing with reintegration of GAM, was comprehensive in comparison with DDR processes enshrined in other treaties, and covered the release of prisoners, the restoration of political, economic and social rights, the right to participate in political processes, the restoration of citizenship, economic facilitation to former combatants, prisoners and civilians, the source of funding for such activities, the rehabilitation of public and private property destroyed or damaged, the allocation of land to ex-combatants, prisoners and civilian victims, social security, the establishment of a Joint Claims Settlement Commission and the right to join TNI. The sub-sections of 3.2 most applicable to Badruddin and his men were: 3.2.3: GoI [ . . . ] will take measures to assist persons who have participated in GAM activities to facilitate their reintegration into civil society. These measures include economic facilitation to former combatants, pardoned political prisoners and affected civilians. A Reintegration Fund under the administration of the authorities of Aceh will be established. 3.2.5: GoI will allocate suitable farming land as well as funds to the authorities of Aceh for the purpose of facilitating the reintegration to society of the former combatants and the compensation for political prisoners and affected civilians [ . . . ]

Downloaded by [Bobby Anderson] at 19:55 14 March 2013

42

Bobby Anderson

Section 3.2.4, on the restoration of public or private property, was especially relevant to Badruddins areas, which had hosted numerous TNI actions, and a complete breakdown in government infrastructure and services. But his areas would not, in the beginning, benet. BRA relied upon the GAM/KPA structure to both verify the identity of ex-combatants through the provision of commanders lists and transfer allocated reinsertion funds to eligible ex-combatants. This left KPA Sagoe leaders in a position to make decisions about the use of the funds under their control.33 Such use of a to-be-demobilised command structure stands counter to the goals of DDR programmes; it is open to corruption, manipulation and the whims of commanders. In the case of Badruddin, it created a small war. Badruddins anger over this exclusion was combined with a vague dissatisfaction stemming from his groups inability to receive government infrastructure contracts. Neither Badruddin nor his men had contracting experience: what they likely had in mind was a common KPA contractor practice across Aceh, whereby a no-competition bid is awarded to the contractor, a percentage (average 8 20 per cent) is taken by the contractor, and then the job is subcontracted. Badruddin lacked the connections of other KPAconnected contractors in the area.34 As for extortion, there were not enough extortable reconstruction projects and non-afliated contractors to prot from in Sawang. Badruddin was excluded by KPA: he was denied legitimacy, enrichment and patronage, and in his setting, this logically coalesced around the refrain that Helsinki was not being properly implemented. In the middle of his struggle against KPA, Badruddin turned to one of the only potential income streams available in Sawang: the projects being implemented by the awkwardlytitled Consortium for Assistance and Recovery toward Development in Indonesia (CARDI). The author of this paper managed those projects, which included the construction of three markets and a warehouse; the installation of hydraulic ram pumps to irrigate rice elds; and community-selected livelihoods grants-in-kind provision (along with intensive training and monitoring) to the poorest families in seven villages in Sawang. CARDI had been working in Sawang on small-scale livelihoods projects since June 2005: at the time they were the only NGO in the sub-district. Aceh suffered the brunt of the 26 December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which killed 167,000 people in the province: it was then host to what was, at the time, the largest humanitarian response in human history. But no tsunami-earmarked funds were spent within Sawangs connes, as it suffered no physical damage from that disaster. Such areas were spared a scarcely-imaginable destruction, and were then ignored by NGOs who

Downloaded by [Bobby Anderson] at 19:55 14 March 2013

Posthumous reinvention of Teungku Badruddin

43

overwhelmed the coastal areas. Two Acehs were effectively created by selective development assistance through the myopic classication of certain territories into tsunami-affected whilst othersironically, the most conict-affectedwere disqualied.35 Across the tsunami-affected territory, KPA and GAM afliate extortion of NGO projects reaped rewards, while KPA-afliated contractors made fortunes on percentages. This did not occur in Sawang, which was rural, poor and ignored: Badruddin and others, seeing such behaviours tolerated by NGOs and the government in the coastal areas, wasted no time in attempting to extort the only NGO in the area. The extortion attempts on NGO projects in Aceh followed a familiar pattern: persons claiming KPA afliation would make demands to eld staff for protection fees or material, often vehicles. KPA-afliated contractors would demand no-competition contracts to the tenders advertised in the Aceh newspapers Serambi and Rakyat Aceh. The threats often implied the arson of vehicles and the killing of staff. Numerous projects were shut down due to this: however, the threats were not a reason to immediately halt work. In Aceh, threats precede negotiations. The projects CARDI implemented in Sawang were of relatively low value, and thus they did not attract the attention of many KPA afliates. They did attract the attention of Badruddin: he had little other choice, and he proved to be beyond negotiations. Nor did he ever articulate political grievances or the need to provide for followers. Badruddin rst came to the attention of CARDI after a violent episode in Alue Dua, Nisam sub-district, on the Sawang border, on 21 March 2007: unknown men entered the village and, without announcing themselves to the Geucik (village leader), occupied a school being constructed by Save the Children through a local contractor. A small crowd of suspicious village men arrived to ascertain who they were. The men in the school initially claimed to be members of a travelling Islamic sect, but this assertion was put to rest by the villagers, who restrained the men and searched their belongings, uncovering disassembled automatic weapons in gym bags. This occurred 10 days after a similar incident in Sawang, when a number of non-uniformed police ofcers were detained in Lhok Meureubo village. Those police also claimed afliation to an Islamic sect but pornographic images present in their cell phones belied this, as did their ID cards. In Nisam, the detainees also possessed Indonesian Army IDs. In both incidents, the detained men were stripped to the waist; tattoos were revealed. The villagers in both Alue Dua and Lhok Meureubo, regarding the men as spies, severely beat them. Particular to Nisam, they detained the soldiers for days in the village meunasah before a KPA member arranged for the beaten men to be released. One of the soldiers, it was rumoured, had been burned repeatedly with an acetylene torch.

Downloaded by [Bobby Anderson] at 19:55 14 March 2013

44

Bobby Anderson

It was later revealed that the contractor undertaking the construction of the school on behalf of Save the Children hired a security company that employed active-duty soldiers from the local TNI district command: TNI ofcers were paid to provide their men to work as guards. TNI trucks appeared in Alue Dua days later, and troops disembarked and randomly assaulted the villagers they encountered. Days later, Badruddin made his rst extortion demands to CARDI staff working in Jurong Village and, as if to establish his bona des, he described his role in both interrogations. At the time those CARDI staff were talking with villagers about the agricultural equipment CARDI was planning to purchase for them. Badruddin collected the identity cards of the staff, entered their mobile phone numbers into his mobile and departed, but not before demanding IDR30,000,000 in Pajak Nanggroe and casually telling one of the staff, a 23-year-old woman from Medan, that he would kill her if he saw her again. Badruddins reputation had preceded him among Sawang staff: he was a robber of travelling salesmen and contractors, a proigate extortionist who cast threats and oaths widely. He was also a police informant. In the enclosed universe that was Sawang, he was universally feared. He was not, however, regarded as a revolutionary. Attempted intercessions with numerous potential intermediariesvillage leaders, imams and so on led to naught. No one would approach Badruddin. Finally, the local KPA passed word to Badruddin to leave CARDI alone, and this worked: this was before the split between Badruddin and KPA deepened to the point where it could not be repaired. In April 2007, conversations were still occurring. But in May, Badruddin demanded IDR30,000,000 again. A SMS campaign against CARDI staff from Sawang and their families began, with the refrain of money or death. A modus operandi emerged: Badruddin only threatened persons under his territorial controlresidents of Sawang. Others, he actively avoided, the author included. This was not related to fear: rather, it was related to what he saw as the nality of his demands. CARDI approached KPA and were told that they no longer had control over Badruddin. The next day, 23 May, while that organisations management deliberated, Badruddin hijacked an unmarked CARDI car at a Warung Kopi in Paya Rabo, holding a parang to the throat of the driver. As a result of this incident, the author, with regret, discontinued the project. CARDI contacted the police but despite media coverage, and perhaps related to Badruddins connections to the police, their investigation was non-existent. It was intimated to CARDI by friendlier police contacts in Kota Lhokseumawe that Badruddin surrendered to the Indonesian army in 2003 and became a member of the TNI-sponsored

Downloaded by [Bobby Anderson] at 19:55 14 March 2013

Posthumous reinvention of Teungku Badruddin

45

GAM. Badruddin and his afliates issued a series of proclamations to journalists, alleging that KPA were traitors to Aceh, that he and his men were real GAM and so on. For the rst time, Badruddin had an audience. An estimated four men entered Badruddins home in Seuneubok Baro at 0130 hrs on 4 June. They shot him in his shoulder and thigh. They shot one of his wives, Ainal Mardhiah, in the face and neck. They shot his four-year-old daughter in the head, killing her instantly. Badruddins name was now known to an Aceh-wide audience. The killing appeared on the front page of Serambi and was picked up by the national media. Those far off events in a poor and forgotten sub-district where local reckonings occurred were no longer so local. Badruddin was presented as a man at war with KPA; a number of inexplicable and unsolved crimes that occurred concurrent to the events with CARDIslashings in Bireuen, a grenade attack on ex-GAM spokesman Sofyan Dawoods house, other attacks on government ofces in Bireuen, Lhokseumawe and so onwere causally linked to him. Badruddins would-be assassins remain unknown. They were likely KPA: its likely that the trigger for the assassination attempt was the carjacking and the attention it brought to Badruddins I am real GAM refrain, as well as his denunciations of the KPA. The assassination attempt was, in part, a copyright issue. Badruddin was arrested on 6 June. The author saw him in jail: shirtless, in shorts, with matted long hair and bandages. He looked small and frail. The hijacked truck was recovered: in its bed were a dozen 7.62 MM shell casings, a mark of ownership by the gang, a dont touch sign. Given the police resistance to arresting Badruddin prior to the assassination attempt, the author gives credit to the theory that Badruddin had some type of working relationship with the authorities. But press coverage and the intense attention of outsiders upon these authorities now led Badruddin to be labeled as a dangerous criminal. The chief of the Lhokseumawe police held a press conference; he and others insinuated that Badruddin had been hunted by them for months, and was a threat to public order. Badruddin eventually stood trial and was found guilty of the car theft in August 2007. Out of the seven years he faced, seven months was received, served in Lhoksukon. But the SMSs and the late night phone calls to CARDI staff didnt stop. They were labelled Cuak by Badruddins men: traitors.36 They ed Sawang, and CARDI kept them on the payroll out of guilt and impotence. Funds were provided to resettle one of them in Bireuen. They eventually returned home. CARDI never re-entered Sawang. While Baddruddins attempted extortion of CARDI ended with his shooting, the extortion by his espoused enemies continued unabated, despite Aceh Utara District Leader

Downloaded by [Bobby Anderson] at 19:55 14 March 2013

46

Bobby Anderson

and ex-GAM member Ilyas Hamids37 claim that the Pajak Nanggroe didnt exist. In Seunuddon, Aceh Utara, CARDI was providing piped water extensions to 1,150 poor households: a week after Badruddins shooting, KPA representatives demanded 20 per cent of the project value, or US$28,000.38 They offered no claims that the money was going to widows or orphans. CARDIs contractor, however, had only anticipated a maximum of 10 per cent for extralegal fees.39 The author contacted a KPA representative embedded in the Badan Rekonstruksi dan Rehabilitasi (the ministerial-level government body tasked with coordinating tsunami relief and reconstruction works, hereafter BRR) and explained the situation. Thats too expensive, the representative said. Ill make some phone calls.

Downloaded by [Bobby Anderson] at 19:55 14 March 2013

He then arranged a meeting between himself, CARDI and the Seunuddon KPA. The author attended. The fee was reduced to eight per cent and was then paid. What would be particularly striking to an outsider observing the transaction was how banal it was. This was the cost of working in Aceh; the only thing abnormal was the excessive rent demanded. Soon after, an Oxfam contractor refused to pay another local KPA group, and was robbed of US$30,000 worth of construction materials. Aceh Utara was rapidly becoming a place impossible to work in because of this extortion. A BRR security advisor organised a meeting between NGOs in Aceh Utara and Ilyas Hamid, who by his earlier statements did not seem to understand the extortion and violence in his district. During that meeting, Hamid said, in Acehnese, stop whining and get used to it. This was not translated. Numerous KPA representatives were present, and Hamids response was to placate them; they were the only audience he needed to address. Based on a report the author wrote that evening, the country director declined three awarded grants for work in Aceh Utara, and the author shut down the Aceh Utara ofce in September 2007. Badruddin was shot dead in Pante Jaloh, Sawang, on 27 December 2007. Two afliates, Mahmuddin Abubakar (of Meunasah Pulo village, Sawang) and Fitriadi (of Mon Jerjak village, Peusangan sub-district, Bireuen) were wounded. Badruddin died when he was supposed to be serving his sentence in Lhoksukon. The Aceh Utara police claimed he had served his sentence and was released; less than ve months had elapsed from the time of the guilty verdict when he was killed. They then claimed that he was on a medical furlough. Badruddin was buried in a urry of declarations of vengeance; his funeral was attended by numerous openly armed men, and his killing was followed by a deluge of assaults, woundings and murders in Aceh Utara and Bireuen. Of those, many, but not all, can be causally linked to the Badruddin killing. Others are associated by geography and timing

Posthumous reinvention of Teungku Badruddin

47

and remain unsolvedperhaps connected, or perhaps opportunistically carried out under the cover of ex-insurgent violence. On 28 December, Haji Dan, of Ulee Pulo village, Dewantara sub-district, Aceh Utara, was shot in front of his home in a drive-by shooting. On 29 December, Saini, of Paya Cut village, Peusangan sub-district, Bireuen, was shot through the head by a gunner riding pillion on a Honda motorbike. A policeman was shot off his motorbike in Meunasah Beunot village, Syamtalira Bayu sub-district, Aceh Utara, by yet another gunman riding pillion on a Yamaha motorbike. Badruddins afliates then kidnapped former GAM Ulee

Downloaded by [Bobby Anderson] at 19:55 14 March 2013

Sagoe Mukhtar Usman and a Sawang village leader in Keude Babah Buloh village. Both were beaten; Usman was singled out for particular abuse, and was stabbed and dragged down a road by a rope around his neck. His car was burned, but he was rescued. Usman was allegedly involved in Badruddins killing; however, his behaviourcaught unawares in the late Baruddins territory whilst returning from Banda Acehindicates otherwise. Within Sawang, other KPA members were purposefully mutilated but left alive by Badruddin afliates; this pattern of violence had no precedent in post-conict Aceh. Governor Irwandi Yusuf weighed in, denouncing the multiple killings as a threat to the peace process, and offered the caveat that the killings were not ideological and resulted from purely criminal activity. Badruddin, by implication, was a criminal, not an insurgent. Questions about the fracturing of GAM were not addressed. On 2 January 2008, Serambi reported the arrest of Husaini, a KPA Sawang leader, the day before. On 6 January, Lhokseumawe police belatedly released information on the attempted arrest of a KPA member referred to as HusBadruddins alleged killer. This arrest attempt emanated from the confession of another KPA member, Sik, who surrendered himself to the police. Hus was beaten by police when he tried to draw a weapon: their arrest attempt ended with a shootout between the police and unknown persons. The Hus mentioned on 6 January was the same as the Husaini arrested on 1 January. On 10 January, Husaini died in hospital; earlier, it was reported that he died in a police cell. Pneumonia was stated as the cause of death, but KPA later stated that Husainis body bore signs of torture. His death remains unexplained and is no longer discussed, but he is generally accepted as one of Badruddins killers.

48

Bobby Anderson

Post-Badruddin: the Pasukan Peudeung

The remnants of Badruddins gang coalesced into the Pasukan Peudeung: their public debut occurred with their abduction of the World Bank Consultant Adrian Morel in Sawang on 23 September 2008. What initially emerged as grievances and complaints of inequalities, enforced with parangs/goloks, devolved into a half a million dollar ransom demand, and from there, devolved further, into the theft of Morels car, laptop and bank card. Their exorbitant and politically-charged ransom demand degenerated into more expedient demands for whatever cash Morel had quick access to. Morel had to explain to his captors how to use an ATM; they withdrew roughly US$3,300 from his account, and let him go.

Downloaded by [Bobby Anderson] at 19:55 14 March 2013

The case was picked up by the international print media. As with Badruddin and the carjacking before them, Pasukan Peudeung obtained a slight media platform to stand upon after this incident, but little emerged from their articulation. They offered bitter tirades about KPA and internationals; some demanded the full implementation of the Helsinki MoU, while others denounced the MoU in its entirety. They claimed a martyr for a leadersomeone who had commandeered an NGO car to draw attention to the failure of the Helsinki MoU. But to the CARDI staff that were terrorised by him, to the driver who had a knife held to his throat by Badruddin, the refrain was not failure of the MoU. The refrain was 30 million rupiah. Edi Sofyan, of Paya Rabo, was arrested 16 days after the kidnapping. This was followed by the arrest of Purnama Ramadhan at Desa Trueng village, Muara Batu, on 24 October 2008; Purnama was driving Morels Kijang Innova. Both were detained in Lhoksukon. On 5 June 2009, two members of Pasukan Peudeung were arrested in Meunasah Peunteut village, Sawang: Mustafaruddin, alias Kubang (27), of Peunteut village, and Iswandi, alias Sinek (23), of Meunasah Pulo village. The police recovered Morels laptop and his ATM card. Kapolres stated that six other PP members involved in the kidnapping remained at large in Sawang. In a pattern exhibited rst by Badruddin, PP members sought to recast their kidnapping and robbery of Morel in a strictly political light: just as Badruddins carjacking of a CARDI vehicle was supposedly done to draw attention to the failure of the Helsinki MoU, so Morels kidnapping was committed in order to draw attention to the unsolved slaying of Badruddin. Money and a Kijang was not the concern; rather, the absence of justice was the trigger for the kidnapping. In an interview with a Harian Aceh reporter on 6 June, Mustafaruddin and Iswandi both admitted the kidnapping and stated that it was

Posthumous reinvention of Teungku Badruddin

49

undertaken in order to identify the person who planned Teungku Barods murder. The translation, from an Aceh-Nias Security Information Group email (19 May 2009), reads: Kubang [Mustafaruddin] considered that if a foreigner like Andrian Morrer [sic] was kidnapped the whole world would be in tumult and the Government of Aceh would have negotiated with their group. If they had been able to negotiate, the group would have demanded the identity of whoever was responsible person for their leaders death. Kubang also said that although their group has opposite opinions to KPA: It is not true to say that we do not support the Helsinki MoU, we also love peace, he asserted.

Downloaded by [Bobby Anderson] at 19:55 14 March 2013

These statements contradicted statements by other PP members. It also contradicted PPs own actionthe release of Adrian Morel, who PP had the option to hold longer if the identication of Badruddins killers was their demand. Instead, Morel was released after he was robbed, after which his usefulness ended. The group revealed contradictions in thought and purpose; no coherent ideology emerged. Media utterances aside, PP appeared as a nonhierarchal association of unemployed young men that committed crimes and later assigned political meaning to those crimes. They believed what outsiders identied them asa threat to the peace processand developed an inated sense of self-importance. PP remained as they had been under Badruddin: men who did not possess any legitimate means of earning incomes, and who fed off a small tax base of subsistence farmers and the occasional small business. Their extortion continued to prevent NGOs from providing aid in the area, and this, again, fed a part of Pasukan Peudeungs grievance: that their territory was being ignored. The group assumed a vaguely Islamist identity in order to seek further legitimacy. In 2009 they formed an alliance with the Aceh branch of the Front Pembela Islam,40 and their training of martyrs from Aceh to be dispatched to Gaza was widely covered. This served to illustrate the groups limited networking possibilities, and their search to link with other groups that could possibly assume an antiKPA/Partai Aceh stance. What was visible in the day-to-day business of dealing with Badruddin and working in the communities under his, and later the Pasukan Peudeungs, sway, was markedly different from what emerged from the specic externally articulated solicitation of information on pre-assumed underlying ideologies, grievances, rationales, complaints, etc, that outside interviewers may seek. In these groups, what was said and what was done were not related to one another. If one asks about politics or ideology in relation to a problem, then one has

50

Bobby Anderson

already manipulated the answer. If one actually seeks to x a problem, then the answers are less forthcoming, if at all. Because, often, the problem dwelled upon is also the source of funding as long as the problem exists. The successful addressing of the articulated issue leads to the loss of a funding stream for persons who have little other identity or skill. Reintegration programming is intended to rectify such contexts, and make positive impacts upon those combatantspast and futurewho populate the gangs and militias that populate the post-conict landscape. But KPAs manipulation of enrollments in order to enrich followers and exclude enemies, ideological or otherwise, did not allow for this.

Downloaded by [Bobby Anderson] at 19:55 14 March 2013

Conclusion
The espoused ideology knotting together Sawangs topography of violence and family and group, the fuel for the war of men against men assuming the mantle of either KPA or GAM asli, only became visible to the author when it became visible to others outside the area. Badruddin was a criminal. The author only learned of his ideology from the media. Badruddin was a poor man, with no visible assets. Far from a shallow bravado, he exhibited no fear of police or TNI. This was not a symptom of a broader sociopathy, which the author believes also existed; rather, it was his understanding of the parameters afxed upon his potential acts (and the territory within which he could commit such acts) by outsiders that allowed him to show no fear. He knew what the boundaries were. And he operated comfortably within those boundaries, his only inside enemy other KPA afliates. As for the men who establish the boundaries, their identities are unknown. An allegation circulated in 2007 that Badruddin was connected to Diaspora elements in opposition to Helsinki, a splinter faction referred to as MP-GAM in particular. These allegations were articulated by the PP membership, who also sought to associate themselves with the charismatic Acehnese rebel cleric Teungku Bantaqiyah, leader of the Komando Jubah Putih. Bantaqiyah was killed by TNI, along with roughly 60 of his students in 1999. Kubang (Mustafaruddin, aged 30 at the time of writing), currently incarcerated for the kidnapping of Adrian Morel, claimed that he used to take orders in Dayah Teungku Bantaqiah for six months.41 Such rumours as PPs afliation with MP-GAM assume a level of organisation that, from GAMs historical example at or under the Sagoe level, probably existed only on paper. Badruddins gang, and the Pasukan Peudeung, may stand as an extreme example of what happens when a leadership and structure of command can no longer cater for the needs of

Posthumous reinvention of Teungku Badruddin

51

its supporters and afliates at the grassroots levelespecially in an area where the organised crime possibilities are low in comparison to nearby areas with afliate groups. In this sense, a perverse inequality fuels violence. When ex-insurgent leaders of quasi-criminal structures continue to articulate grievances and are brought into the political spectrum, this leads them to curb their criminal activities and attempt to control lesser associates. This is normal in a weak, but strengthening, state: a few will be co-opted and the rest will be killed. Some will become contractors or will enter the civil service, others will share Badruddins fate. GAM has undertaken this legitimising process, and this has led to the emergence of uncontrolled

Downloaded by [Bobby Anderson] at 19:55 14 March 2013

afliates, including but not limited to Pasukan Peudeung, who may continue to exist where their bellicose existence is somehow useful. That period, however, will end. In Aceh, as in most post-conict settings, reintegration remains the neglected member of the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration triangle. This brings us back to the catalyst that eventuated Badruddins break from GAM: the denial of reintegration funds for him and his men. The key to successful DDR programmes is that their reinsertion and reintegration benets be directed to all eligible ex-combatants, and eligibility criteria within an umbrella insurgency such as GAM should not have precluded other groupsthe anti-separatist Pembela Tanah Air militias and the Forum Komunikasi Anak Bangsa (FORKAB) militia, which consisted of GAM who surrendered prior to the MoU (if the allegations of Badruddins surrender to TNI were true, he would have existed under the FORKAB umbrella)from benetting. Reintegration does not simply provide noncombat skills and opportunities to ex-combatantsit reduces security risks, and all militias and insurgent factions pose such a risk. Ultimately, PETA and FORKAB members were included within BRA reinsertion funding. Whether or not the denial of funding from BRA to Badruddin by KPA Sawang actually served as the catalyst that caused the split, or whether this was immaterial to it, is beyond the scope of this paper to address. But the core issue in the Aceh of the day was that, in the beginning, KPA held the monopoly on the authority to declare who was or who was not eligible for inclusion in reintegration works and funds as provided via BRA. Communities themselves should be tasked with identifying the combatants in their midst, regardless of allegiance. And while Badruddin lacked popular support, his message of hatred for KPA was widely articulated by many a Sawang villager. Badruddin would have likely continued on his path of destruction, but his men may have opted for a better opportunity than to follow him

52

Bobby Anderson

if one were available for them. And Sawangs exclusion from reconstruction assistance led to a feeling of isolation that he and PP were, for a number of years, able to act upon. Analysts note rightly that Sawang was emblematic of the failure of reintegration of a select group of ex-combatants in Aceh. But practitioners need to consider the state that GAM attempted to break away from, and the state it has returned to. Indonesia is stable at present: there is a climate of acceptable corruption, acceptable extortion and acceptable fear. This is the state that Aceh is a part of. And this is present-day Aceh. Insurgencies often begin when the word acceptable is no longer validwhen depredations are not conducted according to the acceptable norms of a host citizenry. And frankly, the current

Downloaded by [Bobby Anderson] at 19:55 14 March 2013

acceptable depredations and criminal extortion and racketeering proclivities of many criminals afliated with both rebels and anti-separatist groups in Aceh might not necessarily be a bad thing. Ex-insurgents have an income stream that diverts them from their stated ideologies. They are making (not earning) money in peacetime and, if this continues, they will not revert to rebellion. Reintegration has therefore succeeded. The success of GAMs reintegration reached its zenith in the 9 April 2012 Aceh elections. Partai Acehs candidates, Zaini Abdullah and Muzakkir Manaf, unseated Governor Irwandi, who was then assaulted at the inauguration and promptly ed to Malaysia. Irwandi, who was viewed as a traitor by GAM ever since he broke ranks to run against the gubernatorial candidate selected by the GAM leadership in 2006, was immensely popular due to his universal health care provision and other initiatives, as well as his perceived incorruptibility. In the 2012 election, the GAM hierarchy did not wish to compete against him and so sought to eliminate him through legal means, by attempting to disallow his candidacy,42 and when that failed, they boycotted the election registration. When that also failed, they demanded to be allowed to register again, even though the deadline had passed: the Partai Aceh line was that they would return to the past if they were not allowed to registerthe implication being that the war would resume. Partai Aceh were allowed to register, and in the run-up to the election, numerous grenade attacks and shootings occurred: Javanese were the primary targets, and several KPA members were arrested for these crimes. The number of violent incidents in the months immediately preceding the election correlated with the shift in public support from Irwandi to Partai Aceh. In conversations with over 40 persons the author worked with in Aceh, nearly 80 per cent of them voted for Partai Aceh, not out of a legitimate desire to do so, but out of fear. If the authors colleagues may serve as a bellwether, then many in Aceh voted for Partai Aceh, not

Posthumous reinvention of Teungku Badruddin

53

to govern, but to behave, and the power of the legislative and executive branches of the provincial government was viewed as a worthy trade for the cold peace that has followed. It remains that GAM was birthed by a then businessman, Hasan di Tiro, grandson of the anti-Dutch insurgent leader Cik di Tiro, whose provincial governmental connections were not sufcient to secure his company, Doral International, the contract to construct the Pertamina/PT Arun works in the Lhokseumawe industrial zone.43 The contract was awarded to Bechtel. And the rst act GAM committed after their founding was the shooting of two expatriate oil and gas workers in the zone. Despite the persons who joined GAM because of the abuses heaped upon them by Indonesian government forcespersons with a real set of anger, grievance, a desire for revenge that many overlook in favour of more palatable rationalesthe presence of such persons does not discount the core motivation of the originals. GAMs founders did not have an issue with exploitationthey had an issue about who got to do the exploiting. And if Doral International bested Bechtel for a contract nearly 40 years ago, there might have been no GAM.

Downloaded by [Bobby Anderson] at 19:55 14 March 2013

Endnotes
1. World Bank Aceh Conict Monitoring Update, Aceh, Indonesia, September 2008. 2. Badruddin, speaking to the author, Paya Rabo, Sawang, Aceh, April 2007. 3. In Acehnese society the honoric Teungku is used for men displaying qualities of leadership, intelligence and religious piety. On rare occasions it can become a hereditary title. Teungku should not be confused with the once-common Acehnese hereditary title Teuku, which denoted members of the now-extinct Uleebelang class (thanks to Jesse Grayman for pointing out the possible confusion in terms). 4. In 2007the period in which Badruddins story occursthe Aceh Utara Police Chief noted that crime levels across Aceh had risen vefold compared to 2006, including muggings, domicile burglaries, car burglaries and thefts, etc. 5. While there has been much argument of late over the actual number of persons within GAMgun-carriers, non-armed support functionaries, etcin the interests of this essay, I am talking about persons with guns only. 6. Partai Aceh is the provincial political party that represents GAMs interests. It was created after the Helsinki MoU and it gained a majority of legislative seats in the April 2009 provincial elections. 7. It is difcult to state an accurate gure for how many Panglima Sagoe existed, and different numbers have been received from different KPA, ex-GAM and BRA district-level ofces. Apparently the number uctuated between phases. There also remains the issue of numerous self-appointed Panglima Sagoe across Aceh. 8. For more detail on GAMs command structure, please refer to Schulze, Free Aceh Movement and Aspinall, Combatants to Contractors. 9. Acehs Darul Islam rebellion was not a separatist insurgency: it sought to turn Indonesia into an Islamic state, governed by Syariah, and was part of a loosely connected series of insurgencies in West/Central Java, South Sulawesi and Kalimantan. 10. Tiro, Price of Freedom; Kell, Roots of Acehnese Rebellion, 61 66. 11. Schulze, Free Aceh Movement, 53 54. 12. Amnesty International, Indonesia, 5; Barber, Aceh, 32; 101. 13. Some of the more well-known and accessible reports covering this are listed in the references and include Amnesty International, Shock Therapy; ICG, Escalating Tensions; Slim Chance for Peace; Why the Military Option; and How Not to Win. Other worthwhile sources include Aspinall, Islam and Nation; Kell, Roots of Acehnese Rebellion; and Robinson, Rawan is as Rawan Does.

54

Bobby Anderson
across 12 KPA Sagoe in Bireuen and Aceh Utara districts. The research explored the internal dynamics of KPA; how this impacts relationships within KPA; and relationships between local KPA and local communities. 21. One other local political party, Partai Daulat Aceh, managed to secure one seat, in comparison to Partai Acehs 33. PA also dominates the district-level parliaments in its core support areas. 22. In-depth treatment of this issue can be found in Aspinall, Combatants to Contractors. 23. Kell, Roots of Acehnese Rebellion, expertly describes how the Suharto dictatorship inadvertently provided GAM with its power because Jakarta foreclosed all other alternatives for expressing grievances against the state. 24. PA viewed the creation of Partai SIRA with particular anger, in the belief that the party would draw votes away from PA. SIRAs failure in the polls demonstrates that PAs concern was unwarranted. 25. MP-GAM, referred to in Aceh as GAM Husaini, was founded by Husaini Hasan, who broke away from GAM in 1999 to found a splinter group called the Free Aceh Movement Government Council (MP-GAM), connected to the Preparatory Committee of the Free Democratic Aceh (Komite Persiapan Aceh Merdeka Demokratik). MPGAM may have a link to the Pasukan Peudeung, the 1 July 31 August 2008 World Bank Conict Monitoring Report noted. Four alleged members of this group were killed in a shoot-out with state security forces in Beutong sub-district, Nagan Raya, on 15 July 2008. One man managed to surrender. The group was in possession of automatic weapons and a vintage GAM ag; the police attributed numerous crimes to the dead, postmortem, including kidnappings in Aceh Timur and the highlands. The reason these men, from Aceh Timur, Aceh Utara and Bireuen crossed Aceh to shelter in a pesantren where they were then gunned down, is not known, but the inspiration for this act is likely found in the earlier killing by TNI in Beutong Ateuh of Teungku Bantaqiyah in 1999. Later, persons afliated with MPGAM, and perhaps connected with PP, murdered a member of the anti-separatist group BERANTAS in Cot Girek village, Aceh Utara, on 26 August 2008. MP-GAM may serve as an alternative ideology that disenfranchised ex-combatants who nurture feelings of abandonment towards KPA may turn towards, but MP-GAM never possessed a viable ideology capable of attaining broad support. Rather, it serves as an anti-KPA brand that presents no threat to the peace process itself. In some elements of the Diaspora, however, it still holds sway. For more information please see Missbach, Politics and Conict.

14. There is no evidence, however, to back the occasional assertion that GAM was essentially a Marijuana Maa protecting its own interests specic to cultivation and trafckingan off-the-cuff remark that has gained credibility through repetition (authors conversations with security actors and civil servants in Aceh, 2006 10). 15. TNI and Brimob engaged in these activities in sometimes violent competition with one another, especially after Brimob was separated from the Angkatan Bersenjata Republik Indonesia (ABRI) structure in 1999. 16. Robinson, Rawan is as Rawan Does. 17. Schulze, Free Aceh Movement, 38 46. 18. Organised crime is dened by various entities as follows: any group having corporate structure whose primary objective is to obtain money through illegal activities, often surviving on fear and corruption (Interpol, First National Symposium); a structured group of (three) or more persons existing for a period of time and having the aim of committing a serious crime in order to, directly or indirectly, obtain a nancial or other material benet (UN, Convention). More comprehensive denitions can be found in the writings of Castells, End of Millennium; Sterling, Crime without Frontiers; Strange, Retreat of the State; and Tilly, War Making and State Making. Regarding GAM as Organised Crime, this is hardly a shocking assertion. This is how insurgents raise funds. By their nature they are excluded from legal money-making enterprises, which in Indonesia are few and far between at the best of times. Other stateafliated groups and youth groups (especially in Sumatra Utara) undertake the same activities. 19. The names of these movements and bodies, to civilians at the grassroots level, are interchangeable. In the villages, KPA and TNA are GAM. 20. Further categories of KPA members exist. The KPA Panglima Sagoe are the most important, as are the KPA Meudongthe GAM members (combatants as well as the active support network, though male combatants are the most relevant in terms of power) who did not ee the province and who were active until Helsinki. Below the Meudong exist the KPA TeubitGAM who stopped ghting before Helsinki (but did not surrender)and KPA Hijrahthose who ed but maintained relations with the GAM corpus. Please refer to Aspinalls Islam and Nation, as well as the research undertaken by the Community Transparency Initiative and Aceh Society Development (CTI-ASD). This unpublished research, supported by the Australia-Indonesia Partnership Communities and Education Program in Aceh (AIPCEPA) and the World Bank, explored the Post-MoU dynamics of the KPA. CTI-ASD conducted research

Downloaded by [Bobby Anderson] at 19:55 14 March 2013

Posthumous reinvention of Teungku Badruddin

26. This is especially true of the period immediately before the collapse of the 2003 Cessation of Hostilities Agreement: the CoHA was viewed as breathing space to recruit and rearm, and GAM recruitment dramatically increased, concurrently lessening the quality of their corpus through the absorption of illicit and prot-oriented groups across the province (Schulze, Free Aceh Movement, 17). 27. This problem relates to the perception outsiders have of excombatants, versus the perception some ex-combatants have of themselves. To outsiders, the reintegration payments provided to ex-GAM were reinsertion funds, meant to tide over such persons in the transitory period from conict to peace. The funds were paid through the localised command structures and were hardly transparent in allocation. Local commanders reported that they paid to their men, and soon enough, their men returned, having spent the money. And they came back for more. One could say that some ex-combatants view themselves as retired, and are now in need of a regular pensionwithout which, they grumble, they may need to come out of retirement (or return to the woods, in the KPA local parlance). 28. World Bank Aceh Conict Monitoring Update, September 2008. 29. An exception to this was the International Organisation for Migrations Information, Counselling and Referral Service, a socio-economic reintegration programme for ex-combatants and at-risk youth. The 2006 2007 incarnation of ICRS provided training and grants for ex-GAM to start small businesses; the beneciaries were selected by KPA and obviously did not include PP. The second incarnation (2007 2009) encompassed the establishment of rural co-operatives with ex-combatants and at-risk youth as members, with grants in kind and signicant training programmes; it also included referral of these persons to small businesses for apprenticeships and xed-term employment, in exchange for grants to the small business to expand in line with IOMconducted market surveys. The co-operative aspect was implemented through local civil society organisations. All beneciaries were identied by their own communities, and included a number of PP and KPA. 30. These quotes are from a focus group discussion of Pasukan Peudeung members in Sawang conducted by the International Organisation for Migrations Information, Counselling and Referral Service project in December 2008. 31. Ibid. 32. Ibid. A GAM afliate who intermittently served as a liaison between that body and PP stated to the author that the PP were a post-Helsinki occurrence. That afliate further stated that PP are not ex-GAM combatants, but merely ex-GAM supporters.

55

33. The utilisation of these funds varied by Sagoe, with some commanders utilising them only to pay combatants; others disbursed the money to GAM as well as persons victimised by the conict (widows, orphans); still others embezzled what they were supposed to disburse. 34. The September 2008 World Bank Aceh Conict Monitoring Unit notes that the Aceh Utara 2008 district budget allocated 14 billion rupiah (US$1.4 million) for the repair of Sawangs main north south road, and awarded the tender to a KPA contractor. This work was eventually completed in 2010; the road extends up to Paya Rabo and no further. More egregious cases involve tenders awarded for projects which never actually begin. 35. These distinctions were taken to such an extreme that, when oods in December 2006 wiped away both homes and fresh water sources in certain Sawang villages, the Aceh representative of one of the authors donors would not allow the diversion of US$5,000 in order to clean and restore communal wellsthe only source of water for the villages affected. The rationale was that if Sawang was not physically affected by the tsunami, it was ineligible for funding. Geographical confusion led to the author erroneously reporting to another donor that Sawang was, indeed, on the coastand funding was made available. 36. Threats are usually directed at the persons in the organisation who have the least authority. 37. At the time of writing, Hamid was under investigation by the Corruption Eradication Commission for the theft of 220 billion rupiah. 38. Lack of projects to extort probably upset the averages: the contractor budgeted according to norms in tsunamiimpacted areas where a price had been set after multiple experimental blackmail attempts from multiple actors. KPA Seuneuddon overreacted because opportunities for such privations were rare there, and they sought to maximise their return accordingly. 39. This padding is something that every non-GAM afliated contractor in Aceh undertakes based on historical averages. Most international NGOs were not aware of this because their contractors withhold the information and pay directly. Every contractors bid had a padding of 2 10 per cent of a projects value (depending on the sector), which they would need to pay to local KPA or other thugs. When a contractor would attempt to back out of a public works contract, it wasnt because they suddenly realised how complex the work wasit was usually because demands from local GAM were prohibitively high. 40. The connection between FPI Aceh and FPI in West Java seems to have initially been in name only. 41. Kompas, 20 March 2010.

Downloaded by [Bobby Anderson] at 19:55 14 March 2013

56

Bobby Anderson
Interpol, 1988. First National Symposium on Organised Crime. St Cloud, France, May. Kell, Tim, 1995. The Roots of Acehnese Rebellion 1989 1992. Cornell Modern Indonesia Project, No. 74. Cornell University, Ithaca. Missbach, Antje, 2011. Politics and Conict in Indonesia: The Role of the Acehnese Diaspora. Routledge, New York. Robinson, Geoffrey, 1998. Rawan is as Rawan Does: The Origins of Disorder in New Order Aceh. Indonesia 66, 127 156. Ross, Michael L., 2005. Resources and Rebellion in Aceh, Indonesia. In Understanding Civil War: Evidence and Analysis, Volume 2, eds. P. Collier and N. Sambanis. World Bank, Washington DC, 35 58. Schulze, Kristen E., 2004. The Free Aceh Movement (GAM): Anatomy of a Separatist Organization. Policy Studies, No. 2. East West Center, Washington DC. Sterling, Claire, 1994. Crime Without Frontiers: The Worldwide Expansion of Organised Crime and the Pax Maosa. Little, Brown and Company, London. Strange, Susan, 1996. The Retreat of the State: the Diffusion of Power in the World Economy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Sulaiman, M. Isa, 2007. From Autonomy to Periphery: A Critical Evaluation of the Acehnese Nationalist Movement. In Verandah of Violence: The Historical Background of the Aceh Problem, ed. Anthony Reid. Singapore University Press, Singapore, 121 148. Tilly, Charles, 1985. War Making and State Making as Organised Crime. In Bringing the State Back In, eds. P. Evans, D. Rueschemeyer and T. Skocpol. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 169 191. Tiro, Teungku Hasan M. di, 1984. The Price of Freedom. Information Department, Aceh and Sumatra National Liberation Front, Norsborg, Sweden. UN, 2000. Convention against Transnational Organised Crime. Palermo, Italy, December. World Bank, 2005 2008. Aceh Conict Monitoring Updates. Available at: http://www.conictanddevelopment.org [Accessed 26 December 2012].

42. Aspinall, Acehs No-Win Election. 43. Regarding De Tiros involvement in the pipeline bid, the following footnote in Sulaimans From Autonomy to Periphery (146) is worth quoting: In 1974 Hasan Di Tiro met with Governor A. Muzakir Walad to discuss the possibility of his company, Doral Inc, taking part on constructing the gas project in Northern Aceh. Muzakir Walad told him that he was not in a position to approve such an offer. He advised Hasan Di Tiro to get in touch with Pertamina[ . . . ] (from Sulaimans interview with A. Muzakir Walad in 1996). Please also refer to Michael Ross, Resources and Rebellion.

Downloaded by [Bobby Anderson] at 19:55 14 March 2013

References
Amnesty International, 1993. Indonesia: Shock Therapy Restoring Order in Aceh, 1989 1993. Amnesty International, London. Aspinall, Edward, 2009. Combatants to Contractors: the Political Economy of Peace in Aceh. Indonesia 87, 1 34. Aspinall, Edward, 2009. Islam and Nation: Separatist Rebellion in Aceh, Indonesia. Stanford University Press, Stanford. Aspinall, Edward, 2011. Acehs No Win Election. Inside Indonesia 106. Available at: http://www.insideindonesia. org/weekly-articles/aceh-s-no-win-election [Accessed 26 December 2012]. Barber, Richard (ed.), 2000. Aceh: The Untold Story. Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development, Bangkok. Castells, Manuel, 1998. End of Millennium. Blackwell, Oxford. Community Transparency Initiative and Aceh Society Development, 2009. The Aceh Peace Process: KPA Dynamics Analysis and Needs Assessment. Unpublished. International Crisis Group (ICG), 2000. Aceh: Escalating Tensions. ICG, Brussels. International Crisis Group (ICG), 2002. Aceh: Slim Chance for Peace. ICG, Brussels. International Crisis Group (ICG), 2003. Aceh: Why the Military Option Still Wont Work. ICG, Brussels. International Crisis Group (ICG), 2003. Aceh: How not to win Hearts and Minds. ICG, Brussels.