Tsunami Recovery: On the Road to Peace in Aceh

It’s the main topic of conversation in villages, government offices and on street corners. It’s the peace deal and while relatively new, it’s changing the lives of many who were once too afraid to tend their fields or be out after sunset. The Memorandum of Understanding signed between the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) and the Government of Indonesia in Helsinki on August 15 has many Acehnese wondering though if the new-found peace will survive the challenges of reintegration and reconstruction after three decades of violent conflict.

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December 05, 2005—Thirty two year old Muslahuddin Daud, tells a story chillingly familiar to many Acehnese. 

“My brother was kidnapped from his home in Pidie and killed after 10 days because our family could not meet a ransom demand of US$ 800,” Daud says. “Then, my other brother and his parents-in-law were killed, followed by my brother-in-law. They’re all victims of the conflict.”

So it was with a sense of mission that Daud turned to working for peace – first with non government organizations and later joining the World Bank. He’s now a Bank consultant on the Support for Poor and Disadvantaged Areas (SPADA) program, which works on development in conflict areas.

Daud is also one of the authors of Conflict and Recovery in Aceh – an analysis of the broad dynamics of the conflict following last December’s tsunami and looks at ways to promote peace through sustainable development initiatives.

For the World Bank’s Country Director for Indonesia, Andrew Steer, there’s an intrinsic link between the reconstruction process – in the wake of the tsunami – and the peace process.

“The success of the peace deal and the success of the reconstruction are bound together, so it’s smart to integrate the two processes very well,” Steer says.

	Muslahuddin Daud and his family

Best Chance for Peace

Although the reintegration process is just beginning, many people believe this is the best chance in years for peace with more than 8,000 former combatants having turned in 800 weapons to date. On December 26, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono will preside over the pull-out of the final Indonesian Armed Forces contingent.

“The Free Aceh Movement (GAM) doesn’t like to use the word ‘reintegration’ because they have always been part of the community,” Daud says.  “Even when they were in the mountains they were supported with food by their families in the villages.”

“It’s remarkable that those who have lost family members seem to have forgiven their old enemies,” says Juri Laas, spokesperson for the Aceh Monitoring Mission, “I think people were tired of the violence and the horror of the tsunami has overshadowed everything.” 

Old Enemies Unite

Daud says the sight of old enemies sitting together over a cup of coffee in the village coffee house is not uncommon and highly symbolic: “There are few places in Aceh where you can demonstrate your friendship publicly, so if you sit together at the coffee house it’s the same as smoking a peace pipe or breaking bread with your enemy.”  

To ensure the reintegration runs smoothly, the Government is offering a monetary compensation of US$ 600 to ex-combatants, who hand in their arms, and prisoners who are returning to their villages. The Bank is now working on designing matching grants for  villages who receive the ex combatants, so they too gain from the process.

“Many of these villages have really lost out in development,” Steer says. “They’ve been remote. Because of the war, there has been very little investment and agriculture cultivation has shrunk in some cases, because people weren’t confident in going out to their fields.” 

“Now there’s an opportunity to reverse that and put resources for development into villages.”

Daud says one example of the impact of the conflict could be seen in central Aceh. 

“Farmers were barely able to work three or four hours a day, four times a week on average (during the conflict),” calculates Daud. He says the regional economy had shrunk, and health and education levels had gone down. “On a scale of one to seven, they were at level two.”

	Community meeting

Spreading the Information

The Bank has also played a key role in helping all spread awareness about the elements of the new peace accord.

Consultants from the Bank and donor partners took the initiative of bringing GAM and Indonesian Government officials together in an awareness campaign on the Memorandum of Understanding throughout the region, after the deal was struck. 

Steer says it was important for people to understand and accept the peace process, and the Bank was uniquely placed to support this, through its extensive network of village facilitators.

“We were able to get information out through a network of 600 village facilitators and 35,000 village volunteers currently working on the Kecamatan Development Program (KDP),” he says.

The program, which is the largest village level development program in Aceh, is the Bank’s flagship community-driven development program in Indonesia.

KDP facilitators have so far distributed 80,000 posters throughout Aceh. The posters are presented in sets of three. Two carry a peace message and one explains the Memorandum of Understanding. They have also distributed thousands of Memorandum of Understanding booklets.

Recently, the initiative also held a peace slogan contest for teenagers between 15-20 years. “Many felt so strongly that they wrote long essays instead,” says Amy Sim, World Bank consultant based in Aceh. The winning slogan has since been developed into a peace song by popular singer Rafli and will soon be officially released.