Crisis Group Warns of Pitfalls of One-Party Domination in Aceh
People hold a giant crescent star flag during a mass rally in front of the Baiturrahman Grand Mosque in Banda Aceh. (EPA Photo)
A dispute over a flag in Aceh is testing the limits of autonomy, provoking Indonesia's central government and could pave the way for separatist factions to emerge, the International Crisis Group said.
The Brussels-based group said that the flag dispute was also heightening ethnic tensions, reviving a campaign for the division of the province and raising fears of violence as the 2014 national elections approach.
The Aceh provincial legislature on March 25 adopted a regulation that made the banner of the now disbanded Free Aceh Movement (Gerakan Aceh Merdeka) the province's official flag.
The central government says the regulation violates a law banning separatist symbols and must be changed.
However, Partai Aceh, the political party set up by the former rebels and which now dominates the political landscape in Aceh, says the flag cannot be separatist since GAM leaders signed a 2005 peace agreement with the Indonesian government in Helsinki in which it acknowledged Indonesian sovereignty.
"This dispute is about much more than whether the flag constitutes a separatist symbol. It is about where Aceh is headed and what its relations with Jakarta will be", says Sidney Jones, ICG's senior Asia advisor, said in a statement on Wednesday. "It is also about what the implications are for other areas, such as Papua, where rising a pro-independence flag has been the iconic act of political resistance."
ICG said that Partai Aceh sees no need to compromise because its leaders believe Jakarta will capitulate, as it has in the past. It also wants to use the enormous emotive power of the flag to mobilize voters in 2014.
The group said that if Jakarta rejects the flag, the party can score points with its supporters, because defying the central government is a vote-getter. If it accepts the flag, Partai Aceh will be convinced that obstinacy pays, and its leaders are likely to press for more authority.
"Aceh looks increasingly like a one-party state", says Jim Della-Giacoma, an ICG director. "The question is whether Partai Aceh uses its power to improve the welfare of its poorest constituents or to entrench another elite".
Partai Aceh, the group said, is systematically entrenching its control over political institutions in the province, making it less likely that any democratic challenge to its control will succeed.
It already controls the executive and legislative branches in the provincial government, as well as most of the most populous districts.
It is exerting influence over the civil service and local election commission. It is also in control of a new bureaucracy set up to safeguard Acehnese culture and values, known as the Wali Nanggroe (Guardian of the State).
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