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Email this citationCIAO DATE: 06/04
Aceh: How Not to Win Hearts and Minds
July 23, 2003
Abstract
In April 2001, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Indonesia's Coordinating Minister of Security and Political Affairs, gave a long interview on Aceh to Media Indonesia, a Jakarta newspaper. The interview appeared just after a presidential instruction had been issued authorising military action as part of a comprehensive strategy to address the Aceh problem. Yudhoyono stressed that social discontent was at the heart of any insurgency and that winning hearts and minds of the local population was the primary goal of a counterinsurgency strategy, so as to reduce local support for the separatists. "Our brothers and sisters in Aceh want respect, justice, and prosperity", he said.
Those words are worth reviewing as Aceh prepares to endure the third month of a planned six-month military emergency declared by President Megawati Soekarnoputri at midnight on 18 May 2003.3 The government appears to have no clear objectives in this war, no criteria for "success" other than control of territory and body counts, and no exit strategy.
