Word: gam
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...reaction is both fear and defiance. Last month in Lhokseumawe, the bustling capital of north Aceh, GAM attacked a military base on a beach near the town center. The following morning the military cordoned off an adjacent beach and set fire to scores of fishermen's houses. "They told us we were forbidden to take any possessions out of our houses and then set fire to the area," says Rusli, a 25-year-old fisherman. Rusli has no doubt which side he's on in the conflict. "Around here everyone supports GAM," he says. "We are ready...
...East Timor proved, the Indonesian military isn't good at winning hearts and minds. Over the past two years GAM has fast expanded its support base among a population jaded by decades of military repression and Jakarta's exploitation of the province's natural resources. Talks in Geneva last June between GAM's leadership-in-exile in Sweden and the government brought about a cease-fire arrangement known as a "humanitarian pause," which has been extended more than once. But the military believe that the frequently breached cease-fires have only given GAM room to strengthen its position...
They could be right. Founded in 1976 by Hasan di Tiro, last scion of the precolonial sultanate, GAM was the target of a protracted military campaign between 1989 and 1998. Jakarta called them "regional military operations," but in Aceh they were marked by assassinations and "disappearances" of the South American sort. Some 6,000-7,000 GAM suspected activists were killed, and the group was severely depleted...
...across the predominantly ethnic Aceh-nese province of 4.2 million. In many areas the central government's civil administration has all but ceased to function. "The Indonesian government is hardly working in the villages anymore," says Warman, an Acehnese civil servant in Lhokseumawe, who makes no secret of his GAM sympathies. Sitting in a coffee shop with a group of friends, he glances swiftly around before adding: "Here in town, we're still drawing salaries but we hardly go to work anymore. GAM is now far more active...
...GAM flags flying from electricity poles and crude roadblocks of felled trees outside the town?constructed to block military access?suggest that's no exaggeration. In such villages GAM is trying to set up the rudiments of a parallel administration. It is also stepping up military training in makeshift camps where GAM senior cadres?some trained in Libya, others former Indonesian soldiers?put village youths through their paces...