"A story half-told" posted by Richard Seymour

Dear John,

I read your article in today's Guardian with growing alarm. You are right to note that human rights organisations and aid agencies are desperately trying to end the current control of aid distribution by the Indonesian military (TNI), but - ironically - you only tell half the story.

As Tapol, the Indonesian human rights organisation notes (http://tapol.gn.apc.org/pr050104.htm), it is the status of 'civil emergency' which Indonesia presently enforces in Aceh that is causing real problems for aid distribution. You mention martial law only in a positive context - that of providing an immediate response to the disaster. Yet you do not mention that the TNI has been continuing its repression in Aceh throughout this disaster, rejecting an early ceasefire from the GAM.

True, the TNI and the local police blamed reports of violence on the GAM rebels (http://www.guardian.co.uk/tsunami/story/0,15671,1386804,00.html), but this was not what a UN observer witnessed (http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200501/s1279107.htm). And what is more, TNI leaders themselves acknowledged that they were continuing operations (http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/E03B6E8D-A411-455F-A007-00CDCF939621.htm). Further, refugees from the tsunami have reported to the Western press that they saw the TNI shoot seven unarmed villagers dead during a 'counter-insurgency operation' (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,18690-1436908,00.html). Naturally, it has been difficult to get information on this because journalists access has been blocked as has become typical in Indonesia in recent years, where reporters are expected to write "in the spirit of nationalism" (http://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/indonesia1103/3.htm)

You refer to "28 years of seccessionist violence and mutual mistrust" as if it were not the TNI which broke a previous ceasefire in 2003 to impose martial law. Further, the record of the TNI in Aceh is a brutal one: torture, arbitrary arrests, extra-judicial killings, summary killings, rape and other forms of sexual violence. (See here: http://www.hrw.org/reports/2004/indonesia0904/5.htm#_Toc83043018 and here: http://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/indonesia1203/ as well as here: http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGASA210332004).

There are peace negotiations now, but this is because the GAM repeated their ceasefire offer (http://www.axcessnews.com/worldnews_011305c.shtml).

One of the real problems now is that the Indonesian government are urging non-TNI troops to leave because it said it wanted to introduce three new battalions of soldiers and one new battalion of “mobile brigade” police. These latter are the most notorious and brutal among Indonesian forces, as the New York Times reports (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/12/international/worldspecial4/12cnd-indo.html). A valid fear must be that the TNI intend to continue their repression, using the dislocation created by the tsunami to attack rebels and drive them from their strongholds. This can only amplify the present humanitarian disaster.

Finally, one last thing. It is because you mention nothing of the TNI's violence that you don't have anything to say about their sponsors (http://tapol.gn.apc.org/pr030710.htm and http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0715-02.htm). By all of this, I mean to convey as clearly as I can that you don't even tell half the story, and let far too many actors in that terrible situation off the hook.

Best wishes,

Etc.