The Roots of Acehnese Rebellion, 1989-1992 (Kell Tim.) - Historical Background
Acehnese political leaders in the late twentieth century, whether at home or in exile, whether proponents of union with Indonesia or of independence, all hark back to the time when Aceh was a formidable and influential political and religious power. However, though once an important power in the Malay Archipelago, Aceh was never a cohesive nation-state of the kind we would recognize today. Nor did it ever sit easily as part of the Netherlands East Indies, the foundation for the new postwar state of Indonesia. Before the sixteenth century the state of Aceh, confined to the far northwest of Sumatra, "was of little consequence." However, the port-kingdom of Samudra (subsequently Pasai), centered on present-day Lhokseumawe in North Aceh, was of such significance as a center of commerce and Islamic scholarship in the fourteenth century that the whole of the island was named after it. It was in the 1520s that Aceh grew in significance, and first began to appear as the entity it is
