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 today. When the Portuguese captured the great trading city of Malacca on the Malay Peninsula in 1511, Aceh was a vassal of its neighbor on the north Sumatran coast, the port-state of Pidie. Pidie and Pasai, both lucrative sources of pepper, in turn came under the influence of the Portuguese. The "intolerable intervention" of this European power drew a response from Ali Mughayat Shah, sultan of Aceh from 1514. He declared Aceh independent, and, with an eye to the economic riches to be gained, in the first half of the 1520s "rallied all the anti-Portuguese forces to expel the newcomers from their footholds" on the north coast. This was a "popular and permanent" conquest: Pidie and Pasai were united with the Aceh River valley (Aceh Besar), and their people became acculturated as Acehnese. Daya, a neighboring pepper port on the west coast, was also occupied by Ali Mughayat's forces.

Aceh subsequently entered into a "triangular struggle" with Johore and the Portuguese for commercial and imperial dominance over Sumatra and Malaya, while an "aggressive royal monopoly" in trade was maintained from the port-capital of Banda Aceh. Control was extended down both coasts of Sumatra: Ala'ad-din Riayat Shah al-Kahar, "the second of [Aceh's] great sultans," conquered Aru (on the present-day border between East Aceh and North Sumatra) in 1539, and on the west coast took control of Pariaman, formerly part of the Minangkabau kingdom. Under a succeeding sultan, Acehnese rule was established further down this coast, in Inderapura (which, like Pariaman, is in today's province of West Sumatra). However, a subsequent decline in Aceh's fortunes meant that by about 1613 its authority on the west coast was only effective as far south as Barus (just inside present-day North Sumatra). Acehnese power reached its zenith during the reign of Sultan Iskandar Muda from 1607 to 1636. By means of a highly successful "absolutist strategy" and an ambitious and spectacular policy of expansionism, Iskandar made Aceh the most powerful state in the region. On the west coast of Sumatra, where the prize once again was the area's pepper and gold exports, control was re-established as far as Inderapura, and on the east coast "all the important ports ... as far south as Asahan [now in North Sumatra]" came under Acehnese authority. By 1620 Iskandar controlled Pahang, Kedah, and Perak on the Malay Peninsula, and he even had designs on Java. Aceh itself was a major center of Islamic scholarship, and "the tradition of Atjeh as an Islamic state" began.

Aceh's "golden age" under Iskandar did not last long, however. The sultan's conquests had "stirred up a deep hatred of the Achinese yoke," and in 1629 his navy was roundly defeated by Aceh's regional rivals. In Sumatra, the foundations of his empire were shaky: despite links going back many years, no more than "an artificial connection" existed between Aceh and its dominions on the west coast. Acehnese governors and officials were placed in these coastal centers to control trade and taxation. Once that had been achieved, "there was no attempt at administrative unification" and little "interference with the fabric of indigenous government." As a result, the people of the subject areas "justifiably regarded [Aceh] as an alien power." Resentment against Acehnese rule led to attempts by the indigenous chiefs of Pariaman and Inderapura in 1619 to forge alliances with the Dutch, whose commercial intrusion Iskandar was intent on limiting. Against this background, it was the years of decline following Iskandar's demise "which really set the political pattern for Atjeh." The erosion of its commercial and political power, including the loss of its acquisitions on the Malay Peninsula, was hastened by the Dutch take-over of Malacca in 1641. On the west coast of Sumatra, representations to the Dutch by Minangkabau leaders seeking an end to Acehnese suzerainty led to the Painan Treaty of 1663, under which the Dutch East India Company was to afford protection against the Acehnese in return for "an absolute monopoly over the pepper trade" and exemption from tolls. These developments were resisted by the Acehnese, but Dutch military expeditions in 1666-67 finally "put an end to [their] influence throughout the whole region." The west coast from Barus southward once again became part of a united Minangkabau kingdom, such as had existed until around the end of the fifteenth century (though without its sovereignty compromised by European intrusion). Thus "the permanent dissolution of the Atjehnese empire" was assured, and Aceh was subsequently limited to roughly those areas which it covers today. Within those areas, the "promising movement towards institutionalised government" that had begun under Iskandar Muda came to a halt. The "Sultanate became a weak symbolic institution," largely "without influence in the internal affairs of Atjeh" and with "effective control" only of Banda Aceh and its port. The "new nobility" brought into being by Iskandar, the uleebalang, were glad of the opportunity to free themselves of their creator's "centralised tyranny" and "draconian rule." Though still theoretically "officers of the sultanate," the uleebalang became politically independent territorial chiefs, deriving their power from the control of trade in their respective domains and ideological legitimacy from their link with the sultanate. From the late eighteenth century the political fragmentation of Aceh was underscored by the desire of European and North American merchants to trade freely with the individual territories, bypassing the royal capital. By the 1820s over half the world's pepper came from Aceh, and on the north and east coasts ulee balang established strong trading links with the British entrepot of Penang on the Malay Peninsula.

It was only during the reign of Tuanku Ibrahim from 1838 to 1870 that the Acehnese sultanate regained a semblance of the authority it had had in the early 1600s. Ibrahim exploited the rivalries of the new pepper-rich uleebalang, and by "a system of judicious alliances" was able to extend his authority. He was helped in his maneuverings by the fact that although Aceh was not a coherent entity in political terms, it was clearly definable in cultural terms. Anthony Reid points to "the influence of a common language, culture, and 400-year history on the Atjehnese, and the fact that most of the dependencies [of the central state in Banda Aceh] were more properly 'colonies' of cultivators usually born in Atjeh Besar and retaining strong connexions there." This was clearly illustrated by the development of the coastal strip between Lhokseumawe and Tamiang (in the easternmost extremity of today's East Aceh district), which was "very sparsely inhabited" and "virtually uncultivated" until it started to prosper as a center of pepper production in the 1850s. Not only were plenty of men "to be found in Atjeh Besar and Pidie ready to try their hand as seasonal workers or permanent settlers" in the new areas, but the "leading pioneers" were "often of the uleebalang class in Atjeh Besar." Despite establishing themselves "as virtually autonomous rulers" in their new fiefdoms, "all recognized the suzerainty of the Sultan . . . and endeavoured to obtain authorization from him."

Ibrahim also sought to regain some of the imperial authority Aceh had once exercised over the rest of Sumatra: on the east coast, Acehnese suzerainty was imposed on Langkat, Deli, and Serdang in 1854, and the sultan also claimed authority as far south as Bila and Panai. (These areas cover the entire east coast of present-day North Sumatra.) The sultan of Siak (in today's Riau province) also claimed these areas as dependencies, but neither his nor his Acehnese counterpart's claim was conclusive and rule by both was resented in the territories concerned. Indeed, the three states over which Aceh had established suzerainty all "welcomed the idea of Dutch protection." This was afforded to them in the early 1860s as a result of the 1858 Siak Treaty, which gave the Dutch sovereignty over Siak and which counted as that state's "dependencies" territories as far north as Tamiang, "the border state of Atjeh." Indeed, Banda Aceh's authority over Tamiang, where "the bulk of the population" was Acehnese by "sentiment as well as race," was usurped by the Dutch in 1865, and, "obliged to accept his powerlessness, the Sultan of Atjeh attempted no further contact with the East Coast  

Antagonism between "these two imperial powers" did not stop there. Not only were the Dutch piqued by Penang's domination of trade with Aceh, but increasing imperial competition among the Western powers further excited their concern over the continuing independence of Aceh. The British shared their worries over the possible intervention of other powers, and, preferring continued domination of Sumatra by Holland, signed the 1871 Treaty of Sumatra, part of "one of the greatest tradeoffs of the imperialist age." Giving the Netherlands "an entirely free hand in Sumatra" (while guaranteeing the British complete freedom of trade with the island, as already existed), this agreement "was Aceh's death warrant as an independent polity," and also meant the abrogation of the 1824 Anglo-Dutch Treaty of London, which had defined Sumatra as a Dutch sphere of influence but had secured the independence of Aceh. It was "a public pronouncement that the Dutch intended to take Aceh," and they began their attempt to do so in 1873.

The Dutch faced four decades of war in Aceh and wrought major change in the social complexion of the country. In the main, the uleebalang were concerned primarily with the defense of their respective territories and could not provide the unity necessary for resistance against the Dutch. Most compromised with the enemy, and the struggle came to be led by the ulama, the Islamic teachers and scholars, who had always been revered in Aceh but had been largely uninvolved in the running of society. During the 1880s "the war was gradually transformed into a genuinely popular cause under ulama inspiration," the "foremost theorist and tactician of the holy war" being Teungku Chik di Tiro of Pidie. By 1903, however, "a stable uleebalang administration" under Dutch control was in place, and by 1913 "the Dutch could at last be said to have conquered Aceh," the ulama having finally given up the guerrilla struggle. The last sultan of Aceh was exiled in 1907. As administrators in the colonial government, the uleebalang became completely dependent on Dutch authority and alienated from the wider population. Losing control over trade in their territories, they sought additional sources of income by becoming, for the first time, major landowners. In so doing they increased the enmity feit toward them by ordinary Acehnese, already resentful of the imposition of taxes in money and corvée labor and affected by the "incalculable" psychological trauma that conquest of their society had caused. Dutch policy sought to confine the activities of the ulama to purely religious matters, and to keep them out of politics. However, in the late 1920s a reformist religious revival was begun by the ulama, inspired by "the new forces [of modernization] transforming both the Islamic and Indonesian worlds," and manifested in the development of a system of madrasah, modern religious schools which began to supersede the traditional dayah. The reformist movement swept the rural areas of Aceh, providing the Acehnese with a route to a better future for their society. Social and economic conditions were conducive to the success of the revival: the collapse of pepper production in the mid-1920s led to most Acehnese men being without an income in the 1930s, and consequently being drawn to the teachings of the reformist ulama. The "reformist enthusiasm" culminated in the formation in 1939 of the All Aceh Ulama Association (PUSA), the first chairman of which was the most prominent of the religious leaders, Daud Beureueh, from Pidie. The PUSA was "the nearest approach to a popular movement of an all-Aceh character," and it is in part its wholly Acehnese make-up that rendered it acceptable to the Dutch, for whom the activities of Indonesian nationalists were a greater cause for concern. But as the divisions between the uleebalang and their subjects became more bitter in the final years of Dutch rule in Aceh, "all of the anti-establishment forces gradually associated themselves with either PUSA or Pemuda PUSA [PUSA Youth], transforming them in the process into broader and more political organizations." Many PUSA ulama welcomed the Japanese invasion in 1942 and the opportunity it gave to rid Aceh of the Dutch. However, the Japanese continued the previous colonizers' practice of using the uleebalang to run the government and treated the PUSA as a nonpolitical religious organization. PUSA leaders were nevertheless used by the Japanese for propaganda purposes, and the occupiers came more and more to rely on the popular ulama to mobilize mass support for their war aims. However, it was left to the uleebalang to perform "those tasks that aroused popular resentment," such as collecting the rice crop and organizing forced labor, so they paid "a much higher price" for cooperating with the Japanese than did the PUSA leaders. With the collapse of the Japanese war effort in 1945, Aceh joined the struggle for Indonesian independence. Members of the youth movement were already enthusiastic Indonesian nationalists, and in October 1945 the older ulama indicated their support with the "Declaration of Ulama Throughout Aceh," signed by four prominent religious leaders, including Daud Beureueh, and declaring the struggle a holy war. This support did not, however, extend to the "new official Republican leadership" in Aceh, which "was virtually to a man the uleebalang establishment," and many of whose members looked forward to the restoration of Dutch power and of the prewar status quo. In these circumstances, "the revolutionary impulse came from a coalition of PUSA ulama and pemuda educated in the madrasah,"65 and national revolution quickly extended to social revolution as these groups confronted the uleebalang. By March 1946, the uleebalang had been decimated, and political, economic, and military power in Aceh fell into the hands of the PUSA and forces associated with it. In Pidie, where the uleebalang had been strongest before the war and thus where the bloodletting was at its worst, the "greatest windfall" for the peasantry, as they took possession of uleebalang property, was rice land. The reformist ulama were now at their peak as the popular leaders of Acehnese society. The central government's preoccupation with the struggle against the reimposition of Dutch authority in Java meant that the new leadership in Aceh "operated with almost complete autonomy" for the remainder of the 1940s, its members consolidating their positions all the while. The Dutch made no attempt to retake Aceh, which consequently became an important source of support for the republican cause. Funds were drawn from "a lucrative barter trade across the Straits of Malacca with Penang and Singapore" being conducted by Acehnese merchants, an activity that was "firmly under PUSA control." But Aceh's loyalty to the central government during this period was inspired precisely by the fact that it was free to run its own affairs without central interference, and the Acehnese furthermore expected that their region's "historical separateness and its contribution to the national revolution . . . would be accorded due recognition in a future Indonesian state." Standing in the way of such accommodation, however, was the different nature of the revolutions in Aceh and Java. Whereas the Acehnese "had gone beyond the boundaries of national revolution" (the fight against Dutch colonialism) into social revolution (the overthrow of indigenous power structures), and saw the two as "inseparable," in Java the nationalist leaders were able "to stay on top of the revolutionary process ..., riding it in the direction of national rather than social revolution." While "Dutch-educated urban professionals" had led the nationalist movement elsewhere in Indonesia, in Aceh the social revolution had resulted in "the removal of an elite [the uleebalang] possessing the one characteristic seemingly necessary for successful relations with the center—a mastery of the colonial language that provided a shared modality of thought with the national elite." Instead, a "new class" of "Islamic educated theologians and reformers" far removed in their thinking from that elite had come to power. In these circumstances central governments in the new nation would never be "willing to acknowledge the social revolution in Aceh as a legitimate and valued part of the national revolutionary heritage." The leaders of the nation and of Aceh soon came into conflict. There was already disquiet among the Acehnese ulama in the late 1940s over the government's failure to make Indonesia an Islamic state, and Jakarta's disregard for their interests became more apparent in the early 1950s once the center was in a position to extend its authority over the regions. Aceh was incorporated into the province of North Sumatra, and steps were taken to deprive the PUSA of its control of the civil administration, army, and economy, and, more generally, to erode Aceh's effective autonomy. As a result, a rebellion broke out in 1953 under the leadership of Daud Beureueh. It was declared part of the Darul Islam struggle, which had started in West Java in the late 1940s and sought the establishment of a federal Islamic State of Indonesia. The rebellion drew widespread popular support. Unable to quell the revolt by force alone, in 1957 the central government made Aceh a separate province, with Ali Hasjmy, a former PUSA Youth leader, as its first governor. Two years later the province was further given "special region" status, which accorded it autonomy in the areas of religion, customary law, and education. This met the demands of a section of the rebel movement, and the insurgency was brought to an end, though some (including Daud Beureueh) did not give the struggle up completely until 1962.78 In December of that year a conference of 700 Acehnese public figures was held, to mark the region's return to peace and social harmony. Whereas from 1945 to 1953 Aceh had been dominated by the PUSA ulama,79 in the first half of the 1960s new elites began to emerge. As the people benefited from "the tremendous development of education" in Aceh and the government spoke of more development for the province, Acehnese secular intellectuals (including economists) came to prominence. This group's "ideas of how progress might be achieved increasingly came to be seen as the way forward—a practical equivalent of the road to progress, as it was dreamt of by the PUSA leaders some thirty years earlier." The ulama remained immensely influential, but the position of the reformist ulama had been undermined by the events of the previous decade, to the advantage of the orthodox (or conservative) ulama who had been eclipsed by the reformists since the 1930. According to one writer, despite the marked centralization of power that characterized the last years of the Sukarno regime, the special status bestowed on Aceh "to a great extent diminished to a minimum level the flow of alien socio-political values from outside Aceh . . . , and the Acehnese were left nearly untouched by political games played at the national fora during that period." The games would be different, but after 1965 there would be no immunity for Aceh from the political changes emanating from Jakarta.