Occasional Paper Series Number 31 Indonesia: ‘Special autonomy’ for Aceh and Papua Jacques Bertrand Indonesia: ‘Special autonomy’ for Aceh and Papua Jacques Bertrand © Forum of Federations, 2019 ISSN: 1922-558X (online ISSN 1922-5598) Occasional Paper Series Number 31 Indonesia: ‘Special autonomy’ for Aceh and Papua By Jacques Bertrand For more information about the Forum of Federations and its publications, please visit our website: www.forumfed.org. Forum of Federations 75 Albert Street, Suite 411 Ottawa, Ontario (Canada) K1P 5E7 Tel: (613) 244-3360 Fax: (613) 244-3372
[email protected] 2 Indonesia: ‘Special autonomy’ for Aceh and Papua Overview Indonesian politics have been characterised by a large number of territorial cleavages that have only been partially addressed since the beginning of democratisation in 1998. It is a very diverse country with a history of several challenges to the state’s external boundaries, as well as internal ethnic and religious conflict. A strong anti-colonial nationalist movement constructed a core set of symbols and ideas around which the nation and state of Indonesia were eventually created, including Bahasa Indonesia as the national language.1 During three decades of authoritarian rule, the state primarily emphasised unity and national integrity over accommodating its diversity.2 Repression was routinely used to quell rising grievances. When the regime began to democratise in 1998, several groups mobilised and demanded more autonomous powers and resources. Most groups primarily grumbled over strong state centralisation. Acehnese, Papuans and East Timorese, however, developed sub-state nationalist movements, all of which demanded independence in response to deeply seated grievances. Decades of violent repression, human rights abuses at the hands of the armed forces, displacement and marginalisation fed strong resentment against the Indonesian state.