Contents of J:
Jafar
S. Hamzah [America is Not the Planet]:
Jafar Siddiq Hamzah was born on November 16, 1965 in Lhokseumawe, Aceh,
Sumatra, Indonesia. He was a human rights lawyer in Medan, North Sumatra,
Indonesia before he moved to New York and founded the International Forum for
Aceh (IFA), of which he is the current Chairman. He has published numerous
articles and presents at conferences and lectures all around the world.
Centrally, his work focuses on the military involvement in Indonesia, the
residency of multinational corporations in Aceh, and the severe human rights
violations perpetrated and/or facilitated by Indonesian and international
government. The history of these problems is very complex, as the political
scene in Indonesia has been a brutal and bloody one for the past 30 years. Aceh,
a special territory of Indonesia, is located between South India and Malaysia.
Aceh is one of the richest provinces in Indonesia, providing to the central
government substantial revenues from its oil, natural gas, and other
environmental resources. Yet, while the Indonesian government fattens itself on
Acehās resources, Aceh remains one of the poorest provinces, with a very high
number of its villages living disastrously below poverty level.
In addition to these economic inequalities, there have been legal efforts
pushing for Aceh to become a standard territory of Indonesia, leaving it
entirely under the discretion of the military government. These two facts are at
the root of Acehās struggle for independence. But instead of working to
resolve the socio-political and economic conflict through an open dialogue, the
central government has mobilized the military to institutionalize state violence
and counter-insurgency against suspected members of the independence movement.
These suspects are often chosen arbitrarily, without even the knowledge of their
names. In this regard, the military operation has exceeded counter-insurgency,
creating an atmosphere of rape, torture, and random murder. The brutality
brought against these civilians consists of some of the most revolting acts
imaginable. This violence continues today, even though the government-appointed Commission
on Human Rights recommended that the military be disciplined and made
accountable for its crimes. Large numbers of military personnel are still in
Aceh and the killings have not ceased. It is a multi-documented fact
(surprisingly, even well-covered by Businessweek magazine) that Mobil Oil
provided logistical support to the Indonesian military throughout their stay in
Aceh. Mobilās machinery was used by the military government for the explicit
purpose of digging mass graves for the dumping of civilian bodies. Many of those
dead are the corpses of children. Further, Mobil has significantly depleted the
rich environmental resources there, exhibiting complete disregard for the
villageās interdependency with nature. And finally, some of the officers
involved in these atrocities were trained in the United States. For more
history, and a list of the daily atrocities committed in Indonesia, see the
IFAās website at www.aceh.org/forum,
from where much of this information was cited.
Within the context of this handbook, it should be clear why Countdown to
Putsch invited Jafar to be a part of this project. But if it hasnāt become
evident, please consider how these atrocities have been concealed by commercial
interests. The calculated neglect to report such atrocities is sharply
illustrated when one compares any US media report to those of the independent
international press. After such a comparison, it becomes difficult to understand
how the score of any sporting event receives more attention on the nightly news
than mass human rights violations.
Catch me today, because I am a new person tomorrow, forever progressing. I hope you will join me in this process, I hope you will embrace this process.