Tag Archives: Aceh

Aceh whippings hide deeper problem with Indonesian Islam

Reporting of two gay men being publically whipped in the Indonesian city of Banda Aceh has sparked concerns that Indonesia’s long-vaunted ‘tolerant’ Islam is turning fundamentalist. Islam in Indonesia is in a process of change and a more fundamentalist version of the faith is increasingly prominent. The ‘Aceh whippings’, however, may be misleading. Aceh was […]

Aceh’s peace agreement under threat

Approaching the tenth anniversary of what has otherwise been described as one of the most successful peace agreements of recent times, Indonesia’s province of Aceh is on the verge of again being plunged into bloody conflict. Indonesia’s Defence Minister, the former hardline general Ryamizard Ryacudu, has threatened to return Aceh to military conflict status following […]

Aceh, earthquakes and politics played rough

The massive but, happily, largely benign earthquake off the coast of Sumatra on Wednesday left millions of people in Aceh reliving the nightmare the engulfed them on Boxing Day 2004, when a similarly large but different type of earthquake sent a wall of water across the lowlands, killing around 180,000 people. That the earthquake and […]

GAM vs GAM: Aceh elects the other faction

Informal results show that elections in Indonesia’s tsunami-devastated and war-ravaged province of Aceh have dumped the incumbent governor and put in office the political party of the former separatist guerrilla movement. This outcome marks a major victory for the political vehicle of the former separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM), the Aceh Party (PA).   In […]

Aceh’s troubled elections

Indonesia’s province of Aceh goes to the polls on Monday, in what has been a bitterly contested election for the position of governor. In Indonesia’s other provinces the position of governor is important but, in the autonomous province of Aceh, following a three decade long separatist war, it is critical. As a result of the […]

Dark forces still at work in Aceh, Indonesia

In early October, Aceh will hold its second gubanatorial elections since the 2005 peace agreement that ended almost three decades of separatist war. After five years of relative peace and stability, the main political tensions appear to be between competing factions of the former Free Aceh Movement (GAM). Other, more troubling tensions are, however, just […]

Policies, not parties or personalities, for Aceh’s future

In a short couple of months, Aceh will again go to the polls to elect a governor and vice-governor, bupatis and local representatives. The election will mark a consolidation of the democratic process in Aceh, introduced as a result of the 2005 Helsinki peace agreement. Even though the campaign period for the elections has not […]

Good Governance, Accountability and Development: Aceh as a Case Study

<!–[if gte mso 9]> Normal 0 false false false EN-GB X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 <!–{12928718859242}–<!–[if gte mso 10]> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:”Table Normal”; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:””; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:”Calibri”,”sans-serif”;} (These are the notes from an address to the recent International Conference on Governance and Development, […]

Six Month Anniversary of Haitian Earthquake

Aceh has much to teach the world – including those engaged in the reconstruction of Haiti.   It is now six months since Haiti was devastated by an earthquake and six years since the Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004 devastated Aceh.   Attention in Haiti has moved to the reconstruction accompanied by well publicized frustration […]