By Kurt Biddle THE INDONESIAN MILITARY (TNI) is waging a full-scale war on Aceh. Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri has instituted martial law and authorized military operations there for a period of six months, which may be extended. Some 50,000 Indonesian troops have been deployed to “exterminate” the rebel Free Aceh Movement (GAM), a force of less than 5,000. On Monday, May 19, in what has been described as the biggest Indonesian military operation since the 1975 invasion of East Timor, Indonesian paratroopers filled the sky over Aceh, jumping out of U.S.-made C-130 transport planes. OV-10 Bronco counter-insurgency planes, also supplied by the United States, fired rockets at positions near Banda Aceh, the capital. General Dynamics-manufactured F-16 fighter jets are being used to rocket and bomb rebel positions as well. Although U.S. weapons shipments to Jakarta are currently suspended, the TNI plans to attack Aceh with a host of U.S.-supplied military hardware, ...
The Acehnese war [also Aceh War] (1873-1904) was one of the longest and bloodiest in Dutch-Indonesian history. This armed conflict between The Netherlands and the Muslim sultanate of Acheh [now Aceh] in northern Sumatra resulted in Dutch conquest of the Achinese and, ultimately, in Dutch domination of the entire region. An estimated 4000 Dutch and 25,000 Achinese died in the fighting. The 1824 Treaty of London defined a British sphere of influence on the Malay Peninsula and a Dutch sphere on Sumatra, although its provisions placed no restrictions on British trade on the island. Sumatran trade became an issue of contention, however, because the British resented what they saw as Dutch attempts to curtail their commercial activities. One provision of the Treaty of London was the independence of the north Sumatran state of Acheh. But Acheh controlled a large portion of the pepper trade and alarmed the Dutch by actively seeking relations with other Western countries. A new Anglo-Dutch ...