ABSTRACT

At the start of Indonesia’s transition to democracy, Aceh’s security situation was highly unstable but not yet critical. The province was still reeling from more than a decade of war and widespread human rights abuses committed during the infamous ‘DOM’ period, and local support for separatism was relatively weak. Even GAM did not refute the Indonesian military’s claim that only 54 guerrillas with 48 firearms remained active in Aceh’s jungles, the lowest recorded estimate of the rebels’ military strength in the post-New Order period (interview with Irwandi Yusuf, 2006; Gatra, 29 August, 1998).