ABSTRACT
On 22 September, 1999, the Indonesian parliament formally recognized Aceh’s special place in Indonesia by introducing Law No.44/1999 on the ‘Special Status of the Province of Aceh Special Region’. This initiative followed the introduction of two other autonomy laws passed earlier in 1999 that devolved limited political, economic and administrative authority to all of Indonesia’s sub-provincial administrations. The decision to grant the Acehnese additional powers in the fields of Islamic law, education and adat (customary law) was based on the dominant assumption in Jakarta that the contemporary conflict in Aceh had directly stemmed from the central government’s failure to honour the terms of the Darul Islam settlement. However, while Jakarta’s offer of Islamic law would have redressed the religious grievances of Aceh’s Darul Islam rebel leaders, the structure and expectations of Acehnese society had undergone a major transformation since the 1950s and early 1960s. By September 1999, GAM and SIRA were more politically influential than the ulama and regional calls for Islamic law had been supplanted by demands for an East Timor-style referendum on Acehnese independence.
