ABSTRACT
In many ways, civilian experience and perception of Aceh’s war spanned wider extremes between reality and propaganda than that seen from the TNI-POLRI and GAM battlefield. Indonesian troop casualties were a sensitive operational matter for generally strict unit and service censorship, but Jakarta’s main concealing effort went towards its repressive action against noncombatants, as Jakarta sought to criminalize GAM and Acehnese resistance, denying them political legitimacy, and thereby justifying antiguerrilla war. Meanwhile, widespread TNI-POLRI violence against civilians continued, serving some deterrent and punitive effect both on civilians and GAM alike. Not that GAM passively looked on: assassination threatened Jakarta’s government officials and alleged informercollaborators, especially where Jakarta’s territorial control was weaker. At strategic levels, Indonesian perception management of the war concentrated on projecting its combat and territorial strengths via regular publicity, a general fact that much of this study almost inevitably replicates in its sources. Part of such public projection concerned paramilitary, or militia, mobilization; other highlevel focus emphasized ethnoreligious issues.
