October 2000

Jafar Siddiq Hamzah, freedom fighter

News and Letters Committees mourns the death of Jafar Siddiq Hamzah, 35, Acehnese freedom fighter and human rights activist, who was disappeared in Medan, Indonesia, Aug. 5. His mutilated body was found along with four others about 40 miles away on Sept. 3 and could not be identified for several days.

Jafar lived in New York for the past three years, where he headed the International Forum for Aceh, working tirelessly to end government repression in his home province. He supported and advised the mass movement of students, women, farmers, and the whole population of Aceh that burst into protest against the Indonesian military's torture and killing of dissidents after the dictator Suharto was forced out of power two years ago. (See stories in N&L, December. 1999, January-February, March and June 2000, all written with Jafar's generous assistance.)

Jafar recently helped found the first newspaper ever in the Acehnese language, SU ACHEH. He returned to the Aceh area for a few months in June, in spite of death threats that came to him here in New York, in order to set up offices for the newspaper and for a new organization, Support Committee for Human Right in Acheh, and to investigate the complicity of Mobil Oil in government repression. A man of peace, he was a major voice attempting to unify the Acehnese freedom movements, including the guerrilla movement, GAM, whose violence he opposed.

Jafar was kidnapped in the third largest city in Indonesia on a busy street in the middle of the day. He was well-known in the international human rights community, and a massive campaign of calling, writing and emailing the Indonesian and U.S. governments began as soon as he disappeared. Demonstrations demanding he be found were held in New York and Washington. But the Indonesian military and police refused to search for him undoubtedly because he was kidnapped by one of them or a paramilitary group they sanction. At first the police refused even to take a missing person's report. A week later, a thousand students demonstrated outside the police station, as did a group of 400 lawyers. Then "investigators" came and harassed his friends and co-workers, some of whom have now received death threats as well.

Raised in what he described as a traditional rural Acehnese family and schooled in Islamic studies, Jafar became a prominent human rights lawyer in Indonesia. He left the country four years ago due to intimidation and threats by the military. At the time of his murder, he was a graduate student in political science at the New School University and a permanent resident of the U.S.

Large groups of people flocked to his family's home near Lhokseumawe for his funeral Sept. 8. The International Forum for Aceh (IFA) will hold a memorial meeting for him in October.

Aceh is in northwest Indonesia, on the tip of Sumatra. After suffering for years under martial law-at least 5,000 people were killed during the 1990s-and from economic exploitation by the central government, the people want the military out and want a referendum to determine whether they will become independent. The demand for a referendum spread throughout the province after East Timor won independence via a referendum conducted by the U.N. last year. As the civil movements gained strength, however, killing and torture intensified-more than 400 people have been killed so far this year, more than 100 disappeared, and thousands have been driven from their homes. The only Acehnese member of the Indonesian congress was murdered a few months ago, and a prominent Islamic university rector was killed on Sept. 16.

Aug. 16 and 17, for Indonesia's independence day, 5,000 protesters rallied at a university campus near the capital of Banda Aceh to demand a referendum. According to a report, "UN flags sprouted on the campus and in most parts of Banda Aceh overnight, after Aceh police had warned they would not tolerate the flying of any flags other than the Indonesian national red and white flag on August 17." Last year, people were threatened by the authorities if they didn't fly the Indonesian flag and threatened by GAM if they did. Now Aceh may be subjected to a new "civil emergency" law that would give the authorities even more power to search and seize anyone and anything, including the computers that are vital to getting out the news.

Jafar was an internationalist to the core. SU ACHEH is to have a section in English so it can be read around the world. As many meetings as we attended with him over the last year on the subjects of Aceh, East Timor, and Indonesia, we saw him at nearly as many concerning U.S. movements, especially the Seattle youth movement. He was happy and grateful that people here were interested in the struggles in Aceh, shared the latest news and always flashed a wonderful smile.

Jafar's knowledge of the histories of Aceh and Indonesia made him skeptical of appeals to nationalism and keenly aware that freedom can only be measured by the lives of ordinary people.

We who knew him in New York are determined to continue his work through the International Forum for Aceh (IFA) and the Student Coalition for Aceh, which people can join from anywhere in the world. Write IFA, Box 13, 511 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10011, or email acehforum@aol.com or studentsforaceh@hotmail.com. You can also send donations for his family and to continue the newspaper SU ACHEH. Much information about Jafar and Aceh is available on the IFA and East Timor Action Network websites, www.aceh.org/ifa and www.etan.org.

-Anne Jaclard