faraway

This is certainly very interesting question.

This morning, I got an email from my boss which tittled the question above. He mentioned that his email was a brainstorming and an invitation to have internal discussion about programming angles should the Helsinky-talks peace arrangement materialized in Aceh. Of course, those brainstormings and discussions should be related with our current and potential future programmes in Aceh.

One of the impacts if the Helsinky-talks provide an successfully agreement between GAM (Freedom Aceh Movement) and GoI (Government of Indonesia) with whatever requirements that agreed by both sides, then there is going to be a return or reintegration of GAM (Freedom Aceh Movement) members into their original communities. Personally, I thought that reintegrating ex-GAM in communities could have two possibilities, create a peace or create another forms of disputes in Aceh. Of course, we hope that it will create a peace in Aceh. But as my collegue said (and I agreed with him), there are certainly many cases (in other parts of the world) where fighters returning to their previous communities after the formal cessation of conflict had a hard time reintegrating into the community. There have been bad disputes over land and livelihoods, and conflicts related to desired for revenge and lack-of-education among the fighters, etc. For Aceh that still has to face the impacts of tsunami disaster on 26 December 2004, those matters could be even more difficult to address where land and livelihood issues are already problematic and the social fabric is already torn.

For all NGOs in Aceh, specifically us, should start to think how we will anticipate those situations from now, how is our position to respond or be prepared better. A lot of questions came up from my collegues and me : What will happen at the communities if the return and reintegration happens? How will that effect our programs? Our strategies/methodologies certainly has to be adapted so that we can be inclusive and can accommodate the participation of ex-GAM members in whatever ways we do? Do we have a realistic sense of how many GAM members are living outside their communities and may return? Mostly GAM members are young men, if it is correct, how much will this add to the gender imbalance created by the tsunami?What impact will any change in systems/processes of local governance have on our projects? And so on .. so on … still so many questions that I can not write it down in this blog.

We (my colleagues and I) do not know all the answers yet, but at least we are aware with all those questions and should keep this kind of dialogues continue. We need to respond and adapt.

And for all of you who read this posting, welcome if you have any inputs/comments/questions to respond the question as tittled of this posting. I am excitedly waiting for all your responds.

Food for thought …..

Galuh, 3 August 2005 at 12.00
During my lunch time