Bapak Zulfikar

Zulfikar works to empower widows who are the victims of human rights abuses, under the cover of various channels, so that the women can take the lead in exposing the violations and seeking redress.

Zulfikar has created a model for community action in seeking justice in the face of human rights abuses, a model that is relevant for all parts of the country. It is a grassroots approach to the solution of human rights problems. He uses a number of covers (income generation, environmental issues) in group formation among the widows, as inroads to empower them to document and then speak out about the human rights violations. A particular new aspect is his strategy of organizing the women to build a shop for their group, to form a structure that has both physical and abstract meanings for the group. In abstract terms it is a kind of cell, a group structure whose solidarity is symbolized by the building itself, and one that will outlive the goods sold in the shop.

The problems have to be seen in their historical context. Aceh (a province in North Sumatra) has had a long struggle against outside rule, first against the Dutch colonialists before Independence and later at various times in the 1950s and 1960s against the central government of Indonesia when some people wanted a separate Islam state. In the 1970s there was a renewed armed insurgency, under the leadership of Hasan Tiro who returned from exile overseas and revived GAM - Gerakan Aceh Merdeka (Free Aceh Movement). This time the conflict was in reaction to the central government's development plans. In 1971, Pertamina (the government oil company) began to develop the huge Arun oil/gas fields in Lhokseumawe district, in partnership with Bechtel America, and without involving the Acehnese. The project, and other factories who have moved in, have caused many problems - economic problems for the local people because they were evicted from their land and never given proper compensation; social problems because of the companies' policies of employing workers from other provinces rather than locals; and severe environmental problems caused by denuded land and waste disposal into rivers.

Other large companies have also moved into the industrial complex (Mobil Oil, Kraft Paper) and all of them have sidelined the local inhabitants, resulting in sentiments to rise higher. ABRI (Indonesian Armed Forces) moved in to put down an armed insurgency in 1978, and Hasan Tiro fled overseas again, but the grievances remained and trouble flared again in 1989. This time, ABRI declared Aceh to be officially a DOM area - Daerah Operasi Militer (Military Operations Zone) - and has stationed whole battalions of battle troops there from that time until today. Thousands of Acehnese villagers have lost their lives during this DOM era.

There have been very serious human rights abuses over the last 9 years due to military repression of ordinary people - arbitrary arrest and detention, disappearances and executions, torture and rape, of innocent villagers as warnings to others. So many men have died or have never been seen again that there are now entire villages without adult males, and many thousands of women and orphans who often still do not know the fate of their husbands and fathers. This was not well-known by outsiders, as people were too traumatized to speak out and the media was gagged. The population of Aceh is 4 million, with 1 million in the Lhokseumawe district, and by the calculations of media and NGO groups there are as many as 30,000 people who are believed to be murdered/missing persons in Aceh, and scores of villages destroyed, since the start of the most recent military operations. In mid-1998, mass graves have been uncovered and women are beginning to speak out about their experiences of gang rape and sexual harassment by the army.

The problems faced by the women and children have been, and still are, multi-faceted - economic hardships through lack of income; low standards of health and education; emotional trauma and very high levels of fear; lack of awareness of their rights and powerlessness before the authorities; and unclear status because of lack of evidence that their husbands/fathers are dead. Outright fear is the most basic problem.

Such human rights abuses are not limited to Aceh as instances of military repression and brutality are occurring all over the country, as the centralized state enforces its power with the backing of the military. Apart from the DOM status of the 3 provinces of Aceh, East Timor and West Irian, there have been flashes of repressive and excessive military actions in recent years in other areas such as West Kalimantan, Lampung, Madura, and Tanjung Priok in Jakarta, resulting in similar patterns of deaths and disappearances. Demonstrations and labour strikes are dealt with by armed suppression and deaths by army and police bullets. Many student activists are still missing, and there has been army and police complicity in the recent mysterious murders of 200 people in East Java.

Zulfikar was a founding member of Yapda (Yayasan Putra Dewantara) - Foundation of Dewantara Youth - in 1992. It is an organisation that arose out of discussions from high school days among Zulfikar and friends and the name was chosen to give neutrality and camouflage to the group as Dewantara is just the name of a district in Aceh. Zulfikar acted as a volunteer at first as he was still a student but he became director in 1994. The original aim of Yapda was to work on community development programmes, to improve peoples' institutions and to tell the world about Aceh's problems. When Zulfikar became director, he developed the focus on human rights issues and it was his idea to form the widows' groups.

Since the situation has been so dangerous for everyone, Zulfikar's approach to the formation of action groups among the widows has been circumspect. He cannot explore human rights issues directly, as the communities as well as the army would be suspicious, so the strategy is to work through community development programmes to improve the women's overall awareness and organisational abilities as a first step towards advocacy. There are 4 main areas where it is known that mass slaughter by the military has occurred and Yapda has gone into villages in these areas and as a first stage has established environmental action groups and agricultural/income-generating groups (chilly crops and duck farming) among the women as a "cover" for the second stage of the human rights training. All women are able to join the groups but Yapda's aim is to include all the widows. This is a very innovative way of forming groups that seem non-threatening to the authorities and it helps the women to develop slowly from a position of silence to a position where they can speak out. As trust and knowledge develops among the group members, twice monthly meetings are held in which they are given information about their rights and about ways to seek clarification and justice for the loss of the men and brutality suffered directly by the women.

Certain methods have been developed to support this process, the writing of personal journals and the building of group shops. The documentation process begins by encouraging them to write down their experiences, or to draw pictures, then proceeds to analysis of their problems. The aim is to get them to express themselves so they can understand and deal with their traumas, to improve their powers of critical thinking, and finally to use the journals as evidence when facing the authorities on human rights abuses. This latter stage is not yet reached but a test case is in progress with a group of women who have been able to take their protests about an environmental problem to the factory involved and to speak directly with the managers. They have also taken the case to the local parliament.

Zulfikar has devised the idea of a simple shop as a focal point for each group. They build this themselves and sell their produce and anything else in it. It is also their meeting place and a roof over the group in a figurative sense. Zulfikar instills in them the idea that the shop can go bankrupt or change its wares but the structure remains firm and can be restocked, just like the group itself which has value as a unit that can be filled up with other issues when required. This is the unit of sustainability for the group structure and a sort of control centre for community control. And this fits with the long-term aim of Yapda which is for the people to have the power to demand their own rights. Zulfikar has created a very innovative model here, one that can be replicated widely. Yapda is currently working intensively with women's groups in 4 villages and they have 160 widows who are at the stage of being prepared to present their cases.

Zulfikar has succeeded in attracting support for his ideas. He gets funding support from Elsam, a national organisation for social programmes, Inpi-Pact/USAID, Yapika (a Canadian funder) and Nindja (a democracy organisation from Japan) is in negotiation with them. Zulfikar has recently negotiated an agreement for legal support for the women from Elsam, when the time comes. He has also recently taken an active role in Kontras (Komisi Orang Hilang dan Tindak Kekerasan) - Commission for Victims of Violence and Missing Persons - helping them to collect data. He has joined this national body by making Yapda its local branch for two reasons, to contribute his data and to give himself the protection of such a high profile body in the dangerous work he does. For the same reasons, he makes deliberate efforts to be exposed in the local press when he gives evidence of human rights abuses.

Zulfikar is from Aceh and has always lived there. He is married and has a small son. He did not start school until he was 9 years old, but caught up quickly and was always top of the class. He entered university to study sociology and politics but had to quit after 2 years as he could not support himself financially. From a young age he started reading widely and read much about human rights problems. He then noticed many examples of human rights abuses around him and became active in a university discussion group on this topic. His interest in women's issues arose because of his great admiration for the many famous heroines in Acehnese history, and he liked to read about their struggles against the Dutch.

Zulfikar is relatively young to be involved in such serious human rights issues but his maturity and strong physique are advantages for him. He maintains a neutral political stance and has faced personal dangers with equanimity. As an example, his organisation issued a press release about the environmental destruction by a big oil company and he was called in by the authorities and ordered to make a retraction but he avoided this by getting the backing of the Walhi environmental forum in Jakarta; the company then offered him a large bribe to drop the charges and threatened to discredit him by linking his name with GAM but he told them it would be better for them to distribute the funds to the poor. He has had to go into hiding at times to avoid being "kidnapped" and becoming a missing person.