Searching for a more participatory approach to resolving the Aceh conflict.

The big irony of the Aceh conflict is that the Acehnese grassroots have never been regarded as its rightful stakeholder. More interestingly, the alienation of the people from the process of conflict resolution coincides with the current process of democratization of the Indonesian state following the collapse of Soeharto's authoritarian regime in mid 1998. This paper argues that the resolving of this conflict by the Indonesian government and CAM (Free Aceh Movement) has appeared as if it were the exclusionary business of the political elite of both sides. At the same time the escalation of military violence continues to victimize the civilians both in terms of human lives and socio-economic deprivation. It is now time to seek more participation of the Acehnese civil society groups in the peaceful resolution of this conflict, as these groups constitute one of the conflict's legitimate stakeholders. Otherwise, the prolongation of the conflict would only serve the vested interests of the Indonesian political and military elite. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]