If your only source of news is the BBC, then you'd be forgiven for thinking that the only wars taking place in the world right now are in the Middle East. In this series of articles we bring your attention to wars across the world that have been largely forgotten by the western media. For our second article we look at Aceh

One of the most chronically under-documented conflicts in the world today is taking place in Aceh on the island of Sumatra. The Indonesian government under President Suharto used armed troops to annex the region in 1966. Why? You guessed it - oil.

The island's Free Aceh Movement, known as GAM, sought to form an independent Acehan state, much in the style of East Timor, which would see them actually benefit from this massive cash cow, rather than all of the money going to the central government. Predictably though, Suharto was a little opposed to this defiance and his national Indonesian army known as the TNI - publicly recognised as corrupt, collusive and nepotistic - directly carried out over 11,000 killings of both GAM fighters and Acehnese civilians. (1)

This small inconvenience was overlooked by the US, as Suharto was anti-communist: a massive assurance to them following the tiny cock-up that was Vietnam. He also gave them contracts to harvest Aceh's oil and gas. Things becoming clearer? Exxon Mobil Corp currently faces a multimillion-dollar lawsuit, filed on behalf of Acehnese villagers who were tortured and murdered by the TNI on ExxonMobil's own premises. "This ruling has global implications," said Michael Hausfeld, lead counsel for plaintiffs. "It sends the signal to U.S. companies operating overseas that they cannot expect to facilitate and permit these kinds of abuses in the countries where they are operating and escape without punishment. We intend to hold Exxon Mobil accountable for horrible acts committed by their security, on their watch, that they could have and should have prevented."(2)

Following the end of Suharto's presidency in 1999 newly-installed president Wahid promised change, although atrocities continued until the rest of the world finally took notice in December 2002, resulting in the Indonesian government and the GAM signing a Cessation of Hostilities Agreement. This managed to last a whole year before Wahid declared martial law in the province and launched his own major offensive against GAM, which saw Abdullah Syafi'ie, GAM's Aceh commander, assassinated along with his pregnant wife. (3)

During the first half of 2003 progress was again made through talks between the two parties. However, when the peace negotiations failed on 19 May, the conflict intensified. Aceh was placed under a military emergency and an additional 51,000 soldiers and police officers were deployed to eradicate an estimated 5,200 GAM guerrillas. (4)

For the rest of the year Aceh was virtually cut off from independent media coverage; the government banned foreign and local journalists, and expelled numerous NGOs, diplomats and independent observers from the region.

Moves toward peace emerged in the wake of the tsunami in 2004 with both GAM and the Indonesian Government declaring unilateral ceasefires the day after the natural disaster. However, this ceasefire was violated on 1 January 2005 with 175 battle related deaths during the first three months of the year. Fortunately, Save The Children's team in Jakarta report that since a memorandum of understanding was signed between the new, democratically-elected Yudhoyono government and the GAM in Helsinki in August 2005, the government has given total amnesty to 1,488 Acehnese political prisoners and remissions to 366 others serving their jail sentences in prisons in the province. Sounds promising, right?

Other sources, namely the International Crisis Group state that although peace in Aceh continues to hold, where the government and many in Jakarta see a closed book with a happy ending, many Acehnese see a temporary respite from a conflict that will inevitably resume. Another international conflict organisation (www.conflictanddevelopment.org) states that the number of conflicts in Aceh this year reached a new peak since the 2005 peace agreement, with 50 cases reported. Five Chinese GAM sympathisers were brutally murdered in March and seven Chinese nationals were kidnapped in April. The situation continues to unfold without media attention:

"In practice, no one is getting into Aceh," says a Jakarta-based foreign correspondent. "So now covering the story is a hit-or-miss thing. You can't rely on what the TNI says, and you can't trust what GAM says either, and you can't see for yourself."

Amnesty International's official stance is one that acknowledges Indonesia's progress in certain aspects of tackling the problem of torture and ill-treatment in past years, however they believe that those measures have been far from sufficient. Despite progress since the fall of Suharto ten years ago, there is still a prevalent culture of violence among police and military officials and torture and other human rights violations are still widespread.

1 - US National Defense University's Institute for National Strategic Studies - Indonesia's Aceh Conflict in Perspective. 2 - (Cohen Milstein Hausfeld & Toll, Attourneys at Law. - http://www.cmht.com/cases_exxonmobilaceh.php) 3 - Foreign Policy In Focus - selfdetermine.irc-online.org/listserv/020214.html 4 - Uppsala Universitet, Conflict Summary - http://www.pcr.uu.se/database/conflictSummary.php?bcID=201