Title:Engineering Violence and Authenticating Separatism: Separating the Indonesian Armed Forces (TNI) from the Free Aceh Movement (GAM)Submitted by:Elizabeth Drexler, Department of Anthropology, University of Washington, USAThis paper explores how stories of violence by the state against its citizens and by "armed civilians" against the state circulate in public discourse determining the contours of what it means to belong to the nation in post-Suharto Indonesia. A freer press exposes many instances of past state violence, but news of current, engineered or spontaneous violence floods the media creating the impression that the state no longer has a monopoly on the use of force. This paper explores rumors, popular suspicions and a discourse of public secrets which suggest strong links between the Indonesian armed forces (TNI) and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM). As public sentiment increasingly favors a referendum with an independence option, discussions of violence no longer focus exclusively on GAM and TNI, but instead are overtaken by the discourse of phantom provocateur. This paper argues that the term provokator perpetuates the violence it seeks to resolve. Return to Abstracts menuCarol Burnett Phone: 61 - 3 - 9349 1899 Email: c.burnett@asialink.unimelb.edu.au
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