Background
The conflict in Aceh stems from several major factors including historical mistreatment, disagreements over Islamic law, discontent over the distribution of Aceh's natural resource wealth, and the increase in the numbers of Javanese in Aceh.
During the era of Dutch colonisation in the 1800s Aceh was a centre of resistance against Dutch colonial rule. The Acehnese resisted Dutch forces. They were one of the last Indonesian people to succumb to colonial rule and only after a brutal 30 year campaign, the Aceh War of 1873-1903. When the Netherlands transferred sovereignty of their colonial territory, administration of Aceh was handed over to Indonesia and GAM claims that this was done without consultation with Acehnese authorities. Daud Bereueh mounted an armed rebellion that ended with Aceh being granted special status by President Sukarno. This special status gave Aceh control on religion, custom law and education.
Motivated by discovery of large gas reserves in Lhokseumawe and driven by inherent ethnic-chauvinism widespread amongst the Acehnese, a former Darul Islam "foreign minister", Hasan di Tiro established the Free Aceh Movement (Gerakan Aceh Merdeka) in December 1976. The small movement carried out its first attack on Mobil Oil engineers in 1977, killing one American engineer. Due to this incident, GAM came under the attention of central government who sent small units of counter-insurgency troops that successfully crushed the movement. Di Tiro was nearly killed and was forced to flee to Malaysia while all members of his "cabinet" were either killed or forced to flee abroad by 1979.
Read more about this topic: Free Aceh Movement
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