Last night the representatives of the Indonesian government and the Free Aceh Movement finally signed an agreement designed to end the province’s long-running independence war (see here). The rebels have agreed to remain within Indonesia in return for regional self-government, an amnesty and the withdrawal of Indonesian troops. (See Crikey’s previous report on the conflict here.)

There is no indication that that the Acehnese have actually given up their ambition for independent nationhood; for them, autonomy is just a first step. And the lesson of history is that genuine self-government almost always leads to independence if that is what the local population wants. Once the colonial power has conceded day-to-day control, re-imposing it is a major operation, and one that is impossible for a democracy to sustain.

As The Age‘s editorial puts it this morning, Dr Yudhoyono’s “promise of a democratic Indonesia, governed by the rule of law, is incompatible with the old approach to subjugating Aceh (or any other provinces). Aceh is a test of the democratic credentials of Indonesia and its President.”

The same lesson is being learned on the other side of the world, where Iraq’s National Assembly is scrambling to agree on a new constitution. The big outstanding issue is the degree of autonomy to be given the Kurdish north and the Shi’ite south; the Sunni Arabs of central Iraq, who are used to running the whole country, risk being excluded from most
of its oil wealth.

For Kurdistan, autonomy will ultimately mean independence. And why shouldn’t it? No-one questions the right of Norway, for example, to be a country of its own – yet there are twice as many Kurds as Norwegians, and they are much more ethnically and culturally distinct from their neighbours. No good purpose is served by treating existing national boundaries as unalterable.