Predatory Peace

This chapter describes the specific configuration of the political and agrarian structure in Aceh during the civil war and after. It presents two analysis. The first is an analysis of the general land politics in Aceh during and after the war, tracing the Free Aceh Movement's (Gerakan Aceh Merdeka, GAM) development from a rebel movement with a nationalist and popular base to a political party with a rent-seeking practice and an interest in the palm oil economy. The second is an analysis of the institutional mechanisms of dispossession through land-lease allocations. Empirical documentation from two different locations in Aceh illustrates the smallholder plantation land conflicts. By turning space into a frontier under weak claims, new actors were able to seize it through violence, political power, and the paperwork of legalization.