Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Legal Arms for Illegal Purposes: A Note on the Aceh Militias

In Central Aceh, the TNI has an ethnic Javanese and Gayo militia force that is estimated to be larger than the Aceh-wide GAM. An investigator who speaks the local Gayo language puts their strength at 12,000 people and 6,000 weapons -- some homemade, some military issue. The Helsinki Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Indonesia and GAM has a clause (4.9) for the "decommissioning of all illegal arms" but only those held by "illegal groups and parties," and under Indonesian law state-organized militias can be construed as legal.

Arms held by the TNI - POLRI are, of course, implicitly defined as legal, a privilege which every country in the world grants to its security forces. Some theorists say that the very definition of a state is its monopoly on legitimate violence. So the state's arms are always legal, even if routinely used for illegal acts like murder and theft, or to carry out policies like illegal invasions or occupations.

Tuesday, August 16, 2005

Good Cop - Bad Cop Blackmail on Aceh: The Advantages of Seeming Crazy

The TNI - POLRI is now saying that they have about 35,000 men in Aceh, which, if true, would mean that under the Helsinki deal with GAM signed yesterday they will be temporarily withdrawing about 32% of their troops, not much more than a normal rotation.

It is often said that there are more TNI - POLRI bases than there are schools or mosques in Aceh, and traveling along the roads and counting suggests that in many zones that might well be true. In populated areas of the main Medan - Banda Aceh road one encounters a marked base or post every few hundred meters, not including the unmarked Intel and Kopassus bases, which are sometimes known to residents. In Langsa, plainclothes Kopassus officers can be seen smoking in their undershirts outside a run-down commercial building where local civil servants have been dragged in and had their faces mauled on suspicion of giving food to GAM.

The Kopassus men have money and are wordly; they move all over the archipelago, and their foreign trainers have included Americans, Australians, Germans, and Taiwanese. But it is the TNI's cruder street level militias -- not counted in official troop numbers -- that are now in the spotlight since people fear that if the Jakarta generals don't get enough payoff from the GAM surrender deal, they may unleash the militias in order to provoke the GAM into taking up arms again.

That scenario may be unlikely, but everyone knows from experience in Timor and elsewhere that it is not impossible, and that hanging possibility of supra-normal terror creates leverage for TNI - POLRI, both within Aceh and in their lobbying for restored aid overseas.

It is a classic good cop - bad cop con: the smooth lobbyists (like the President, Gen. Susilo, and Juwono Sudarsono, the defense minister) say to the foreigners: 'Look, these generals are crazy! You'd better buy them off with aid, or God know what they'll do. And as much as I'd like to stop them I can't be responsible for their actions. '

So on top of the continuing rule by their oppressors there's an implicit blackmail hanging over Aceh: if the generals don't get what they want -- like restored US guns and money -- they may take it out on Aceh and burn it, as they did to Timor in 1999.

Kejelasan tercapai, Penindas bertahan di tempat: kesepakatan yang melucuti senjata sepihak di Aceh

Hari ini (15 Agustus 2005), Gerakan Aceh Merdeka (GAM) akan menandatangani kesepakatan dengan pemerintah Indonesia. Dengan ini mereka sepakat untuk meletakkan senjata dan menerima amnesti, uang dan tanah pertanian. Mereka akan diizinkan membentuk partai politik lokal dan sebagai imbalannya, membuat janji politik untuk diam: dalam hukum Indonesia, partai ini tidak akan diizinkan untuk menganjurkan apa yang selama ini menjadi pendiriam GAM-kemerdekaan untuk Aceh, atau sekurang-kurangnya pemilihan melalui referendum mengenai kemerdekaan.

TNI-POLRI, yang telah membunuh jutaan warga sipil Aceh (GAM juga melakukan pembunuhan, tetapi dalam jumlah yang jauh lebih kecil), sementara akan menarik beberapa pasukannya, tetapi dalam jangka panjang berhak untuk mengirimnya kembali ke Aceh sekehendaknya karena Jakarta tetap menjadi penguasa di Aceh.

Sekarang pun, dalam bulan-bulan transisi mendatang, ketika beberapa ratus monitor asing akan hadir, pasukan-pasukan dari satuan-satuan militer dan polisi yang dikenal paling ganas masih berada di Aceh: operator-operator Intel yang menyelenggarakan rumah-rumah penyiksaan, personel Angkatan Udara yang telah menjatuhkan bom di desa-desa, dan BRIMOB yang melakukan penculikan dan perkosaan di berbagai checkpoint boleh tetap di sana selama secara teknis diklasifikasi sebagai unsur-unsur "organik." Dan di luar butir-butir formal kesepakatan ini-sebagaimana diakui baik oleh aktivis maupun kalangan militer-Kopassus, pasukan khusus yang dilatih oleh AS, pasukan yang paling ditakuti, juga tetap berada di Aceh, bergerak secara terselubung dan menerapkan "taktik dan teknik" dengan "menteror" dan "penculikan", seperti dicantumkan dalam salah satu pedoman pelatihan rahasia mereka (Buku Petunjuk tentang Sandi Yudha TNI AD, Nomor: 43-B-01).

Kesepakatan ini disajikan sebagai penarikan TNI dan kesepakatan perdamaian untuk Aceh. Tetapi sesungguhnya kesepakatan ini tidak memenuhi kedua butir tersebut - TNI-POLRI akan bertahan di Aceh dan berhak mempertahankan senjata dan menggunakan sekendaknya -dan mereka yang selama ini merupakan pelanggar perdamaian utama, melakukan sebagian besar pembunuhan warga sipil, penyiksaan, pembakaran, perkosaan, penghilangan, pencurian, pemerasan dan penahanan tanpa dasar hukum.

Namun kesepakatan ini memang membawa perubahan besar karena mematikan langkah GAM dan dengan demikian membantu memperjelas situasi: sekarang tak dapat disangkal lagi bahwa keadaannya ialah TNI-POLRI versus warga-warga sipil. Inilah yang senantiasa menjadi inti kehidupan politik di Aceh modern, yang tidak dilihat dunia luar karena GAM secara sia-sia menembaki penindas dan mengalihkan perhatian pihak luar (yang memang sudah seadanya saja) dari pembunuhan warga-warga sipil yang dilakukan TNI-POLRI.

GAM pantas mendapat pujian karena meletakkan senjata. Seharusnya sudah lama mereka melakukannya. Selama ini mereka hanya memperburuk permasalahannya, dan sekarang mereka telah pergi dan berbagai peluang terbuka. Namun, tindakan menegasi diri itu tidak boleh disalah-artikan sebagai penyelesaian masalah Aceh, dan yang secara de facto menjadi janji tutup mulut juga tidak boleh disalah-artikan sebagai sikap yang berlaku bagi masyarakat Aceh sebagai keseluruhan.

Pada bulan November 1999, masyarakat Aceh menyelenggarakan demonstrasi besar yang, dilihat secara proporsional merupakan salah satu demonstrasi terbesar dalam sejarah dunia. Mungkin seperempat penduduk Aceh memasuki Banda Aceh dan secara damai menyuarakan tuntutan untuk referendum. TNI-POLRI yang tidak cukup mengantisipasi kejadian ini, menghancurkan gerakan warga sipil ini karena tahu bahwa meski mereka tidak akan kalah secara militer dalam perang tembak-menembak melawan GAM, mereka mungkin sekali kalah secara politik apabila dunia sempat mendengar suara-suara damai Aceh itu.

Hal itu tidak terjadi. Jafar Siddiq Hamzah, suara internasional Aceh saat itu, yang telah memberi kesaksian di Kongres AS, disiksa hingga mati ketika pulang (jenazahnya ditemukan bulan September 2000). Suara-suara lain dibunuh, ditahan atau menjadi eksil, dan baru dengan tsunami bulan Desember 2004, untuk pertama kalinya dunia mulai mengetahui Aceh.

Secara legal dan militer, orang-orang Aceh masih tersubordinasi seperti dahulu. Meskipun kesepakatan perdamaian memuat dua rujukan pada perjanjian-perjanjian PBB mengenai hak-hak sipil dan politik dan membentukan institusi lokal seperti pengadilah HAM (tanpa wewenang yang tercantum secara khusus), hukum-hukum represif yang mengikat semua orang Indonesia juga masih berlaku bagi orang Aceh. Dan, lebih penting lagi, TNI-POLRI-yang secara efektif masih berdiri di luar hukum-masih menduduki wilayah Aceh.

Namun, dilihat secara dingin dan pragmatis, dengan tersisihkannya GAM, ada peluang bagi suara-suara perlawanan yang meski masih tertindas mungkin bisa menjadi produktif secara politis. Muhamad Nazar, aktifis sipil yang paling dikenal-yang dinilai terlalu besar untuk dibunuh-dipenjarakan karena menganjurkan referendum dalam pidatonya di desa. Ada berita informal bahwa ia akan dibebaskan, tetapi apabila ia menyampaikan isi pidato yang sama, ia bisa dipenjarakan sekali lagi-atau mengalami nasih yang lebih buruk. Tetapi dalam masa paska-GAM ini, akan terbuka kemungkinan bahwa pengorbanan seperti itu akan menarik perhatian luar yang berarti.

Perhatian seperti itulah yang memungkinkan Timor Timur memperoleh kemerdekaannya dalam kondisi yang berbeda. Tetapi bagi Aceh, hal itu lebih sulit karena secara historis Aceh menjadi bagian Indonesia (dan sudah berdiri bahkan sebelum ada Indonesia), sementara Timor Timur merupakan wilayah asing yang di-invasi oleh Indonesia dengan dukungan AS pada tahun 1975. Kehilangan sepertiga dari penduduknya dalam pembantaian oleh TNI-POLRI tidak menghasilkan apa-apa bagi masyarakat Timor sampai pada pembantaian Dili tahun 1991 menarik perhatian luar dan pengakuan bahwa ini merupakan kasus pembunuhan kaum sipil oleh militer yang tidak dapat dibenarkan.

Aceh merupakan kasus serupa, dan orang-orang Aceh juga banyak yang mati sia-sia. Kalau mereka terus berbicara menuntut referendum, kemungkinan besar mereka akan terus mati, tetapi sekarang mungkin mereka bisa memperoleh sesuatu dari pengorbanan itu karena situasi tidak lagi ditutupi kabut konflik bersenjata antara TNI-POLRI dan GAM, sehingga represi sepihak yang dilakukan TNI-POLRI akan menjadi gamblang.

Yang mungkin mereka peroleh ialah publisiti yang melemahkan TNI/POLRI dan aparat pemerintahan Indonesia yang umumnya represif. Dan pelemahan seperti itu merupakan satu-satunya harapan akan tercapainya demokrasi, kebebasan ataupun keadilan di Aceh dan di Indonesia secara keseluruhan. Tetapi institusi-institusi represif itu hanya akan menjadi lemah kalau bisa dicegah penggunaan kesepakatan ini oleh AS, Eropa, Australia dan kekuatan-kekuatan luar lain untuk berusaha memaksakan pengembalian militer dan/atau menambah bantuan asing bagi militer dan polisi. Dapat dikatakan bahwa dihentikannya bantuan militer atas desakan akar-rumput membuka jalan untuk berakhirnya pendudukan Timor Timur, dan sebelum itu, jatuhnya Jend. Suharto, diktator yang didukung AS.

Jadi, apakah kesepakatan ini membantu atau merugikan akan banyak tergantung juga pada perilaku pihak-pihak luar, dan justru risiko-risiko dan kerumitan seperti ini yang menyebabkan beberapa orang jenderal TNI-POLRI enggan menerimanya. Banyak liputan pers dan spekulasi akar-rumput di Aceh berpusat pada apakah TNI-POLRI dan, bisa juga dikatakan pejuang lapangan GAM, akan mematuhi kesepakatan. Bagi banyak orang GAM, kesepakatan ini merupakan obat yang pahit. Merekalah, dan bukan pembunuh-pembunuh berskala besar, yang harus meletakkan senjata, melepaskan tujuannya dan merendahkan diri di hadapan negara musuh. Tetapi pada saat yang sama mereka akan memperoleh amnesti dan di atas kertas akan bebas pulang ke rumah masing=masing. Bagi TNI-POLRI, nampaknya sebagai kemenangan: mereka memperoleh senjata api dan hak untuk berkuasa, sementara Aceh memperoleh bendera lokal. Tetapi konflik dengan GAM ini sangat menguntungkan jenderal-jenderal Jakarta karena telah memberi pembenaran pada dominasi mereka di Indonesia dan menjadikan banyak jutawan. Mudah sekali melihat kenapa banyak di antara mereka akan menyesal dengan perginya GAM yang bersenjata.

Tetapi Presiden Indonesia, Jend. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono-yang melakukan supervisi pada represi dan darurat militer di Aceh di bawah Presiden yang lalu, Megawati Sukarnoputri-mempunyai pandangan yang lebih strategis. Ia nampaknya menyadari bahwa meskipun TNI membutuhkan perang bersenjata dua pihak untuk membenarkan dirinya pada masyarakat Indonesia, TNI tidak membutuhkan konflik bersenjata lebih banyak lagi. (Baru-baru ini militer mengirim 15.000 pasukan Kostrad dan Kopassus ke Papua yang sangat tertindas, di mana terdapat gerakan perlawanan bersenjata ringan, dan militer masih memprovokasi kekerasan Muslim lawan Kristen di kepulauan utara Indonesia tengah), dan bahwa hilangnya uang surplus yang dapat dicuri dari Aceh sebagai zona perang bisa diimbangi dengan uang yang dapat dicuri dari penambahan bantuan tsunami, serta kekuasaan yang dapat diperoleh kembali oleh TNI-POLRI secara keseluruhan dengan bantuan militer dan polisi dari luar. (Militer dan polisi juga bisa berharap akan melanjutkan proyek-proyek gelapnya di Aceh dan Sumatra Utara, termasuk penebangan ilegal, ganja, prostitusi, hijacking, pemerasan, "keamanan" dan landasan perikanan lepas pantai yang menggunakan anak-anak yang dipaksa kerja). Jend. Susilo juga yang mengatakan bahwa "menuntut referendum" di Aceh "dianggap sebagai tindak pidana melawan negara" (Jakarta Post, 24 Desember 2003), dan prinsip itu masih akan dipaksakan dengan kekerasan, tetapi nampaknya ia berharap bahwa kesepakatan ini sekarang memungkinkan pihak luar negeri melihat bahwa Jakarta telah berubah.

Kalau ternyata Jend. Susilo benar, dan bahwa kesepakatan ini membawa sumberdaya dan kekuatan baru bagi TNI-POLRI, maka keluhan jenderal-jenderalnya tidak akan berakar, dan kesepakatan ini akan menjadi malapetaka bagi Indonesia dan Aceh. Tetapi para petinggi militer sekarang masih mempunyai alasan kedua untuk prihatin: seorang penasihat bagi Yusuf Kalla, wakil presiden Indonesia yang juga seorang pengusaha, yang merupakan pemain utama di balik kesepakatan aceh, secara pribadi mengatakan bahwa sekarang Kalla juga akan menjadi broker finansial bagi perjanjian perdagangan senjata internasional yang baru (penasehat ini mengatakan bahwa perjanjian perdagangan paska Aceh sekarang telah muncil dengan Eropa, Cina dan Israel, antara lain), peran menguntungkan yang secara tradisional dimainkan oleh jenderal-jenderal purnawirawan TNI dan POLRI.

Pada saat ini ditulis-beberapa jam sebelum penandatanganan kesepakatan di Helsinki, Finlandia-orang-orang berkumpul di masjid-masjid dan gereja di Aceh dan berdoa secara publik untuk perdamaian, dan mungkin berdoa secara pribadi untuk kebebasan dan keadilan. Kesepakatan ini tidak akan mengantarkan hal-hal ini. Mereka masih divonnis hidup di bawah penindasan. Tetapi kesepakatan ini juga mengacak situasi yang lalu dan membuka peluang kecil yang, kalau mereka masih berani mengangkat suara, kali ini, kalau mereka ditembaki atau dibelenggu, ada seseorang di luar yang mungkin mendengarnya.

Monday, August 15, 2005

How Many Weapons Did the Aceh GAM Have?: The Pathetic Pretense for Indonesian Terror

With the release today of the final Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Indonesia and GAM the fact has now been revealed that the GAM -- the pretense for TNI - POLRI's massive terror in Aceh -- has all of 840 weapons, barely enough to fill one big truck. At least that's the figure they declare in the document, and though the tally may not be totally honest, people familiar with GAM say that it cannot be that far from the truth.

The MOU also says that TNI - POLRI will for the moment openly keep 23,800 troops in Aceh, half or more of what they have now, and a figure roughly equivalent to their troop levels during many recent years. This gives the lie to the widely reported claim in recent weeks that TNI - POLRI would be pulling out, and heightens the question of their rationale for being there at all once the GAM has fully disarmed.

In any event, the troop numbers aren't that crucial, what matters is who's in control (the Indonesian government and TNI - POLRI) and what their policy is (no free speech, repression). As one local human rights monitor put when discussing the MOU clause that temporarily limits troop movements to one platoon (about 100 men in the TNI system): "it only takes one platoon to do a massacre or to start a riot."

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Clarity Achieved, Oppressors Still in Place: A Deal Disarms One Side in Aceh

Today (August 15, 2005) the Aceh Freedom Movement (GAM, Gerakan Aceh Merdeka) will sign a deal with the government of Indonesia under which they agree to disarm and accept amnesty, money and farmland. They will be allowed to form a local political party in exchange for a political vow of silence: under Indonesian law the party will not be allowed to stand for what GAM has always stood for -- independence for Aceh, or at least a referendum vote on independence.

The TNI - POLRI (the Indonesian national armed forces and police), which has slaughtered many thousands of Acehnese civilians (GAM has also killed some, but a fraction as many), will temporarily withdraw some of its troops, but will have the long term right to bring them back at its pleasure since Jakarta remains Aceh's sovereign.

Even now in the upcoming transition months, when a couple of hundred foreign monitors will be present, troops from some of the most notorious military and police units can remain in Aceh: Intel operatives who run the torture houses, Air Force men who have bombed villages, and BRIMOB police who abduct and rape at checkpoints can stay so long as they are technically classified as "organic" elements. And outside and above the formal terms of the deal -- activists and military people agree -- the US-trained Kopassus special forces, the most feared of all, can also stay in Aceh, working undercover and applying the "tactic and technique" of "terror" and "kidnapping," as one of their classified training manuals puts it (Buku Petunjuk tentang Sandi Yudha TNI AD, Nomor: 43-B-01).

This deal has been portrayed as a TNI withdrawal and an Aceh peace deal. It is neither -- the TNI - POLRI stay, and they get to keep their weapons and use them at will -- and it is they who have been the main peace violators, doing the vast majority of civilian killings, tortures, arsons, rapes, disappearances, thefts, extortions, and arbitrary detentions .

But the deal does change the situation in a major way in that it puts armed GAM out of business, and helpfully clarifies the situation: it is now undeniably TNI - POLRI versus civilians. That has always been the essence of political life in modern Aceh but the world has never seen it because the GAM was futilely shooting at the oppressors and drawing away all outside attention (such as it was) from the TNI - POLRI's killings of civilians.

GAM deserves credit for disarming. They should have done it a long time ago. They were only making matters worse, and now that they're gone, there are possibilities. But their act of self-abnegation should not be misconstrued as a settlement to the Aceh problem, and their de facto vow of silence should not be construed as applying to Acehnese as a whole.

In November, 1999 the Acehnese mounted what was, in proportional terms, one of the largest demonstrations in world history. Perhaps a quarter of the population turned out in Banda Aceh to peacefully call for referendum. Caught completely off guard, the TNI - POLRI moved to crush the civilian movement, knowing that though they could not lose militarily in a shooting war with the GAM, they could well lose politically if the world got to hear peaceful Aceh voices.

That didn't happen. Jafar Siddiq Hamzah, the leading international voice, who had testified before the US congress, was tortured to death upon returning home (his body was found in September, 2000) (see posting below, "Other People's Hands," of September 22, 2004). Others were assassinated, jailed or driven into exile, and the first the world heard of Aceh was when the tsunami struck in December, 2004.

In legal and military terms the Acehnese are still as subordinated as they were before. Though the deal contains two references to the UN covenants on civil and political rights and establishes local institutions like a human rights court (with no specified powers), the same repressive laws that bind all Indonesians still apply to them, and, far more importantly, the TNI - POLRI -- effectively above the law anyway -- still occupy their region.

But in cold pragmatic terms, with the GAM now out of the way there is the chance that dissident speech, though still repressed, might now become politically fruitful. Muhammad Nazar, the best known civilian activist -- who was seen as too big to kill -- was jailed for giving a speech in a village in which he advocated referendum. Word is that he will be released, but if he gives the same speech again he can be jailed -- or worse -- again, but now, post-GAM, there will be a chance for such a sacrifice to draw some meaningful outside attention.

It was such attention that made it possible for East Timor to win independence in different circumstances, but for Aceh that is more difficult since it is historically part of Indonesia, and indeed predates it, while Timor was a foreign land that was invaded by Indonesia, with US backing, in 1975. The loss of a third of their population to TNI - POLRI slaughter gained nothing for the Timorese until the Dili massacre of 1991 drew some outside attention and the acknowledgment that this was an unjustified case of a military killing civilians.

Aceh is also such a case, and the Acehnese have also been dying in vain. If they continue to speak for referendum they will likely continue to die, but they may now get something for it, since the fog of two-sided combat will presumably no longer obscure the one-sided repression by TNI - POLRI.

What they might get is publicity that weakens the TNI/POLRI, and the repressive Indonesian state apparatus generally, and such weakening is the only hope for any substantial democracy, freedom, or justice in Aceh, and in Indonesia as a whole. But those harmful institutions will only be weakened on balance if the US, Europe, Australia and other outside powers can be stopped from using this deal as yet another excuse to try to push through a restoration and/or increase of foreign military and police aid. It was after all the cutting of that aid, in response to grassroots pressure, that cleared the way for the ending of the Timor occupation and, prior to that, the downfall of the US-backed dictator, Gen. Suharto.

So whether this deal helps or hurts will in important part depend on the behavior of outside parties, and it is just such risks and complexities that have made some TNI - POLRI generals reluctant to accept it. Much press coverage and grassroots speculation in Aceh has centered on whether TNI - POLRI and, for that matter, the GAM field fighters, will follow the deal. For many GAM people it is a bitter pill. It is they, and not the big-time killers who will have to lay down their arms, renounce their goal, and prostrate themselves before the enemy state. But at the same time they will get amnesty and will be ostensibly free to return to their homes. For the TNI - POLRI it looks like victory: they get the guns and the right to rule, while Aceh gets a local flag. But this sparring with GAM has been very good to the Jakarta generals. It has helped to justify their dominance of Indonesia and it has made many of them millionaires. It is easy to see why many of them will be sorry to see the armed GAM go.

But Indonesia's President, Gen. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono -- who supervised the Aceh repression and martial law under the previous President, Megawati Sukarnoputri -- takes a more strategic view. He seems to recognize that though TNI needs a two-sided shooting war for self-justification to Indonesians, it doesn't necessarily need two or three of them (The military recently sent 15,000 new Kostrad troops and Kopassus into harshly-repressed Papua in Indonesia's east, which has a lightly-armed rebel movement, and continues to stage violent Christian vs. Muslim provocations in the country's north - central islands), and that the loss of surplus money to be stolen from from a combat-zone Aceh can be more than compensated for by the money to be stolen from increased tsunami aid flows, and the power to be regained by the TNI - POLRI as a whole from new foreign military and police aid. (The military and police can also expect to continue running their rackets in Aceh and nearby North Sumatra, which have included illegal timber, marijuana, prostitution, hijacking, extortion, protection and offshore fishing platforms staffed by press-ganged under-aged boys). It was Gen. Susilo who said that "to demand a referendum" in Aceh "is considered a crime against the state" (Jakarta Post, December 24, 2003), and that principle will still be imposed by force, but he evidently hopes that this deal will now enable Jakarta to be seen from overseas as having somehow changed its stripes.

If Gen. Susilo proves to be right, and the deal brings fresh resources and strength for TNI - POLRI, then his generals' grumbling will have been groundless, and it will be a catastrophe for Indonesia and Aceh. But the officers do have at least one secondary reason for concern: An adviser to Indonesia's businessman vice president, Yusuf Kalla, a principal broker of the Aceh deal, says privately that Kalla will also now become the personal financial broker for newly opened-up international arms deals (the adviser says post-Aceh-deal deals are in sight with Europe, China, and Israel, among others), a lucrative role traditionally played by retired TNI and POLRI generals.

As this is being written -- a couple of hours before the deal signing in Helsinki, Finland -- people are gathering in Aceh's mosques and churches and praying publicly for peace, and perhaps privately for freedom and justice. This deal will deliver none of those things. They are still condemned to live under their oppressors. But it does scramble the situation and open up the outside chance that if they are still brave enough to speak, this time when they are shot down or put in chains, someone on the outside might hear the rattle.