[13] The centralist tendencies of the government of Suharto, along with other grievances, led Hasan di Tiro to form the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) on 4 December 1976 and declare Acehnese independence.

[24] In 1999, chaos in Java and an ineffective central government due to the fall of Suharto gave an advantage to Free Aceh Movement and resulted in the second phase of the rebellion, this time with large support from the Acehnese people.

During 8 November 1999 pro-referendum demonstrations in Banda Aceh, GAM gave support by providing transport to protesters from rural areas to the provincial capital.

"[33] Aspinall saw that these democratic and human rights impulses within GAM as an effect of the efforts of urban-based Acehnese group which were promoting such values in the freer and more open environment following the fall of Suharto from power.

Under the agreement, Aceh would receive special autonomy under the Republic of Indonesia, and non-organic (i.e. non-Aceh native) government troops would be withdrawn from the province (leaving only 25,000 soldiers) in exchange for GAM's disarmament.

Earlier in 1998, Geoffrey Robinson argued that the 1962 defeat and surrender of the Daud Beureueh-led rebellion was followed by roughly 15 years in which Aceh presented no particular security or political problem to the central government.

[49] Tim Kell also pointed out that the former leaders of the 1953–62 rebellion had keenly joined the Indonesian armed forces in the crackdown against the Partai Komunis Indonesia (PKI) in 1965 and 1966.

44/1999 on Aceh Autonomy which included provisions for the implementation of syariah, GAM condemned the move as irrelevant and a possible attempt to deceive Acehnese and or portray them to the outside world as religious fanatics.

It was noted by the International Crisis Group (ICG) that between 1999 and 2001, there were periodic instances of some GAM local military commanders enforcing syariah in communities where they had influence in.

[64] This led some of Aceh's then-emerging technocratic class to lament that the province had been denied its fair share of the economic pie and that it had been marginalised as an ignored peripheral region.

[65] Robinson noted that though some of Aceh's small but burgeoning business class had benefited from the influx of foreign capital during the LNG boom, there were many who felt aggrieved at losing out to others with good political connections to the central government—most notably, the leader of GAM himself, Hasan di Tiro was one such aggrieved party when he made a bid for an oil pipeline contract for Mobile Oil Indonesia in 1974 but lost out to a US company.

[70] He furthered that the resource-based grievance was a means for GAM to convince Acehnese that they should abandon hopes of special treatment and autonomy within Indonesia and instead work for the restoration of Aceh's glory by seeking independence.

[70] GAM's founder Hasan di Tiro and his fellow leaders in exile in Sweden were instrumental in providing a coherent message on both the necessity and right of self-determination for Aceh.

[73] The late M. Isa Sulaiman wrote that when di Tiro first started his secessionist activities between 1974 and 1976, he had relied on a network of relatives and a number of like-minded young intellectuals to spread his message—which gained traction especially in Medan, North Sumatra.

[74] Aspinall also wrote of GAM sympathizers' recollection of the early days of the insurrection in which they would pass pamphlets to friends or slide them anonymously under the doors of their colleagues' offices.

Eric Morris when interviewing GAM supporters for his 1983 thesis noted that, rather than independence, they were more interested in either an Indonesian Islamic state or for Aceh to be treated more fairly by the central government.

[78] Many felt that they were continuing the aspirations of either their fathers, uncles, brothers or male cousins who were usually the ones who inducted them into the organisation—or whose exploits or deaths at the hands of the state security apparatus had inspired them to join.

[81]Amnesty International documented the use of arbitrary arrests, extra-legal detention, summary executions, rape and scorch-earth as features of the Indonesian military's push against GAM since 1990.

Among the more chilling acts observed by Amnesty International was the public disposal of the bodies of victims of summary executions or Petrus Killings (Penembakan Misterius) to serve as warnings to Acehnese to refrain from joining or supporting GAM.

The corpses of victims were usually left in public places – beside a main road, in fields and plantations, next to a stream or a river – apparently as a warning to others not to join or support the rebels.

Refusal to participate in these groups – or failure to demonstrate sufficient commitment to crushing the enemy by identifying, capturing or killing alleged rebels – sometimes resulted in punishment by government forces, including public torture, arrest and execution.

[89] Former-GAM leader Irwandi Yusuf, who would go on to be the governor of Aceh through its inaugural direct gubernatorial elections on 11 December 2006, ventured that far from collapsing, the situation of GAM was actually improving as the sick and infirm were captured by the Indonesian military which left those still in the field to be unencumbered by them.

[89] In the words of former GAM prime minister Malik Mahmud to Aspinall in October 2005: "The existing strategies applied by both parties had caused a costly stalemate".

Both sides had sent senior ranking officials as negotiators while during the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement (CoHA) talks which was signed in December 2002, representation was at a relatively junior level.

[94] He pointed out that while SBY was still a minister in the Cabinet of President Megawati Sukarnoputri, he had supported an "integrated approach" in which military measures were accompanied by efforts to negotiate with GAM.

[95] Kalla, then a ministerial colleague of SBY's, also supported the restarting of talks with GAM in early-2004 (a time when the martial law in Aceh was still in effect and the military operation was in full swing).

[95] The positions of both the president and vice-president of Indonesia in favour of negotiations as a solution to the Aceh insurgency thus provided a platform for the eventual success of the Helsinki peace talks.

Kingsbury, an official advisor to GAM, also credited the election of SBY and Kalla in 2004 as providing the impetus for the peace efforts which led to the eventual agreement.

[98] Moreover, the Time to Face the Past report contains a warning in light of the potential for renewed violence that exists in Aceh if the Indonesian government remains stagnant in relation to its commitments from the 2005 MOU.

Amnesty International's deputy Asia Pacific director Isabelle Arradon explained during the launch of the report: "The situation is breeding resentment that could sow the seeds of a future return to violence".