The Aceh Monitoring Mission in Indonesia displays the public destruction of weapons handed in by the separatist rebels. The press photo shows such a public ceremony. It demonstrates the total isolation of this mission from the socio-economic context and an insufficient integration of the indigenous population in the process.
Looking at the scene one notes that two ex-pats clad in splendid protective gear representing EU-norms are busy with the modest task of rendering two guns unusable. In the background behind a rope a broad mix of locals looks on as the two expensive high-tech ex-pats handle two cutting wheels.
If this was not a promotion event of the BOSCH Company for its latest cutting wheels, then this episode has cost a five-digit sum out of the EU-budget. The result was a scene, which smacks of a colonial celebration, where the indigenous population is assigned to look on.
Local craftsmen would have been able to render these guns unusable with simple tools for a small fraction of the sum actually spent. But this would have disturbed the reproductive logic of the intervention bureaucracy and the aid industries.