Aceh partition could derail peace accord, warn GAM, scholars
Aceh partition could derail peace accord, warn GAM, scholars
Tiarma Siboro and Muninggar Sri Saraswati, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
If responded to by the government, the demands for Aceh's
partition into three provinces could undermine the peace accord
it signed with the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), GAM leaders and
Acehnese scholars warned on Thursday.
They said the division would contravene the truce, under which
the borders of Aceh are defined as those determined on July 1,
1956.
However, GAM negotiator Mohammed Nur Djuli said it was
possible that new provinces could be created after the new Aceh
legislature was elected in 2009.
"The central government should give the Acehnese a chance to
live in peace, and not try to wreck it by immediately responding
to these demands," he said.
Calls have been growing for the government to establish new
provinces, to be called Aceh Leuser Antara (ALA) and Southwest
Aceh (ABS), following the peace deal signed in August in
Helsinki, Finland. The demands, however, first emerged several
years ago.
Proponents have argued that partition was necessary to improve
the welfare of people in these areas as the current Aceh
administration had failed to do.
"Those demanding new provinces in Aceh, be they local
administration officials or councillors, are part of the old
oppressive and corrupt machinery. And they are just worried about
facing a truly democratic government in Aceh when every point in
the memorandum of understanding (MOU) is put into effect," Djuli
told The Jakarta Post.
A proposed draft law on the governance of Aceh, which is
currently being discussed at the Ministry of Home Affairs, has
adopted some of the clauses of the MOU.
Acehnese scholars shared Djuli's view, saying that all major
policies on Aceh's future should be determined after direct local
elections in 2009.
"The central government will only give rise to a lack of legal
certainty should it respond positively to the demands for new
provinces in Aceh," said Iskandar A. Gani, a lecturer at Syiah
Kuala University in Banda Aceh and also a member of the drafting
team preparing the bill.
Acceding to such demands would only repeat the mistake made by
the government when it decided to create two new provinces in
Papua, he added.
The carving of West Irian Jaya and Central Irian Jaya
provinces out of the existing province of Papua was met
with strong opposition from local government and community
leaders.
Meanwhile, Minister of Communications and Information Sofyan
Djalil said the government was currently focusing its efforts on
fully implementing the peace deal.
While he did not rule out the possibility of the government to
heeding the demands for Aceh's partition, he said that a
democratic process would first be required.
"The most important thing is the democratic process. It would
be fine if the partition process was democratic," said Sofyan,
who was a member of the government negotiating team at the
Helsinki peace talks that resulted in the truce ending almost
three decades of armed conflict in Aceh.