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.