Aceh peace agreement is at risk

Aceh peace agreement is at risk

The Straits Times, Asia News Network, Singapore

The two-month-old ceasefire pact between the Indonesian
security forces and Aceh's separatist rebels is in danger of
collapse. A new round of violence in the 27-year-old conflict is
inevitable unless the two sides find the resolve to hold it up.
With both parties accusing each other of ceasefire violations and
bad faith, this is asking a lot.

Instead of implementing the peace deal they signed in Geneva
on Dec. 9, they are showing the mutual distrust and antipathy
that have torpedoed previous ceasefire pacts. Old habits die
hard. The lack of trust and good faith shows that there has been
no real change of heart on either side. The Free Aceh Movement
(GAM) is still fighting for an independent Islamic state in the
resource-rich North Sumatra province, while the Indonesian
military is doing its damnedest to decimate the separatists.

As long as the rebels do not forswear independence, there will
be no peace in Aceh. Indonesian military leaders have warned that
they will go back on the offensive if the peace talks are
derailed. They are making contingency plans to maintain national
unity. Any fresh outbreak in fighting will spell the end of the
Dec. 9 accord, which provides a workable basis to bring peace to
Aceh. The only way to make this happen is to keep the peace talks
going. This demands commitment from both sides. In an insurgency
that has left more than 12,000 people -- mostly civilians -- dead
since 1976, the daily death toll has fallen to an all-time low
since last December.

Clearly, the ceasefire can be turned into a permanent peace if
there is enough political will. The Acehnese, above all, must
accept that special autonomy for them is the starting point for
negotiations. Over the next five months, the rebels should lay
down some of their weapons after the demarcation of no-combat
zones where rebels and government forces are prohibited from
carrying guns. The demilitarization phase is to be supervised by
a committee of representatives from the Indonesian government,
GAM and foreign monitors from the Geneva-based Henry Dunant
Centre.

Both the military and the rebels have agreed that "no
political or clandestine activities will take place within the
peace zones" and they will refrain from "provocative acts".
During this phase, government troops will move out of the
villages and the paramilitary police will give up their offensive
role and be reassigned as a defensive force. To be sure, the
entire exercise is fraught with difficulties. How the
demilitarization will be carried out is not clear yet. Exactly
how many weapons the rebels have and what they will set aside are
still unanswered questions. The details have yet to be
negotiated. The guerrillas said their actions would match the
military's withdrawal from combat areas.

Indonesia's military chief Endriartono Sutarto had emphasized
that "the basic idea of the peace deal was the acceptance of the
special autonomy law as a starting point in the province and not
independence". GAM should declare this openly to make good its
part of the deal. Jakarta is warning that the Dec. 9 pact is in
danger of breaking down because the separatists have been telling
the Acehnese people that the peace process would lead to their
independence from Indonesia.

Clearly, any campaign for statehood by GAM is intolerable for
Jakarta. The conflict can end only when the Acehnese seek redress
and reparations for past injustices rather than independence. If
the ceasefire collapses, it will give the military a free hand to
renew its hardline policy against the separatists.