Aceh peace deal goes on despite shooting
Aceh peace deal goes on despite shooting
Nurdin Hasan, Agence France-Presse/Banda Aceh
A former Aceh rebel has been shot and wounded by a soldier during disarmament aimed at ending decades of violence in the tsunami- hit conflict zone, police said on Saturday.
Former rebels from the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) began handing over their rifles and pistols to foreign monitors on Friday, in the second phase of disarmament that was part of the peace deal agreed with the government in August.
Police said the independent Aceh Monitoring Mission (AMM), set up under the terms of the August deal in Helsinki, Finland, was probing the shooting of the GAM members, which coincided with Friday's disarmament launch.
"The AMM team is trying to clarify what happened in the area and will later decide which party was guilty," said Aceh Police chief Bahrumsyah Kasman, referring to the shooting in the Peudada region of eastern Aceh.
According to GAM spokesman Irwandi Yusuf, the trouble started when three GAM members on a motorbike were pulled over by the military after refusing to stop at a checkpoint. One rebel ran away while the other two were allegedly assaulted. Some of their friends later went to the post seeking their release.
"While negotiations were taking place a shot was suddenly fired by one of the soldiers and wounded one rebel. I suspect the shooting was due to enduring animosity toward the rebel because he was on the wanted list when Aceh was under martial law.
Information minister Sofyan Jalil, who negotiated the historic Helsinki agreement on behalf of the government, said the shooting would not derail efforts to bring peace to the troubled province.
"I think it will not have an impact on the peace process because the disarmament process is taking place very well," he told Metro TV.
Maj. Gen. Bambang Darmono, the top military officer in Aceh when it was under martial law, agreed, saying, "It'll absolutely have no impact on the ongoing process."
The AMM is already investigating the alleged shooting of a GAM member by paramilitary police in western Aceh on Wednesday, before the second phase of disarmament started.
Despite the shootings, disarmament has gone ahead, with former rebels surrendering 128 weapons in northern Aceh on Friday. Of the total, AMM recognized 91 weapons and disqualified 37 weapons deemed not to have been in working order.
The process continued on Saturday at four other sites, including one in the Madat area of eastern Aceh attended by AMM chief Pieter Feith, government representatives and GAM members.
"A total of 93 weapons were handed over today (Saturday). Twelve of them were disqualified which means 81 were accepted and 21 weapons were disputed by the government," AMM spokesman Juri Laas told AFP.
Rebels have pledged to hand over their declared arsenal of 840 firearms in four stages before the end of the year. A total of 279 weapons were collected in the first phase in September but the AMM disqualified 36 of them. In return for the disarmament the government agreed to withdraw from Aceh almost 6,000 troops and 2,000 police, or a quarter of its reinforcement troops there.