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.