Acehnese hope accord will bring lasting peace
Tiarma Siboro and Nani Afrida, The Jakarta Post, Banda Aceh
Baiturrahman Grand Mosque in the provincial capital of Banda Aceh has once again become a witness to a historic moment as around 5,000 people gathered on Monday there to hold prayers for peace and witnessed through television the signing of a peace agreement between the government and rebels of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM).
Men, women and children started to come to the Baiturrahman mosque from early in the morning, and grouped themselves in dozens of tents set up inside the compound of the grand, multi- domed mosque. They prayed to God hoping that peace would finally come to the staunchly Muslim province.
TV screens were set up inside each tent to broadcast the signing ceremony live from Finland.
As the signing took place at around 3:45 p.m. local time, crowds cheered and applauded.
"There you are, there you are," an old Acehnese man excitedly pointed his finger to a TV screen as it showed faces of the GAM delegations, which was led by self-styled prime minister Malik Mahmood. "Pak, when will you come home here to Aceh?," another man commented, as if he was talking directly to the exiled GAM leader.
Minister of Justice and Human Rights Hamid Awaluddin signed the peace deal, officially called a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), with Malik in Helsinki in a move expected to bring an end to three decades of conflict in the oil-rich province which has seen some 15,000 people, mostly civilians, killed.
"I came to this place to be together with the people to watch the signing of the peace pact, as I think that being here will be better than watching it at home on television," said Isa, a civil servant who resides in the Ulee Kareng area.
But despite the upbeat mood, some remained wary as the previous two peace agreements collapsed in a very short period.
"I hope this will be the final peace agreement, and I hope the climate of peace here will be much longer than before," Isa said.
The last truce collapsed in 2003 only five months after it was signed with both the government and GAM pointing the finger at each other for violating the agreement on the decommissioning of GAM weapons and the withdrawal of Indonesian troops from Aceh. The government then declared martial law across the province in mid May 2003 and sent a massive deployment of troops to crush GAM guerrillas.
Some 840 police personnel were deployed to guard the gathering at Baiturrahman on the second day, which was also attended by Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare Alwi Shihab, chairman of the Aceh Monitoring Team Pieter Feith and British Ambassador to Indonesia Charles Humphrey.