Acehnese hope accord will bring lasting peace

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.