Challenges loom in Aceh

Challenges loom in Aceh

Dean Yates, Reuters/Takengon

Rubbing his arms to ward off the evening chill in the central
highlands of Aceh, former rebel field commander Fauzan Azima
ponders the problems of peace.

His fighters have put down their guns as part of an historic
Finnish-mediated agreement that ended one of Asia's longest
running civil wars.

Now they want jobs.

"To be quite honest they don't want to be farmers. They think
they are a bit sophisticated for that," said Azima, 33, a former
journalist who joined the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) in 1999 and
became district commander around the lakeside town of Takengon in
2003.

The progress of the Aug. 15 pact has surprised even the
optimists. GAM starts its fourth and final weapons handover this
week, while the Indonesian Military (TNI) will withdraw the last
of its reinforcements from the province by the end of the month.

Finding work for demobilized guerrillas is one of two big
challenges ahead.

The other is creating a law for governing the province on the
northern tip of Sumatra that paves the way for Aceh-based parties
to run in elections, allowing GAM to take part in the political
process in exchange for dropping its demand for independence.

"The critical issue is to get GAM combatants employed," said
Sidney Jones, Indonesia director of the Brussels-based
International Crisis Group.

The peace pact has been a rare ray of light for Aceh in the
wake of the Dec. 26 tsunami that left 170,000 people dead or
missing and deprived 600,000 people of their livelihoods --
compounding the employment problem in the province.

The calamity put pressure on both sides to end the 30-year
conflict that killed 15,000 people, mostly civilians.

Half a dozen former GAM fighters Reuters spoke to in different
parts of Aceh said they were enjoying peace, but added that jobs
and vocational training were their top priority.

They had come down from the mountains and appeared to have
settled easily back into their communities, partly because
ordinary people in their areas were also pro-independence.

"We are very happy with the peace, but we must have jobs,"
said Hamdani Ahmad, 32, a former fighter speaking in Daya Cot
village, part of the district of Pidie in the north of Aceh, a
traditional GAM stronghold.

Some foreign donors involved in tsunami reconstruction want to
help.

International aid organization Mercy Corps expects a
livelihoods project to rehabilitate Takengon's depressed coffee
industry to get off the ground within a few months.

While not specifically focused on former GAM fighters,
spokeswoman Cassandra Nelson said ex-combatants would inevitably
be employed.

The government has allocated US$100 each to GAM guerrillas,
based on the 3,000 active fighters GAM stated as its force
strength. They are actually getting much less, as commanders like
Azima say they also must give cash to the movement's support
base.

The EU-led Aceh Monitoring Mission said it was too soon to see
frustration creeping in among demobilized fighters. But their
youth and lack of job skills could not be ignored.

Complicating things, GAM is refusing to hand over to Jakarta
the names of its fighters. The government says it needs the list
partly to facilitate distribution of additional resources,
including farmland.

While the monitors want demobilized rebels to comply, Irwandi
Yusuf, GAM's senior representative to the mission in the capital
town of Banda Aceh, said the movement wanted to first see if
Aceh's new governing law enshrined its demands.

The peace pact says the law must be in force by March 31.

"We are trying to build trust, but not to the point where we
give them our neck," Yusuf told Reuters.

The pact says the government must create the legal conditions
for Aceh to have locally-based political parties within 18 months
of the signing of the Helsinki agreement.

The new law will flesh this out and exempt Aceh from current
laws that require parties to be nationally represented.

Parliamentary elections for Aceh are not due until 2009,
although GAM says it will likely field candidates for local
administrative posts to be contested next year.

There are other, localized tensions as well.

With unofficial backing by elements in the Indonesian
military, migrants from Java and indigenous Gayo highlanders
around Takengon formed so-called self-defense units in recent
years to oppose GAM.

While GAM's relations with these groups were strained, there
had been no violence since the peace pact, said Azima.

"It's like a Cold War. We are keeping our distance," he said.

Despite their concerns for the future, former GAM foot
soldiers said that in the end they would follow orders.

"If the instructions are to fight, we will. If it's to keep
the peace, then we will do that," said Musliadi Sulaiman, 28,
speaking in a village near the western coastal town of Lam No.