Deadlock looms in Aceh peace talks: Widodo

Deadlock looms in Aceh peace talks: Widodo

Tiarma Siboro, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The ongoing peace talks between the Indonesian government and the
Free Aceh Movement (GAM) in Finland may end in deadlock with
Jakarta refusing the rebels' demand for the establishment of
local political parties and self government.

Chief security minister Widodo Adi Sutjipto said on Wednesday
that the government may have to declare Aceh in status quo and
immediately hold an "internal consolidation" to withdraw from the
ongoing fifth round of negotiations, should GAM insist on
pressing the demands.

"The government's stance is quite clear. The demand for local
political parties cannot be accommodated. It is already firm that
we cannot accept it because our existing legal system only
recognizes national-scope political parties.

"There are negotiable and non-negotiable items, and our
framework is clear ... that the results of the talks should not
go against the concept of the unitary state, the 1945
Constitution and our existing regulations," he said at his
office.

However, GAM leaders on Wednesday said "amazingly surprising"
advances had been made so far in the peace talks.

As a second day of negotiations got under way on Wednesday,
delegates said they were pleased that they had already managed to
cover all the points in a draft peace treaty, saying they were
now prepared to discuss all the suggested changes.

"It's amazingly surprising that we managed to discuss all the
issues already yesterday (Tuesday)," GAM spokesman Bakhtiar
Abdullah told AFP in Helsinki, Finland. "Now we can discuss the
new draft today," he added.

Widodo, a retired four-star Navy admiral and former armed
forces chief, chairs the government's supervising team monitoring
the peace talks.

He said the government would continue to guarantee the safety
of foreigners in tsunami-ravaged Aceh, where they are currently
involved in reconstruction work, in the event the current peace
talks collapsed.

"I am not pessimistic, but I believe that both parties will
make all efforts to avoid the process from suffering a deadlock,"
Widodo said.

Facilitated by the Finland-based Crisis Management Initiative
(CMI), the Helsinki talks are aimed at seeking ways to end the
three decades of fighting in Aceh, in which at least 15,000
people have been killed since 1976.

The July talks could be the final round of informal meetings
between the government and GAM, and a final memorandum of
understanding (MOU), expected to be the basis of a possible peace
accord, could be outlined in August.

The MOU contains several crucial points, including security
arrangements, economic development, amnesties and integration
processes for former rebels and Acehnese political
representation.

A dispute over Aceh's political representation continued
during the negotiations, with GAM insisting that the government
should allow Acehnese to establish local political parties as a
fundamental basis for the demanded system of self-government.

Self-rule was a key condition set by the rebels as they
dropped their long-held demand for an independent Aceh, instead
allowing the resource-rich province at the northern tip of
Sumatra to remain as an integral part of Indonesia.

Bakhtiar Abdullah said the Indonesian government must show
that it sincerely wants peace by accepting the demand for self-
government in Aceh based on elections contested by local
political parties. "If Indonesia wants to be considered a
democratic country, it must accept internationally recognized
standards of democracy."

The other major hurdle -- the demilitarization of Aceh -- has
been largely overcome after a tentative agreement was reached to
sharply reduce the massive Indonesian contingent there in
exchange for disarmament of guerrilla forces.

The demilitarization process would be overseen by several
hundred observers from the European Union and the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations.

The Indonesian Military (TNI) has officially assigned Maj.
Gen. Bambang Darmono, who was the Aceh military operations
commander when Jakarta launched an offensive operation to crush
GAM members in 2003, to join the ongoing talks with the task of
monitoring all security arrangements discussed in the dialog.