Disarmament boosts Aceh peace

Disarmament boosts Aceh peace

Nani Afrida, The Jakarta Post, Banda Aceh

Hopes for a lasting peace in Aceh received a boost on Thursday as
former Free Aceh Movement separatists handed over their first
batch of weapons to international monitors.

Under a clear sky in a large field in Banda Aceh, dozens of
former rebels wearing jeans and T-shirts presented bags of
weapons to Aceh Monitoring Mission (AMM) representatives.
Containing 78 arms in all, the weapons in the bags included AK-47
assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenade launchers and handguns.

The 12-strong team of monitors inspected each weapon and then
fed them into a circular saw, cutting them into pieces.

The arms are part of some 210 weapons scheduled to be handed
over to international monitors by Saturday as part of the
Helsinki peace deal, while the remainder of 630, will be handed
over by year's end. The deal stipulates that in return, in the
next few weeks the government must pull out some 7,000 non-local
soldiers and police, out of total of 32,000 set to leave the
province. Another 25,000 will stay behind.

The peaceful disarmament proved that the government and GAM
were committed to make the peace deal a success, AMM chief Pieter
Feith said after overseeing the handover.

Feith said the AMM had asked GAM for the names of its 3,000
members so that monitors could ensure their rights were not
violated after they returned to their villages.

GAM spokesman Irwandi Yusuf, meanwhile, told AP he had mixed
feelings about the peace process.

"We have had to let go of our heroes, the defenders of our
dignity, our people and our land. But we have completed our
mission of bringing the Acehnese people to this stage."

Observers hope the Helsinki peace deal will be the opportunity
for GAM and the government to end almost 30 years of conflict,
which has claimed more than 15,000 lives. Mistrust on both sides
meant two earlier deals reached in 2000 and 2002 collapsed.

Under the agreement, GAM has agreed to dissolve as a military
organization and drop its demand for independence. In return, the
government has promised an amnesty and full political rights for
GAM members, released political prisoners and is in the process
of withdrawing more than half of the estimated 57,000 soldiers
and police currently stationed in the province of 4 million
people.

The government has also promised to provide former GAM members
with small plots of land and money in order to help them
reintegrate into Acehnese society.

It remains unknown, however, whether time will heal old wounds
as former rebels settle near the families of pro-nationalist
Acehnese or settlers from other parts of the archipelago.

"This will be a test for the government, whether they can
really manage peace well," Rufriadi, a human rights activist with
the Banda Aceh chapter of the Indonesian Legal Aid Institute said
to AFP.

While still in its infancy, the only incident that has so far
threatened the peace deal was a minor skirmish on Sept. 3, when a
group of GAM members reportedly fired on Indonesian soldiers in
North Aceh regency, injuring two. Pieter Feith earlier condemned
the rebels for violating the agreement.