Foreign envoys weigh support for Aceh truce

Nani Farida, The Jakarta Post, Banda Aceh, Aceh

Ambassadors from the United States, Japan and Italy arrived here on Monday for a two-day visit to show support for a recent peace agreement to end decades of hostilities in the troubled province of Aceh.

World Bank country director Andrew Steer was also among the delegation members that included U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia Ralph L. Boyce, Japanese Ambassador Yutaka Iimura, and Italian Ambassador Franscesco Maria Greco who represented the European Union.

They were accompanied by Coordinating Minister for Political and Security Affairs Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Minister of Trade and Industry Rini Suwandi.

The three foreign envoys and the ministers went straight into a closed-door meeting with Aceh Governor Abdullah Puteh, all the regents in Aceh, and other local government officials.

The visit came more than one month after the Indonesian government and the rebel Free Aceh Movement (GAM) signed a peace deal on Dec. 9 in Geneva to cease all hostilities in the conflict which seen some 10,000 killed since 1976.

"We are here to celebrate and honor the signing of the cessation of hostilities agreement," Boyce told the meeting, referring to the peace accord.

"We believe the people of Aceh want peace and deserve peace. We believe the government in Jakarta wants peace and is trying to carry out the hard work of bringing peace to Aceh," he added.

Iimura concurred with Boyce, saying: "Peace is important, not only for the people of Aceh, not only for the people of Indonesia, but also for the Southeast Asia region".

"The European Union is for the integrity and unity of Indonesia and also supports the decentralization process," Greco said.

"The European Union also supports the process of dialog to solve the conflict in Aceh and the ongoing process. Let peace go ahead," he added.

Boyce said the two-day visit reflected the world community's support for the peace process in the resource-rich province.

"Our work and our support, will be, of course, dependent on the security environment," he said.

Iimura said that the visit was to follow up on the Tokyo Preparatory Conference on Peace and Reconstruction in Aceh which took place on Dec. 3.

Donors at the conference agreed that a coordinated approach by a number of countries to support Aceh would make for more effective use of aid. The current visit is to further assess the development needs in the province.

World Bank's Steer said four teams had come to Aceh to identify crucial needs to develop the province's economic, social and governmental affairs.

The teams were drafting a report to be discussed in a conference with the Consultative Group on Indonesia (CGI) scheduled for Jan. 21 and Jan. 22 in Bali, he said.

He said there will be a special session to discuss the reconstruction process in Aceh during the conference.

Steer said the peace process should sincerely be maintained so as to smooth the way for foreign aid to Aceh, adding that if peace was not ensured, fund assistance would be halted.

He could not give the amount of aid that would go to the province. "The important thing now is not how much aid will be given to Aceh but ... how to do reconstruction and rehabilitation in Aceh so that it can become a new era for a new Aceh", he said.

Minister Susilo told the same forum that security was increasingly getting better in Aceh despite the fact that sporadic violence still broke out since the peace pact.

"We hope there will be no one wanting to disrupt and betray the ongoing peace process," he said.

The foreign delegation was slated to meet Indonesian and GAM representatives in the Joint Security Committee being tasked with monitoring the truce enforcement in Aceh.