Foreign monitors discuss division of labor

Photo: AP/Achmad Ibrahim

Aceh peace monitoring team member from the European Union Pieter Feith (left photo above), Crisis Management Initiative (CMI) member Juha Christensen and Indonesian Minister of Communications and Information Sofyan Djalil (right) leave a meeting room after talks on the monitoring mission in Jakarta.

Sofyan said EU and ASEAN representatives discussed during the meeting details of the peace deal reached between the Indonesian government and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) in Helsinki on July 17. They also determined what needed to be monitored, how many personnel would be involved and from where, as well as who would lead the monitoring team.

All arrangements are drafted in a 10-page paper on the Status of the Mission Arrangement (SOMA), according to Sofyan.

He said the composition of the around 300-strong monitoring team would be equally divided between the military and civilians.

"The mission would last one year at the longest but some monitors could leave after six months if it is successful. Weapons surrendered will be immediately destroyed," Sofyan said.

Indonesia has asked the EU and Southeast Asian neighbors to play a monitoring role, which includes overseeing the disarmament of rebels and troops' withdrawal, once the pact is signed on Aug. 15.

Foreign monitors were deployed to Aceh under a short-lived cease-fire agreed upon in December 2002. But the few dozen monitors from Thailand and the Philippines were forced to withdraw amid escalating violence.

Facilitated by the CMI, the government negotiators and GAM representatives agreed last month to end the war in the province, which lost some 130,000 people to the Dec. 26 tsunami. -- Antara