GAM must be firmly dealt with

GAM must be firmly dealt with

The Jakarta Post of Aug. 30, 2000, page 1, reported that there
was no decision yet whether to extend the humanitarian pause in
Aceh. This news was puzzling, because there are so many
violations by members of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) which
cannot be tolerated. They feel that with this humanitarian pause
they have a free hand to attack the law enforcers and hide behind
"unknown armed gangs" which are actually members of GAM.

The government should for once be firm, because the attitude
of GAM cannot be tolerated any more. During the independence
celebrations, they intimidated people not to hoist the national
red and white flag. Killing and kidnapping are going on and there
is not much the government's troops can do. Everything the
government troops are doing is wrong and receive wide negative
coverage by the press. I don't think that GAM is sincere in
complying with what they had signed in Switzerland.

I personally think that extending this understanding reached
in Switzerland is useless, because GAM will not abide by it,
while the government forces are in a more difficult political
situation and have to abide by the agreement. GAM can easily deny
any violations and claim that it was not perpetrated by their
people, as they can easily take off their uniforms when in
action.

I think that before extending this understanding, the GAM
should hand over all their weapons to the government and the
government forces should insist that GAM honor the cessation of
armed hostilities and be responsible for all armed attacks
against the people or the government troops. According to
intelligence reports there are no armed gangs in Aceh except the
GAM.

Why is the government so reluctant to take firm steps and wipe
out once and for all the GAM rebels. So many encouraging
statements of the President have been stated, but not a single
firm step has been taken against the rebels.

The law is the law and there should be no negotiation about
implementation of the law. The GAM rebellion has been going on
for so long and the common people suffered a lot. The government
should have the courage to take firm steps for the sake of unity
of the republic. And I think if the people see for themselves
that the government is firm, the people will flock to the side of
the government and help. Now they don't know what to do.

If they support the government and the government "looses"
then they will suffer. On the other hand if they support the
rebels and the government wins, they may get punished. So for the
sake of everlasting peace in Aceh, act now and free the Aceh
people from further sufferings. And don't let foreigners or
foreign organization interfere in our domestic affairs.

SOEGIH ARTO

Jakarta