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