GAM rejects Tokyo meeting

GAM rejects Tokyo meeting

Nani Farida and Tiarma Siboro, The Jakarta Post, Banda Aceh/Jakarta

The effort to bring peace back to Aceh faces another stiff test
after the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) rebel group threatened to
boycott a Joint Council meeting if it went ahead in Tokyo as
planned.

GAM senior envoy to the Joint Security Committee (JSC) Sofyan
Ibrahim Tiba insisted on Monday that the meeting be held in
Geneva, saying Switzerland was known to be a neutral country.

"We just want the meeting to be held in Geneva. Why should we
go to another country?" Sofyan said.

He denied the Indonesian government's claim that GAM had
agreed to Tokyo as the venue for the crucial meeting scheduled
for Friday, which will determine the future of the dialog.

Sofyan emphasized that the negotiations would not revise the
Cessation of Hostilities Agreement (COHA), but simply discuss why
the peace zones and the demilitarization process had failed to
work.

Due to the disagreement, the Henry Dunant Centre (HDC), which
has been facilitating the peace talks, is seeking a new venue for
the Joint Council meeting.

HDC project manager David Gorman said that he had discussed
the plan to hold the meeting with the warring sides.

"They agreed on, for example, the date and the agenda to be
discussed, but at this moment, we have no agreement on the
location of the meeting," David told The Jakarta Post in Banda
Aceh on Monday.

Meanwhile, escalating tension in the province has seriously
affected the daily activities of local people. The latest
fatality was a student Mayasari, 18, who suffered gunshot wounds
to the head.

Local military spokesman Lt. Col. Firdaus Komarno said he had
received a report on the finding of a body in the village of
Manyang Cut, Pidie, 150 kilometers east of the provincial capital
of Banda Aceh.

Nearby residents said that they had heard gunshots at 8:30
p.m. on Saturday. But they were too afraid to go outside and
found the dead body the next morning.

Commenting on the efforts to salvage the peace deal, M.M.
Billah of the National Commission on Human Rights suggested on
Monday a reshuffle in the membership of the JSC, arguing that
representatives of Acehnese civilians should be included, whom he
said knew the situation on the ground better.

"The presence of Acehnese civilians would help both the
government and GAM to heed the real aspirations of the silent
majority. If these civilians do not have a forum for articulating
their views, who will speak for them?" Billah told a press
conference at his office.

The tripartite monitoring team comprises 50 representatives
each from Indonesia, GAM, and HDC.

The differences of opinion between the government and GAM in
their interpretations of the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement
have been deepening, with GAM claiming that special autonomy
serves as the starting point for the all-inclusive dialog,
whereas the government insists that special autonomy is the last
word.

"It will be impossible for the two warring groups to meet half
way if the silent majority is ignored in the peace talks," Billah
said.

The rights body also supported a peaceful solution in the
province through dialog, and urged the government to refrain from
using military force.

The HDC, a Swiss-based non-governmental organization, has been
facing challenges in its efforts to bridge the differences
between Jakarta and GAM in the form of physical threats and mob
attacks over what the mobs say is "the JSC's failure to stop GAM
from extorting, kidnapping and terrorizing civilians."

Earlier in the day, National Police chief Gen. Da'i Bachtiar
said the separatist movement had been violating Articles 106 to
110 of the Criminal Law by organizing a secessionist movement in
the country.

Asked whether a military operation was the answer to quelling
separatism in Aceh, Da'i declined to comment but stressed that
"since GAM fights with guns, we have to crush them in the same
way."

Da'i said that in line with the demilitarization process as
stipulated in the COHA, the duties of the police's elite Mobile
Brigade (Brimob) troopers stationed in the province had already
been changed from those of combatants to those of a security
restoration unit dealing with law and order.

"But should the planned Joint Council meeting on April 25
result in the need for them to go on the offensive again, then
they will do so," Da'i said on the sidelines of a three-day
working meeting at National Police Headquarters in South Jakarta.