Government backs envoy's meeting with GAM

Government backs envoy's meeting with GAM

JAKARTA (JP): Foreign Minister Alwi Shihab denied on Monday
that a meeting last week between U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia
Robert Gelbard and separatist leaders in Aceh amounted to
intervention.

"Why should we call it intervention?" Alwi told reporters,
after meeting Abdurrahman at Merdeka Palace.

"The United States supports Indonesia's territorial integrity.
They are not supporting GAM," he said, referring to the Free Aceh
Movement, which has been fighting for independence in the
province since the mid-1970s.

Dismissing suggestions that the government was not informed
about the meeting, Alwi said he had been told of the outcome of
the meeting, which he then relayed to the President.

Gelbard met with GAM leaders on Friday to seek an end to
disruption caused to ExxonMobil, which taps the Arun gas field in
North Aceh, mainly for export to Japan and South Korea.

ExxonMobil temporarily shut down three of its five fields in
North Aceh on March 9, citing GAM threats to its operation and
personnel after company buses were hijacked, facilities torched
and the company plane shot at.

In the latest incident, a fire was reported to have broken out
at a pipeline in the Arun field on Saturday with the police
blaming an attack by the rebels. GAM has denied responsibility.

GAM spokesmen have blamed recent outbreaks of violence around
the closed ExxonMobil gas fields on the Indonesian military,
including the shooting of a helicopter carrying Energy and
Mineral Resources Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro last month.(byg)