Govt, GAM upbeat on peace deal

Muninggar Sri Saraswati, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The government and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) are due to sign a historic peace deal in Finland on Monday in hopes of ending 30 years of separatist fighting.

Chief government negotiator Minister of Justice and Human Rights Hamid Awaluddin will sign the accord along with self- styled GAM prime minister Malik Mahmud in Helsinki.

Both sides held a meeting on Sunday in the Finnish capital for last-minute talks one day before the signing.

The memorandum of understanding will be the culmination of six months and five rounds of negotiations in Helsinki.

The government is optimistic that this time the agreement will lay the foundation for a lasting peace in the tsunami-ravaged province. "I am optimistic that the peace agreement will come about without any problems," said Hamid.

GAM representatives are also cautiously optimistic, although they warned that militia groups may try to derail the peace process. "We are committed to the peace agreement. But the implementation will be tough. Hostilities on the ground have not stopped," the group's Sweden-based information officer Bakhtiar Abdullah told AFP.

However, the success of the deal will depend on the willingness of all groups to comply with its terms. An international monitoring team will be deployed to monitor the deal.

Two earlier truces in 2000 and 2002 were short-lived, with both sides accusing the other of violations, which resulted in continued violence.

The last truce between the government and GAM was the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement. After its collapse in May 2003, the government imposed martial law in the resource-rich province.

The warring parties returned to the negotiation table in the wake of the Dec. 26 tsunami, which claimed approximately 200,000 lives in Aceh.

Under the peace deal, parts of which were leaked to the press, the government will provide amnesty for GAM members, allow them to set up local political parties as vehicles to contest local elections and withdraw military troops that are not based in Aceh. In return, GAM will drop its demand for independence and surrender all weapons.

Also agreed upon in the talks was the deployment of about 200 unarmed military and civilian officials from the European Union and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to monitor the implementation of the peace pact.

The deal would allow for the disbursement of some US$5 billion pledged by the international community to help rebuild Aceh after the tsunami. It would also open up the region to investors eager to benefit from its rich natural resources.

Hamid Awaluddin said the government would announce the details of the agreement immediately after Monday's signing.

The government and GAM had decided not to make public the details of the draft peace agreement before it was signed because parts of the deal were considered "sensitive", he added.

"One hour after the signing (of the agreement), all of you will know the content," Hamid said after meeting with Vice President Jusuf Kalla before departing for Helsinki on Saturday.

His comments followed reports that a number of the country's most prominent figures, including former presidents and top politicians, criticized the government for a lack of transparency in the peace pact. These criticisms have focused on the government's failure to disclose the contents of the agreement to the public.

During a recent meeting when the government briefed top lawmakers about the deal, Vice President Jusuf Kalla read out the contents of the agreement, in English, without giving legislators a copy of the document, reports said.

The critics have said the government should let people know what the agreement contains, because it would be a historic deal that would affect the entire nation. Some critics have also said that there was a possibility that parts of the agreement could be in violation of the Constitution.