Govt set to withdraw more troops from Aceh
Govt set to withdraw more troops from Aceh
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The government plans to pull out another 6,119 troops and 1,050 police officers from Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam by Oct. 24 as part of its efforts to implement the peace agreement signed with the Free Aceh Movement (GAM).
In return, GAM has also agreed to hand over another quarter of its weapons on Sabang island starting Oct. 15, and the process is expected to be completed two days later, said Pieter Feith, head of the Aceh Monitoring Mission (AMM), which groups some 220 foreign peace monitors assigned to oversee the implementation of the peace accord, signed in the middle of August in Helsinki.
He said the decommissioning process would later move to North Aceh, East Aceh and Aceh Taming district.
The government has so far withdrawn 6,500 troops. A total of 20,000 soldiers are expected to be pulled out from Aceh by the end of this year as targeted under the peace accord, aimed at ending three decades of conflict in the resource-rich province..
For its part, GAM last month decommissioned a quarter of their estimated 840 weapons
Feith was quoted by Antara as saying that the Indonesian government has also made payments to some 3,000 former GAM members, with each receiving Rp 1 million (US$100) as an "economic support facility".
"The distribution of the funds in a number of Aceh regions was witnessed by the AMM team," he said at a press conference following a meeting with government and GAM officials in Banda Aceh on Saturday.
Feith was accompanied by Maj. Gen. Bambang Darmono and Irwandi Yusuf, representatives of Indonesian government and GAM respectively, in what he said as a tripartite meeting.
Feith said that the Indonesian government would increase its efforts so that the payment of the money would be finished before the Muslim fasting month ended early next month.
Aside from discussing the troop withdrawals and the second phase of GAM disarmament, the meeting also discussed the fate of 116 GAM members who are reportedly still imprisoned in a number of jails in Aceh.
Feith said that his side would cooperate with Minister of Justice and Human Rights Hamid Awaluddin so that the 116 GAM members would receive remission and be freed.
"We're still studying this case. GAM has urged us to free the rest of its members still in jail," Feith told reporters.
The government in August granted amnesties to around 1,500 GAM members, including those imprisoned outside Aceh.
As for the GAM decommissioning, Feith said that both sides had agreed that all weapons must be collected and destroyed.
Efforts to end the conflict in Aceh picked up speed after the Dec. 26 earthquake and tsunami struck the area, killing over 131,000 people in the province and leaving a half-million others homeless.