HDC seeks government protection for JSC members

HDC seeks government protection for JSC members

Tiarma Siboro and Muninggar Sri Saraswati, The Jakarta Post,
Jakarta

The Henry Dunant Centre (HDC) has asked the Indonesian government
to provide security for members of the Joint Security Committee
(JSC) stationed throughout the troubled province of Aceh.

HDC Spokesman David Gorman told The Jakarta Post on Saturday
that his office had started discussing security arrangements for
JSC members with the government on March 13.

"We've discussed how to protect monitors in the field, how to
evacuate them (if they were attacked) and how it is to be
implemented," Gorman told the Post by phone on Saturday.

HDC is the Swiss-based non-governmental organization that
brokered the peace agreement between the Indonesian government
and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) on Dec. 9, 2002, in which both
parties agreed to cease all hostilities in the country's
westernmost province.

HDC, according to Gorman, has left it to the government to
decide which party would be responsible for the safety of JSC
members in Aceh.

"It could be the police, or both the police and the military.
But we do not intend to ask for a multinational force," he said.

JSC is the committee in charge of monitoring the
implementation of the Dec. 9 peace agreement, its members
consisting of 50 representatives each from the Indonesian
Military (TNI), GAM and the HDC, who are mostly international
monitors from Thailand and the Philippines.

Mobs attacked a JSC office in the East Aceh town of Langsa on
Thursday after an unfounded report suggested that GAM had taken a
man hostage and was demanding a ransom of Rp 70 million
(US$8,000).

The attack was the second to occur in 10 days. Earlier, dozens
of people attacked a JSC office in the Central Aceh town of
Takengon over disappointment with the committee's partiality.
Three JSC members were injured in the incident, including
representatives of both TNI and GAM.

TNI chief Gen. Endriartono Sutarto asked JSC earlier to
formulate a standard operating procedure in a bid to optimize
their tasks and activities in the strife-torn province of Aceh.

Meanwhile, TNI spokesman Maj. Gen. Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin said on
Saturday that the military was supposed to be excluded from
security efforts in Aceh in a bid to maintain their neutrality.

"It is the JSC that needs a security arrangement to help them
cope with difficulties in carrying out their duties in Aceh. If
JSC requests a security arrangement, it must do so with the
Indonesian government, instead of asking for foreign assistance
or multinational troops, because Aceh is part of Indonesia as a
sovereign country," Sjafrie told the Post on Saturday.