House OKs funds Aceh military operation
Tony Hotland and Rendi Witular, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Despite criticizing the government for irregularities in its new budget proposal for military operations in Aceh, the House of Representatives approved new funds to support some 35,000 soldiers on duty in the province.
The money will come from the Ministry of Defense's emergency fund because this is the quickest way to disburse the funds, a member of the House budgetary committee, Happy Bone Zulkarnaen, said on Friday.
"It is not possible to get the funds from the revised 2005 state budget, which has already been declared final. Another option is to take the money from the 2006 state budget, but that is still a long way off," he said.
The defense ministry has Rp 2 trillion (US$206.18 million) stashed in its emergency fund, which had been designated to cover operations in the disputed offshore Ambalat oil block in the Sulawesi Sea.
The government has deployed soldiers to maintain security in the offshore area, the ownership of which is being contested by Indonesia and Malaysia.
In a letter to the House, the Ministry of Defense requested an additional Rp 530.27 billion to cover the costs of military operation in Aceh from July to December.
In response to the letter, the House budgetary committee earlier said the ministry should have included the request in the revised 2005 state budget, which was approved last week.
During normal conditions, all funds must be disbursed from the state budget. The government changed the status of Aceh in May to state of civil administration from a state of civil emergency.
"It is up to the mechanisms between the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Finance as to which option they want to take. I suppose the quickest option is to get the funds from the emergency fund since they can be disbursed at anytime," said Happy.
He said the funds should be mainly spent on fulfilling the nutritional needs of soldiers in Aceh rather than on military equipment.
The defense ministry, however, said it wanted to disburse 60 percent of the total funds to support security operations rather than to procure supplies for soldiers.
Happy also reiterated a call for the ministry to present an accountability report for trillions of rupiah already disbursed to finance military operations in Aceh to quell the Free Aceh Movement since May 2003.
"We already asked the defense minister to do so because the use of the funds has never been reported to us," he said, adding that the House should set the parameters for judging whether the operations were a success.
The parameters, said Happy, could include how many rebel areas have been conquered, how many weapons seized, or how many rebels surrendered.
Vice President Jusuf Kalla said the military operation would be maintained despite the ongoing peace talks with the rebels to ensure reconstruction projects in the tsunami-hit province to run undisturbed.
Indonesian government officials and rebels group's negotiators are scheduled to resume talks in Helsinki starting from July 10, despite the House's objection.