Kalla upbeat House will support Aceh peace deal

Harry Bhaskara, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

Vice President Jusuf Kalla has expressed his optimism that legislators will support the recently signed Aceh peace deal, despite their initial reluctance to do so.

"I have a feeling that the DPR will support the deal," he told the Jakarta Editors Club in his official residence on Jl. Diponegoro in Central Jakarta on Sunday night referring to the House of Representatives. "For sure, Golkar is behind the truce."

Golkar, which Kalla chairs, constitutes more than one-fifth of the 550-strong House. With support from other party factions of the House, he said, he was confident that they would support the peace agreement.

Kalla was accompanied by Minister of Justice and Human Rights Hamid Awaluddin at the event. Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs Widodo Adi Sucipto, who was present at Kalla's residence, left early for another engagement.

The House will grill the government on Wednesday about the details of the deal that has harvested some harsh criticism after the agreement was made public only after the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in Helsinki on Aug. 15.

House support, however, is not binding, since the Constitution only says that the government should "take into account" the opinion of the House.

Kalla lashed out at critics who say that Aceh rebels will soon take over power now that the peace deal has been signed.

When asked why the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) was not dissolved, Kalla said: "If GAM is declared non-existent, whom are we going to deal with (in implementing the peace agreement)?" he asked.

Dropping their demand for independence and laying down their weapons, he said, constituted all that the government had been after.

The legislators, who only learned about the details of the MOU after the signing, have said that the government should have consulted them prior to the Helsinki talks.

"The government did not want to bring the MOU to the DPR beforehand because it did not want to transform GAM's position into a state overnight," he said, referring to the House when asked about it.

Kalla acknowledged that the deal bears only the key points of the agreement.

"It is impossible to go into technical details in a peace agreement," he said, while defending that the results had been in line with what the government had wanted.

He also acknowledged that there was bound to be some confusion, especially during the transition period from Aug. 15 to Aug. 31.

Kalla requested that people be understanding in the event of any glitches in the days to come.

Asked whether the deal had been in line with the government's stance, Kalla replied: "Ninety-nine percent."

The final agreement was almost the same as the government's original draft, he said.

Kalla has been credited for his key behind-the-scenes role in the Helsinki talks. As a minister under president Megawati Soekarnoputri, Kalla initiated the peace talks in 2003, soon after the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement that was brokered by the Geneva-based Henry Dunant Centre broke down.

His deep attachment to the issue was evident when he went through each of the 70-odd clauses of the deal with total ease and confidence, joking at times "it's as if I was playing a lawyer".

"Peace talks differ from a seminar or a symposium," Kalla said, and it was wrong to treat the peace deal as the result of a seminar or symposium.

Unlike a seminar, he said, there were two parties in peace talks, each with their own extreme ideas.

"At one extreme, we wanted GAM to surrender, kiss the red-and- white flag, lay down their arms and weapons; and on the other extreme, they wanted nothing but independence."

The peace deal, he said, was a compromise that emerged from these "extreme" positions.

"All agreements are a kind of compromise," Kalla said.

He said he was grateful that the peace deal did not violate the Constitution or the law, or see any party lose face.

"Disagreement with the law, if any, is only because Aceh is a special autonomy region," he said.

Aceh and Papua are the only two special autonomy regions in the country.