Peace agreement raises doubts, hopes in Aceh

Peace agreement raises doubts, hopes in Aceh

Reuters/Banda Aceh

People in Aceh reacted cautiously on Monday to a deal aimed at ending 30 years of civil war in the Indonesian province devastated by the Dec. 26 tsunami.

Unlike the agreement reached in late 2002 that had Acehnese crowding newspaper stalls for the details, the new deal failed to distract people from going about their business as usual.

The huge black-and-white Baiturrahman mosque that dominates the center of the provincial capital, Banda Aceh, had a routine schedule of prayers, not the special programs for the peace deal of 2002.

That year's agreement fell apart in a few months with the government and Free Aceh Movement (GAM) rebels blaming the other for the breakdown. And some in the province fear the latest deal negotiated in Finland will follow that pattern.

"All this is only promises, just like the promises from previous negotiations," newspaper agent Joni Sukandar told Reuters in Banda Aceh.

Tengku Mustafai, a religious figure in North Aceh, believed that armed conflicts between the military and rebels would escalate as a peace agreement drew nearer to implementation, derailing the process.

"Although there were peace talks facilitated by the Sweden- based Henry Dunant Center, the murders and abductions remained rampant. People at large still suffered from the conflict and I fear that this pattern will repeat," Tengku Mustafai told The Jakarta Post.

The Helsinki peace deal was the top story in Aceh's leading newspaper on Monday, but its editorial of the day was on bird flu. The peace talks that began in January in Helsinki have failed to stop sporadic clashes between the military and GAM rebels and in the almost 30 years of fighting some 15,000 people, mostly civilians, are estimated to have died.

"I'm happy to hear the news of peace," said elementary school teacher Rusmini, 35. "But this is a normal thing. I've heard this before, so let's see how it goes," she said at her school in Peukan Bada on the outskirts of Banda Aceh.

Of the school's 300 students, only 60 survived the tsunami, which flattened the school buildings. Rusmini and her students held their Monday lessons in a tent.

The killer waves left about 170,000 dead or missing in Aceh and many hope that the peace deal will smooth the way for the $5 billion rebuilding program, which relies heavily on foreign donors.

"With this peace agreement all of our rehabilitation efforts can go ahead more smoothly," Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, the Indonesian head of the reconstruction effort, told Reuters.

Early in the talks, GAM dropped its demand for independence, and in the fifth session ending on Sunday the government moved to accommodate GAM's request for political participation in Aceh.

However, details are still fuzzy on the political side of the deal and some other points ahead of a scheduled signing in Helsinki on Aug. 15.

Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla has indicated that GAM could move to set up an Aceh-based national party within existing laws, and a purely local party for GAM could come later.

The latter would require approval by the House of Representatives, where the administration of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Kalla have a majority coalition, albeit a shaky one, which is not necessarily willing to grant every government request.

Masduki Baidlowi, a deputy in of the Nation Awakening Party, a swing faction in the House, said in Jakarta: "What the Indonesian government and GAM have achieved in Helsinki is a big result."

"I am really optimistic that it will work," he told Reuters, adding that GAM should be allowed to organize politically so long as it did not push for the breakup of the Indonesian state.