Police to maintain personnel in Aceh: Sutanto says
Tiarma Siboro, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
National Police Chief Gen. Sutanto said that police would maintain their personnel in Aceh, arguing that they play a crucial role in ensuring public order.
"The presence of police personnel is still required in Aceh. We are not going to withdraw our personnel from there," Sutanto told reporters after holding a coordinating meeting on political, legal and security affairs on Tuesday.
"Of course, a withdrawal of police reinforcements in Aceh will be conducted," Sutanto added.
Sutanto, however, refused to reveal how many police personnel would be stationed in the province. Some reports said that the number could be as high as 9,000.
The issue of security arrangements is one of the key points agreed during last week's peace talks between the government and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) in Helsinki, under which the secessionist movement is required to decommission their weaponry in parallel with the withdrawal of police and military reinforcement personnel. The peace deal is expected to be officially signed in mid-August.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has set a three-month deadline for the process to be completed.
The whole peace process will be monitored by a team from the European Union and five ASEAN nations including Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei and the Philippines.
In responding to the peace deal, Indonesian Military (TNI) chief Gen. Endriartono Sutarto has said that he has agreed to withdraw reinforcement troops.
Sources said the military will maintain 20,000 soldiers considered as 'organic' troops -- troops whose home base is Aceh -- who will be stationed at the Iskandar Muda Military Command.
The TNI deployed about 38,000 non-organic reinforcement troops to the province last year as the government geared up for a war against GAM. About 14,000 police personnel are also deployed there.
The huge number of reinforcement troops was aimed at crushing the 8,000-strong GAM army, who are believed to have some 8,000 weapons including SS-1, AK-47 and AK-54 rifles.
After two years of an intensive campaign to crush the decades- long insurgency in Aceh, Endriartono says that at least 3,300 GAM fighters had been killed.
The military's official data claims GAM's strength to be between 1,200 and 1,500 people, with 500 firearms.
GAM has waged a guerrilla war since 1976, accusing Jakarta of exploiting the impoverished province's natural resources. More than 15,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed during the conflict.
The exiled GAM leadership has been pushing for the government to reciprocate a cease-fire offer at the current peace talks, which were revived following last year's tsunami disaster that claimed at least 128,000 lives in Aceh alone.