RI begins final troop withdrawal from Aceh

RI begins final troop withdrawal from Aceh

Reuters, Lhokseumawe

The Indonesian Military (TNI) began the final phase of troop withdrawals from tsunami-hit Aceh province on Tuesday under a peace pact that ended one of Asia's longest running civil wars.

Officials said 1,621 troops and six tanks were leaving on two large ships in Lhokseumawe port in Aceh.

Under the peace agreement brokered last August in Sweden, TNI has gradually drawn down its forces in the resource-rich province in step with the rebels of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) turning in their weapons.

An international monitoring body said GAM had reached the final target of handing in 840 weapons on Monday.

The military had said it would proceed with its fourth and final troop withdrawals, although by its standards it only considered 769 of the weapons GAM had offered as acceptable.

"Regarding the shortage of GAM weapons, there has to be an official statement to the AMM (Aceh Monitoring Mission). Today's withdrawal is the commitment of TNI to making the MOU a success," Aceh army chief Supiadin told reporters, referring to the Memorandum of Understanding signed by the two sides.

GAM, the monitors and the military have differed throughout the process on what weapons met the standards of the agreement, arguing over whether they need to have been manufactured or could be homemade, and which should count as workable.

However, the disputes have never reached the point of posing a serious obstacle to the process, which has gone more smoothly than even most optimists expected.

On Monday after announcing the monitors considered GAM had reached the target, the chief of the monitoring mission, Pieter Feith had said GAM would also provide a written confirmation that former combatants had given up all weapons, ammunition, and explosives.

GAM said it would comply as well with a military request to see if there were any additional weapons it could turn in before Dec. 31.

"I would like to confirm (that) if there's any more weapons in the field, we would like to submit them by the end of the year," said Irwandi Yusuf, GAM's senior representative to the monitoring mission.

The 30-year war between the two sides had killed some 15,000 people, mostly civilians.

GAM and the government signed the peace pact after months of negotiation spurred on by the Dec. 26 tsunami that smashed into Indian Ocean coastlines.

That disaster left around 170,000 Acehnese dead or missing and created pressure for the two sides to end their conflict and open the way for a massive international recovery and rebuilding programme.

The Aug. 15 truce requires Indonesia to cut troop and police levels in Aceh to no more than 14,700 soldiers and 9,100 police.

Prior to the pact, it had more than 35,000 soldiers and 15,000 police in the province on the northern tip of Sumatra island.

With the weapons handover now complete and troop withdrawals set to conclude, security experts say the next challenges are finding jobs for demobilized fighters and satisfying rebel demands for political participation in Aceh.