RI, GAM to resume talks despite differences
Tiarma Siboro, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The Indonesian government and the exiled leaders of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) are ready to resume a second-round peace talks in Finland on Monday despite their acute differences on how to end the decades' long conflict in the province that has killed thousands of people.
Delegations from both sides arrived in Helsinki on Sunday, Maria-Elena Cowell, the spokeswoman for mediator Crisis Management Initiative (CMI), said.
CMI was founded by former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari.
The talks, which like the first round of negotiations at the end of January will take place at the Koeningstedt estate outside Helsinki, are scheduled to start in earnest on Monday.
The first round of meetings proved largely unfruitful, and Athisaari felt that a second round would be "decisive" in determining whether the two sides could manage to reach common ground for further negotiations.
"We don't know what the end result is going to be. In that sense, the next meeting will be decisive because after that we'll know if these negotiations will lead to something or not," he was quoted by AFP as saying.
Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs Widodo Adi Sucipto, who is also the supervisor of the Indonesian delegation, said last week that the upcoming talks would revolve around the government's offer of a special autonomy status for the oil and gas rich Aceh.
The CMI also seems keen for GAM leaders to focus the talks on the concept of limited self-rule for Aceh. It said that within the framework of special autonomy, "the (two) parties could cover issues such as socio-economic development and reconstruction, security arrangements, an amnesty, the lifting of the civil emergency (status), justice and also human rights issues."
But GAM leaders say they want to focus on the facilitation and support for the international humanitarian aid effort in Aceh to assist victims of the recent tsunami, GAM's exiled prime minister for Aceh Malik Mahmood said.
To achieve that goal, Malik said that the government-in-exile of Aceh (ASNLF) aimed to reach an agreement with Jakarta on a sustainable ceasefire as the basis of a lasting peace.
"Our first concern is, and always has been, for the Acehnese people," Malik said in a statement.
In order to achieve a lasting peace, ASNLF would consider a range of possible political resolutions to the Aceh conflict, he said. He, however, stressed the talks would begin with no agreement on or acceptance of any particular political position.
"If we can have peace, we then expect to be able to work towards a negotiated political settlement," Malik said.
Despite the sharp differences, the fact that the two parties are talking is widely viewed as a step in the right direction.
When they met last month, it was the first time the sides stood face-to-face since May 2003, when the government declared martial law and launched a major military offensive in the province after a cease fire broke down.