Senior Aceh separatist leader surrenders
Muninggar Sri Saraswati and Nani Farida, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta/Banda Aceh
A field commander with the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM)'s military wing appeared in Jakarta on Tuesday, declaring that he had given up the struggle for independence.
Accompanied by a lawyer, Tengku Amri bin Abdul Wahab was presented during a press conference following a ceremony at the Office of the Coordinating Minister for Political and Security Affairs in Jakarta.
"Following my conscience, without pressure from any party or person, I surrendered to the Republic of Indonesia and am ready to accept special autonomy," he said.
When asked why he turned himself in, Amri replied that recent "irresponsible statements" by GAM leaders in Aceh and abroad had forced him to "rejoin the motherland".
Amri said he called Col. Embu Agapitus, an Indonesian member of the Joint Security Committee (JSC) in Aceh, at about 2:45 a.m. on Monday about his intention to surrender. He later left Aceh on the same flight as international peace monitors.
Calling on other GAM members to give up their fight, Amri said his decision was "for the interests of Acehnese and Indonesians".
Amri was one of four GAM representatives on the JSC who were arrested on Friday and charged with committing terrorist acts. They four were released on Sunday and placed under police supervision.
Brig. Gen. Safzen Noerdin, who heads the Indonesian delegation on the JSC, said Amri's decision caught him by surprise.
"I don't know why he surrendered, because I knew him as a militant GAM member. Indeed, he was the most outspoken member of the GAM representatives on the JSC," he said before presenting Amri to reporters.
Indonesian Military (TNI) chief Gen. Endriartono Sutarto praised Amri's decision to return to the fold of Indonesia, and said he hoped that other GAM members would follow suit.
"We will protect him and his family and hope that more of his friends follow in his footsteps," Endriartono said after a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday.
The four-star general said the government would grant amnesty to GAM members who surrendered and accepted the government's offer of special autonomy for the province.
National Police chief Gen. Da'i Bachtiar said the police had placed Amri in a safe house.
GAM spokesman Sofyan Dawood, however, expressed doubt that Amri had surrendered. He demanded the Indonesian government allow Amri to hold a press conference in the provincial capital of Banda Aceh to prove that he had voluntarily turned himself in.
However, when later contacted by The Jakarta Post, Sofyan said that Amri decided to defect after learning that he would be dismissed and brought to justice by GAM for his reputed close ties with Indonesian officials.
"It is better for him to make his own way because we don't trust him," he told the Post by phone.
Sofyan denied that Amri, who is known to have close ties with the GAM commander in Aceh, Muzakir Manaf, was a senior official in GAM.
Meanwhile, GAM negotiator Sofyan Ibrahim Tiba at first explained Amri's disappearance by saying the Army's Special Forces had kidnapped him from his hotel in Banda Aceh on Monday.
Nevertheless, Tiba later said that Amri's decision to surrender to Indonesia would not disrupt GAM's fight.
"Whether he surrendered of his own free will or by force, it will not influence GAM's fight," he said in Banda Aceh.