Suspicious of everything GAM

Suspicious of everything GAM

As reported in The Jakarta Post of Sept. 27, TNI Chief Gen.
Endriartono Sutarto claimed that the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) had
accepted Law No. 18/2000 on special autonomy as the starting
point for all dialogs in the future, which means all things to be
deliberated upon must not go against the principle of a unitary
state. But GAM's spokesman Teuku Kamaruzzaman said that GAM is
ready to give its views, on the special autonomy law. He did not
specifically mention that GAM had accepted Law No. 18/2000, as
stated by Endriartono.

Teuku admitted that a cease-fire was required to establish a
peaceful life. We will support a cease-fire "not because we are
cornered, but the people need to live in peace." According to our
government, this move will lead to an all-inclusive dialog to
hear the aspirations which could be the answer, but only within
the parameters of Aceh as part of Indonesia. But do the GAM
people accept the same parameters? And what is the main reason
that GAM is accepting this dialog? We have to be very careful in
interpreting GAM's statements.

Learning from previous experiences when both sides failed to
maintain a truce agreed in several peace talks since 1999, it was
suggested by Rizal Sukma from the Centre for Strategic and
International Studies that an independent commission would be
necessary to prevent the forthcoming agreement on the cessation
of hostilities from turning into a failure. (the Post on Sept.
28).

This is felt as a necessary step, but when this commission is
created, do we again have to ask foreigners to sit on this
committee? Don't we have any experienced or bonafide national
politicians or Indonesians from other walks of life, like
Indonesian NGOs, to look after our own affairs. Of course they
should have a credible reputation and know how to uphold our
Constitution and be fair in their attitude.

Another thing that needs serious scrutiny, is the existence of
what have been called recently, "the splinter groups" (more than
one?). I think that this is just a maneuver by GAM, to have an
excuse and blame some other non-exisistent organization for their
human rights violations and their destructive actions.

What is more important is to ask GAM to sign a sort of MOU,
that contains the official interpretation of what is agreed by
both sides and this can be used by an independent commission to
control what is going on. An MOU is a common practice nowadays,
and our Republic has signed several MOUs, like the one with IMF
and the others.

SOEGIH ARTO, Jakarta