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