The show must go on, says Susilo

The show must go on, says Susilo

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

While offering a last minute chance for Aceh rebels to avert a
full scale war, the government's chief security minister said on
Wednesday that a military campaign would likely go ahead after
Monday's deadline.

"The show must go on," Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Coordinating
Minister for Political and Security Affairs, told a meeting with
the nation's top editors.

President Megawati Soekarnoputri ordered the Indonesian
Military (TNI) on Tuesday to launch a military campaign in Aceh,
part of what the government calls a combined operation along with
campaigns for humanitarian assistance, justice, and the
restoration of local government services.

The government has set a May 12 deadline for the Aceh Free
Movement (GAM), which has been fighting for a separate state
since 1976, to return to the negotiating table.

Jakarta has also attached GAM's acceptance of Aceh's special
autonomy status under the republic, and GAM's surrendering of its
weapons, as preconditions for the peace talks.

The combined forces of TNI and the National Police in Aceh
would be bolstered to around 50,000 from 40,000 for the launching
of the security campaign next week, Susilo disclosed.

The huge number was needed not only to confront GAM forces,
estimated by the TNI at 5,000, but also to protect the Aceh
people in areas once they come under TNI control, to secure
strategic sites. and a host of other things, he said.

On the humanitarian assistance campaign, he said the
government would make sure that no Acehnese would go hungry while
the operation took place, that they would not be deprived of
access to health care, that they would be able to continue to
visit houses of worship, and that children would be able to go to
school.

The minister, himself a retired Army general, said President
Megawati would decide on the legal umbrella under which the
combined operations would be launched, citing four possibilities:
maintenance of law and order, a state of civil emergency, martial
law, or war.

A decision would be made before Monday, he said, adding that
the government has also scheduled a meeting with the House of
Representatives on Wednesday to discuss its policy in Aceh.

Susilo also reiterated that there was still a "window of
opportunity" for negotiations before the Monday deadline.

"I admit, it's a small window, and it would probably need
divine intervention for this to happen," he said.

GAM had rejected Jakarta's ultimatum but said that it was
prepared to meet with the Indonesian government once again only
after May 12.

Talks between the government and GAM had been brokered by the
Geneva-based Henry Dunant Centre (HDC) since 2000. The talks led
to the historic signing of the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement
(COHA) on Dec. 9, 2002.

After a lull of about two months, the two sides resumed
fighting, and the escalation of tension has reached the point
where the December agreement is as good as dead. Both GAM and the
government have traded blame for undermining the agreement.

Last ditch efforts to salvage the agreement failed when GAM
pulled out of a meeting in Geneva on April 25 at the last minute,
even as Indonesian representatives had arrived there.

Susilo refused to give a time frame on how long the next
military campaign in Aceh would last.

The last TNI campaign in Aceh lasted 10 years. It was
abandoned in 1998 after it became clear that not only had the
military failed miserably, but it was also responsible for
atrocities that went unreported, sending more Aceh people to the
GAM fold.

This time, TNI had promised that it would allow national and
international reporters and observers to monitor the war and
ensure that the operation would not be marred by human rights
violations.

Susilo insisted that the government had exhausted all peaceful
means to solve the Aceh problem, and that GAM had taken advantage
of the cessation of hostilities agreement to consolidate and even
recruit and rearm in violation of the COHA terms and spirit.

"If we could avert the use of force, we would," he said,
adding however that the situation in Aceh had reached the point
where it was threatening the people of Aceh, as well as the
territorial integrity of the republic.

Negotiations, he added, could even resume while the military
operation was underway. "Our doors remain open," he said.

War and diplomacy could take place simultaneously, he said,
recalling Indonesia's struggle for independence in the late
1950s, and the military campaign to win Papua in the early 1960s
as examples of the successful two-pronged approach.