TNI prepares contingency plan for Aceh truce

TNI prepares contingency plan for Aceh truce

Tiarma Siboro, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The Indonesian Military (TNI) has prepared a contingency plan to
anticipate possible violations of the Aceh peace agreement
scheduled for signing on Aug. 15.

TNI Commander Gen. Endriartono Sutarto said on Thursday the
plan came after he learned there were arguments within the Free
Aceh Movement (GAM) rebel group's structure regarding the peace
deal.

"In a show of our support for the peace effort, I have ordered
soldiers to stop the offensive for the time being. I also ask all
parties to exercise restraint for the sake of the peace deal," he
said.

Endriartono would not elaborate on the contingency plan.

He was speaking after a meeting with all three armed forces'
chiefs of staff and Minister of Defense Juwono Sudarsono on a
draft peace agreement signed by delegations of the Indonesian
government and GAM in Helsinki on July 17.

Under the draft peace deal, Indonesia will reduce its military
and police presence in Aceh in conjunction with the collection
and destruction of weapons possessed by the rebels.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has said the process would
last three months, beginning from September this year.

Endriartono refused to disclose the number of troops to be
withdrawn from Aceh, but said "we will gradually pull back 30
percent of our troops each month".

No fewer than 38,000 troops have been deployed to Aceh to
crush GAM rebels since the government imposed martial law on the
province in May 2003.

Although the Susilo government lifted martial law last year
and the ensuing state of emergency in Aceh in May this year, the
heavy presence of troops has been maintained.

The Cessation of Hostilities Agreement reached between the
Indonesian government and GAM in December 2002 proved short-lived
due to violations perpetrated by both parties. Martial law was
declared five months later after the rebels refused to surrender
their arms and recognize Jakarta's sovereignty over the natural
resource-rich province.

From Vientiane, the European Union said it would lead a peace
monitoring mission to Aceh.

It will be the first time the EU has sent peace observers to
Asia.

"We have experience of this type of operation and normally we
do it well," foreign policy chief Javier Solana told Reuters,
referring to previous dispatches of EU monitors to conflict zones
in Bosnia and Africa.

The 200-strong team could start moving into place as early as
Aug. 16, a day after the Aceh peace deal will be signed by the
warring parties.

Joining the monitoring team will be five contributing
countries from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN). They are Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei and the
Philippines.

The foreign monitors will serve for six months, with a
possible extension of another six months.

Endriartono asserted that the TNI would be involved in the
mission only to provide protection for the observers.

Earlier in the day, a government negotiator in the Helsinki
talks and Minister of Information and Communications Sofyan
Djalil said the team would monitor the peace deal and define
mechanisms of dispute settlement in case of violations.

Sofyan was speaking after talks with diplomats from the five
ASEAN countries that will be involved in peace monitoring in
Aceh.

Thailand's foreign minister said on Wednesday his country was
prepared to commit between 20 and 40 monitors "depending on
requests".

Foreign monitors were sent to Aceh following a truce in
December 2002, but dozens of unarmed monitors from Thailand and
the Philippines were forced to pull out amid escalating violence.

About 15,000 people have been killed in Aceh in one of the
longest armed conflicts in the world since GAM began its struggle
for Acehnese independence in 1976.

A peace process was restarted in the wake of last December's
tsunami, which killed 129,000 people in the province alone.