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Endriartono refused to disclose the number of troops to be withdrawn from Aceh, but said "we will gradually pull back 30 percent of our troops each month".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