TNI withdraws from Aceh 2,600 more soldiers
TNI withdraws from Aceh 2,600 more soldiers
Agencies, Lhokseumawe
The Indonesian Military (TNI) withdrew another 2,600 soldiers from Aceh on Tuesday as part of the military's commitment to an accord to end three decades of fighting with separatist rebels.
The troops -- among some 30,000 security forces slated to leave the province by Dec. 31 -- set sail from the northern port town of Lhokseumawe on three warships -- bringing the total number of soldiers and police to leave so far to over 5,000.
The soldiers sang and waved their helmets in the air on Tuesday as they boarded the vessels, which left for the towns of Palembang on Sumatra island, and Semarang and Surabaya on the main island of Java.
"This withdrawal reflects our commitment to fulfill our obligation to support the peace deal," said local military commander Maj. Gen. Supiadin Aries Saputra.
About 200 residents gathered to bid farewell to the soldiers at the Lhokseumawe port. The area around the town was a stronghold for the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) during the conflict, which began in 1976 and claimed some 15,000 lives.
Some of the onlookers cried and hugged the soldiers before they boarded two ships with their automatic weapons. Three other ships were scheduled to arrive later in the day to carry the soldiers back to their home base in East Java province.
Yuni Lasmiati, 28, broke into uncontrollable sobs as her soldier boyfriend Eko Wahyudi went aboard. Other Acehnese waved their hands and shouted personal messages to soldiers as the ships slowly left port.
Several foreign observers from the Aceh Monitoring Mission (AMM), in charge of overseeing the peace process, were on hand.
The agreement to end the civil war calls on the military to more than halve the troops it has in the province by the year's end and for separatist rebels to hand in all of their self- declared 840 weapons.
Implementation of the deal began last week, when the rebels surrendered more than a quarter of their armory, raising hopes that the agreement to end the war in the oil and gas-rich region might succeed where several others failed.
But analysts warn that it is too early to celebrate.
"You're basically calling on goodwill to overcome generations of bad blood," said Ken Conboy, who runs the Jakarta-based security consultancy Risk Management Advisory. "That's asking a lot of the Acehnese people and the military."
The last accord collapsed in 2003 after the warring factions accused each other of violations, he said, and there have been several complaints in the last week about rebels coming down from the mountains to demand "taxes" from village chiefs, civil servants and others.
"It will be interesting to see if the government files an official complaint," he said, and whether that will trigger a repeat of what happened last time around. "It's still early in the game."
Efforts to end the conflict in Aceh picked up speed after the Dec. 26 earthquake and tsunami struck the area, killing 131,000 people in Aceh and leaving a 500,000 others homeless. Neither side wanted to add to people's suffering or to hold up the flow of aid to victims.
During several months of negotiations, the rebels gave up their long-held demand for independence and the government agreed to give the region limited self-government and allow former insurgents to form a political party.
Several thousand troops pulled out of Aceh even before rebels handed over their weapons, but the official withdrawal began Sunday with 800 soldiers leaving port.