Trust needed for implementation of Aceh agreement
Imanuddin Razak, Jakarta
The Aceh peace agreement has been signed and non-local Indonesian Military (TNI) troops and police officers have begun to return to their home bases.
All of the jailed activists and sympathizers of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), which for 30 years fought the TNI and the police in an attempt to gain independence for the province, have been released in compliance with the Aug. 15 agreement.
As part of the peace agreement, members of the armed wing of GAM have begun to surrender their weapons and have expressed their commitment to working with all Acehnese to rebuild the gas and oil-rich province after the devastating tsunami last December and the end of the armed struggle.
With the troop withdrawal being one of the key points of the agreement, some 250 European Union and Southeast Asian monitors, grouped in the Aceh Monitoring Mission (AMM), are overseeing the departure of some 25,000 TNI soldiers and 5,000 police officers from Aceh. The withdrawal of the troops will take place in four stages, with the whole process to be completed by the end of this year.
In addition, the AMM will oversee the disarmament of members of GAM, as well as further steps to create a lasting peace in the province, where some 15,000 people died during the three decades of armed conflict.
Yet, over a month since the signing of the memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the government and GAM, the contents of the agreement have been extensively debated and discussed by the public and legislators at the House of Representatives, who claim that Indonesia has given up much more than GAM.
A political researcher at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences, Syamsuddin Harris, expressed doubt about GAM's "sincerity" regarding the agreement. He was referring to a statement by GAM spokesman Bakhtiar Abdullah on the group's official website, www.asnlf.com, that the autonomy given to Aceh in the agreement did not "delete the dream of promoting Aceh independence".
A legislator on House Commission I for political and military affairs, Yuddy Chrisnandi, demanded honesty from GAM while quoting a point in the agreement stipulating that the group will surrender 840 weapons as part of the peace deal.
"We doubt that the real figure is only 840 ...," the legislator said at a recent hearing.
Expressions of doubt over the other side's seriousness regarding the implementation of the peace deal are not the monopoly of the Indonesian camp, and GAM has also questioned Indonesia's commitment to complying with the points in the agreement.
Malik Mahmud, the self-styled prime minister of the exiled GAM leadership in Sweden, expressed wariness over the disarmament process while addressing the signing of the peace deal on Aug. 15 in Helsinki, Finland.
"According to reports that we have from Aceh, militia members have recently been saying that after GAM is disarmed, they will kill GAM members," Malik said, referring to militia groups allegedly linked to the Indonesian Military.
A similar concern was expressed by Bakhtiar Abdullah, who expressed doubt over the police's ability to disarm all of the militias allegedly linked to the military.
"The Indonesian police cannot be relied upon to decommission these militias and their weapons."
In addition to these existing doubts on both sides, which will make implementing the peace agreement more difficult, a recent incident could also threaten the peace deal. A minor skirmish broke out on Sept. 3, when a group of GAM members reportedly fired on Indonesian soldiers in North Aceh regency, injuring two people.
Great expectations have been placed on the Aug. 15 peace agreement. Allowing doubts and confrontational actions to continue to occur, however, will make this agreement just the third failed attempt to bring peace to Aceh. If this were to occur it would be a great loss for Indonesia, which has yet to recover from numerous political and economic crises.
Do not allow suspicion to block the peace in Aceh. Building trust must be the starting point for a lasting peace in the province.
The author is a staff writer at The Jakarta Post.