Trust needed for implementation of Aceh agreement

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.