Key test looms in Indonesia’s peace deal in Aceh

By Jerry Norton

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (Reuters) – Former rebels in
Indonesia’s Aceh will start handing in guns this week as elite
police units begin pulling out, kicking off a key phase in
implimenting a landmark peace deal ending 30 years of civil
war.

Decommissioning of weapons owned by the Free Aceh Movement
(GAM) begins in the province on Thursday under the eyes of an
international team of monitors following the August 15 peace
deal.

“So far, conditions in the field are very good. All those
GAM members that have been released from prison have been
granted amnesty by the government,” Information Minister Sofyan
Djalil told a news conference in Jakarta.

“Former GAM now sit in the coffee shops.”

Hundreds of Acehnese rebels have walked free from
Indonesian jails since the end of August under the sweeping
amnesty that formed a vital plank of the peace deal signed in
Helsinki by GAM leaders and Indonesian government negotiators.

In total, some 2,000 GAM members are expected to be
released, although the actual number so far freed is not clear.

The peace deal was agreed after GAM gave up its demand for
independence in tsunami-devastated Aceh, effectively ending
three decades of fighting that has killed an estimated 15,000
people.

In return for laying down their arms, laws will be changed
to allow rebels to form a political party. Former fighters will
also be given land and help with re-integrating into society.

The massive earthquake and tsunami on December 26 left
170,000 people dead or missing in Aceh alone, helping push the
rebels and government to the negotiating table.

Djalil said that the first phase of the collection and
destruction of weapons due to start on September 15 would
involve around a quarter of GAM’s arsenal.

Nasirudin Bin Ahmed, a GAM representative, said on Tuesday
that 210 weapons would be handed in during the first phase,
making the total number of weapons held by an estimated 3,000
active rebels around 840.

POLICE SENT PACKING

“In the MOU (memorandum of understanding) GAM came up with
the number 840. Because we don’t have the exact number we
cannot challenge … but the military are very comfortable with
that number,” said Djalil.

The minister said once the first phase of weapons
destruction had been verified by the military and Aceh
Monitoring Mission (AMM), 25 percent of government troops would
be withdrawn.

Around 1,300 members of the police mobile brigade would be
withdrawn by ship from Lhokseumawe on Aceh’s northern coast on
Wednesday, a day before the decommissioning, Djalil said.
Indonesia has more than 30,000 soldiers in Aceh, as well as
significant numbers of paramilitary police. The final
withdrawal under the Helsinki peace agreement will leave Aceh
with 14,700 soldiers and 9,100 police.

AMM spokesman Andre Cholz said weapons decommissioning
should be complete by the end of December.

He said there were currently around 200 monitors from
European and Southeast Asian countries in the province, and
that would increase to 230 by September 15.

Around 20 monitors, wearing white T-shirts, baseball caps
and cargo pants, arrived in Aceh on an early flight on Tuesday.

Djalil said the government was confident the peace deal
would stick, despite criticism from some nationalist lawmakers
that it was too lenient on the rebels.

He said the destruction of the tsunami meant both sides
were committed to making peace work, even though two previous
deals in recent years had collapsed in renewed fighting.

“Overall I am very optimistic,” he said.

(Additional reporting by Dan Eaton in Jakarta)