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Indonesia To Review Aceh Accord
JAKARTA (News Agencies) - Indonesian Defense Minister Mohammad Mahfud said Thursday the government would revise several points of a provisional agreement with the opposition in the troubled province of Aceh.
"Several points will be amended by the government, such as GAM's (The Free Aceh Movement) demand for a vote sponsored and monitored by an independent party," Mahfud told journalists, a day after the yet-to-be announced accord was struck in Geneva.
"That part has to be amended. It has to be clear what they mean by the vote and for what," he said. The government would reject any demand for a referendum on independence for the resource-rich province on the northern tip of Sumatra island, he added.
"If what they mean by an independent party is a foreign party, we'll reject it. We're not going to internationalize the Aceh issue," he said.
Speaking later, after a cabinet meeting, Mahfud said the government would discuss the agreement in two or three days "because it might contain clauses that can trap or cause us trouble."
"But in principle, the cabinet meeting warmly greets the agreement since it serves as a means to solve problems peacefully and to avoid more victims."
He was referring to a provisional agreement reached in three days of talks in Geneva between the GAM exile leadership and the government, the full contents of which have yet to be made public.
A joint communiqué issued in Geneva on Wednesday said the two parties had "developed a detailed agenda," would observe a moratorium on violence for one month ending February 15th, and would meet again in February to further their search for a political solution.
GAM has waged a non-conventional war for an independent Aceh sultanate since 1976.
Abdullah Zaini, GAM's chief negotiator, said in Geneva the moratorium agreement - which extends a shaky six-month truce - was aimed at trying to open political negotiations. The truce had been due to expire January 15th.
Mahfud, considered an Aceh hardliner, said on Wednesday that GAM had promised to shift from armed struggle to political means, a pledge questioned by GAM leaders on the ground in Aceh.
However, if the new truce failed the government would launch "legal actions," he said.
"Legal actions will be taken against anyone who breaks the law," he said in apparent reference to a threatened province-wide house-to-house weapons search.
But Aceh police spokesman Senior Commissioner Kusbini Imbar said the law enforcement campaign would be launched despite the renewed truce.
"It's one of the efforts to uphold the law to prevent violence," he said.
Amni bin Ahmad Marzuki, GAM spokesman in the Joint Committee on Security and Modalities, a body set up to implement the earlier truce, warned that the weapons search plan could jeopardize the cease-fire.
"[The] operation ... will spark tension and violence because GAM members will certainly defend their weapons," Amni said.
Another GAM spokesman, Ishak Daud, said his group would respect "what has been agreed by our leaders," but warned that any attempt to disarm GAM members would be met with resistance.
Aceh military commander Colonel Syarifuddin Tippe said his troops would back the police drive.
"Keep in mind that the previous humanitarian pause had only benefited GAM because we were not allowed to attack. The reality is GAM continued to launch provocations," Tippe told a troop rally in the provincial capital Banda Aceh.
The chief of the army strategic reserve command (Kostrad), Lieutenant General Ryamizard Ryacudu, said in Jakarta he had ordered his troops to "destroy without mercy" any GAM members who attacked them.
His remark followed the killings of two Kostrad soldiers allegedly by GAM members earlier in the week.
More than 960 people were killed in 2000 in violence involving GAM separatists and security forces, according to human rights groups, with 40 more this year.
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