Muninggar Sri Saraswati, Helsinki – As snow floated down from the dark skies over Finland's capital Helsinki, Vice President Jusuf Kalla and exiled leaders of the Free Aceh Movement (GA

Helsinki – Peace broker Martti Ahtisaari on Saturday praised former enemies Indonesia and the Aceh rebels for honoring a treaty that ended almost 30 years of bloodshed in the former sep

Tony Hotland, Jakarta – The Acehnese will not be getting local political parties in the near future, home affairs minister M. Ma'ruf announced Wednesday.

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Tony Hotland, Jakarta – Extending the term for the international Aceh Monitoring Mission (AMM) would be a good way to help Indonesian authorities and former separatists establish a long

Muninggar Sri Saraswati, Jakarta – Establishment of local political parties and the partition of Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam into three provinces are expected to be main issues of contenti

Apriadi Gunawan, Medan – A number of international relief organizations have been forced to import timber to build houses for tsunami survivors whose homes were destroyed in the catastr

Hera Diani and Anissa S.

Tedi Hikmah, Jakarta – The non-government organisation Indonesian Human Rights Watch (Imparsial) has again raised questions about the investigation of gross human rights violations that

Apriadi Gunawan, Medan – After living in a tent in a tsunami refugee camp for months, Cut Samsidar left Aceh Besar regency for Medan two months ago to work as housemaid.

The Indonesian Legal Aid and Human Rights Association (PBHI) said the tenure of the Aceh Monitoring Mission (AMM) in Aceh should end as originally scheduled because otherwise a bad prec

Aguswandi, Banda Aceh – The one-year commemoration of the tsunami could be the last time the world focuses on Aceh.

Lhokseumawe – Indonesia withdrew the last of its police from Aceh province Thursday under a peace agreement with separatist rebels that was propelled by the tsunami one year ago.

Radzie, Banda Aceh – The earthquake and tsunami at the end of 2004 and the signing of the peace agreement between the Indonesian government and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) in August 20

Radzie, Banda Aceh – The earthquake and tsunami at the end of 2004 and the signing of the peace agreement between the Indonesian government and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) in August 20

Jakarta – The spokesman of ther Free Aceh Movement (GAM) in Aceh Irwandi Yusuf confirmed that GAM high-ranking officials, Hasan Tiro and Malik Mahmud, would not visit Aceh in the near f

Before the tsunami, Banda Aceh was a ghost town at night except for patrols of feared paramilitary police.

Jakarta – An EU-led team monitoring a peace deal in tsunami-ravaged Aceh province will extend its mission by at least three more months to oversee crucial elections, Indonesia's vice pr

John Aglionby, Jakarta – Indonesia is today scheduled to complete the withdrawal of its 21,000 non-local soldiers from Aceh as part of a peace agreement to end a 29-year separatist insu

A'an Suryana and Nani Afrida, Banda Aceh – Ignoring mounting criticism, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has approved a plan for the Indonesian Military to deploy troops to help speed

A'an Suryana and Nani Afrida, Banda Aceh – The Free Aceh Movement (GAM) announced the dissolution of its military wing here on Tuesday in another move to achieve long-lasting peace in t

Banda Aceh – General Endriartono Sutarto, Commander of the Indonesian Military (TNI), has said that the TNI operational command based in Lhokseumawe would be closed down following the w

Banda Aceh – Indonesia's Aceh rebels formally disbanded their armed wing on Tuesday in a major step toward ending one of Asia's longest separatist conflicts.

Banda Aceh – President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono denied earlier reports saying he planned to send more than 15,000 troops to Aceh, saying the soldiers would number less than 1,000 and wo

A'an Suryana and Nani Afrida, Banda Aceh – Tearful mourners gathered here on Monday to offer prayers and lay flowers on the first anniversary of the Indian Ocean tsunami, one of the wor

Nani Afrida, special to The Seattle Times – It has been one year since the tsunami devastated Aceh.

A'an Suryana, Banda Aceh – Despite mounting criticism, the Aceh-Nias Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Agency (BRR) is pressing ahead with its plan to request the Indonesian Military (T

Hera Diani, Jakarta – People in Aceh and Nias have expressed little satisfaction in the progress of reconstruction and rehabilitation work in tsunami-hit areas, despite the government's

Banda Aceh – Some parents in tsunami-ravaged Aceh province are still clinging to hopes for a miracle, placing photos of smiling children in newspapers on the chance they might still be

A'an Suryana, Banda Aceh – A year after the tsunami, signs of recovery are evident among Acehnese children, but many challenges remain, a UN body has said.

A'an Suryana and Tiarma Siboro, Banda Aceh/Jakarta – The government has drawn strong criticism for its plan to deploy 15 battalions, or about 15,000 soldiers, to help speed up reconstru

Banda Aceh – Bustari Mansyur shrugs wearily when asked how many bodies his workers retrieved from the mangled wreckage of last December's tsunami. The question seems irrelevant.

Mark Forbes, Jakarta – Indonesia's military has announced plans to deploy more than 10,000 troops in Aceh to speed tsunami reconstruction, a move that threatens the province's brittle p

Sian Powell, Banda Aceh – Tensions between fundamentalist Muslims and Western aid workers have begun to erupt in Aceh as the tsunami-devastated Indonesian province slowly recovers.

A'an Suryana, Banda Aceh – One year after the Indian Ocean tsunami, children in Indonesia are recovering at a slower pace compared to children in other countries affected by the destruc

Tiarma Siboro, Jakarta – The Indonesian Military (TNI) is preparing to deploy 15 battalions of troops to speed up reconstruction efforts in tsunami-hit Aceh.

Jakarta – The decommissioning and dispersal of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) military wing is inadequate for the Indonesian Military (TNI). TNI chief Gen.

A'an Suryana, Banda Aceh – "I'm tired. I have been writing a lot about reconstruction and rehabilitation efforts in Aceh but the progress here has been slow.

Banda Aceh – Former Aceh rebels watched on Wednesday as international peace monitors fed a final batch of their weapons into a circular saw, a symbolic end to the nearly three-decade of

Jakarta – The Indonesian Forum for Environment (Walhi) urged the government on Wednesday to immediately cancel forest concession rights that have been given to logging companies operati

Marcus Tanner, Banda Aceh – There can't be many guerrilla leaders with escape stories like Yusuf Irwandi's.

Thousands of Indonesian troops have begun withdrawing from Aceh province in the last phase of a peace plan agreed with the rebels.

Muninggar Sri Saraswati and Nani Afrida, Jakarta – The government is expected to extend the presence of international peace monitors in Aceh, previously scheduled to finish their job in

Banda Aceh – Indonesia withdrew 1,600 troops from Aceh province as part of a pact aimed at ending a separatist conflict in the province devastated by last year's tsunami.

Banda Aceh – Former rebels in Indonesia's Aceh today surrendered enough weapons in a final disarmament process to meet the total required under a historic peace pact with the Government

A. Junaidi – Acehnese writer Riati M.K.

Muninggar Sri Saraswati, Jakarta – The head of the Aceh and Nias Reconstruction Agency (BRR) praised on Friday the role of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) in the work being done to rebuild

Muninggar Sri Saraswati, Jakarta – Vice President Jusuf Kalla said on Thursday that the current peace-building process in Aceh was on the right track, giving optimism for a lasting peac

Hera Diani, Jakarta – Despite a slow start, progress has been made in tsunami-ravaged Aceh, with the pace of reconstruction picking up.

Banda Aceh – The commander of the Iskandar Muda Territorial Command, Major General Supiadin AS, says that there are no grounds to extend the presence of the Aceh Monitoring Mission (AMM