Jakarta – The Indonesian National Defense Forces (TNI) has prepared a contingency plan for the eventuality that the peace agreement signed by the Indonesian government and GAM (Free Aceh Movement) is not implemented properly, a spokesman said here Thursday.

"The problem the TNI has in implementing the MoU (on the peaceful settlement of the Aceh conflict) is the existence of a GAM splinter group that will not carry out the peace agreement consistently," TNI Commander Gen Endriartono Sutarto said.

Speaking at a working meeting with the House of Representatives (DPR)'s Commission I (foreign affairs, defense and information), Endriartono said the Indonesian military was continuing to promote the MoU's contents among its own ranks.

"But it cannot be denied that a GAM splinter group or some other rogue elements in GAM are not consistent in executing the agreement," he said.

Therefore, the TNI had prepared a contingency plan for the eventuality that the peace process does not run in the way it should, he added.

The military chief said the TNI's concept of the implementation of the peace agreement in Aceh was to abide by and support it by effecting the withdrawal of its non-organic troops from Aceh.

The number of troops the TNI now had in Aceh was 14,700 or far lower than the 41,000 it had before the signing of the MoU, he said.

The signing of the MoU by the Indonesian government and GAM in Helsinki, Finland, on Aug 15 was meant to end their three-decades-old armed conflict in Indonesia's natural resource-rich westernmost province.