Achmad Sukarsono, Jakarta – The peace process in Indonesia's Aceh province could soon be irreversible, the head of a European Union-led team monitoring implementation of a truce between the government and rebels said on Wednesday.
Aceh Monitoring Mission (AMM) chief Pieter Feith also said leaders of the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM) who are still in exile should come back to the province on Sumatra's northern tip to see the progress.
The first round of decommissioning of GAM weapons in September exceeded the target, yielding some 240 arms, while Indonesia pulled out 1,500 policemen and around 6,500 soldiers.
Feith said rebels would begin surrendering weapons again in a second stage on Friday which might take four days to complete.
He added Indonesia plans to withdraw 1,300 policemen and 6,500 soldiers from Oct. 14 to 24. Among those going will be units from the army's feared Kopassus special forces.
"I believe if we really reach the mid-term point, Eid Al Fitr at the end of Ramadan, and we have completed the second round, the process by and large is becoming irreversible," Feith said in a briefing to foreign journalists in Jakarta, referring to the Muslim festival that this year falls in early November.
"(It's) very hard to imagine the process can still backtrack," said the Dutch diplomat and veteran in conflict resolution.
The 226-strong unarmed AMM mission, launched last month, comprises European and Southeast Asian monitors.
Mission head Feith called on GAM leaders still living in their Stockholm exile to witness the progress with their own eyes before Dec. 26, the date for the first anniversary of the tsunami that devastated Aceh and left around 170,000 of its residents killed or missing.
The rebels and government were pushed back to negotiations partly by the tragedy that overwhelmed Aceh and made some on both sides re-think GAM's fight to break away from Jakarta rule, a conflict that has killed 15,000 people, mostly civilians, since it started in 1976.
Feith added if the entire rebel decommissioning and military redeployment process were wrapped up by that anniversary date, it could become a "most fitting tribute" to the Aceh struggle for peace.
"I believe the current leadership in Stockholm should start thinking about strengthening links on the field. If they wait too long, they will risk irrelevance and enter oblivion," he said.
Under the Finnish-mediated peace agreement, GAM needs to surrender 840 weapons to the peace observers while Indonesia, which had more than 30,000 soldiers and 15,000 policemen in Aceh before the truce, is required to trim its forces and leave Aceh with 14,700 soldiers and 9,100 police by the end of the year.