Banda Aceh – A rebel in Indonesia's Aceh province has been shot and wounded by a soldier during a disarmament ceremony aimed at ending decades of violence in the tsunami-hit conflict zone.
Rebels from the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) began handing over their rifles and pistols to foreign monitors on Friday, in a second phase of disarmament that was part of a peace deal agreed with the government in August.
Police said the independent Aceh Monitoring Mission (AMM), established under the terms of the August deal in Helsinki, was probing the shooting of the GAM rebel, which coincided with Friday's disarmament launch.
"The AMM team is trying to clarify what happened in the area and will later decide which party was guilty," said Aceh police chief Bahrumsyah Kasman, referring to the shooting in the Peudada region of eastern Aceh.
According to GAM, the trouble started when three GAM members on a motorbike were pulled over by the military after refusing to stop at a checkpoint. One rebel ran away while the other two were allegedly assaulted.
"Later on, some of their friends came to the military post seeking their release," said GAM spokesman Irwandi Yusuf.
"While negotiations were taking place a shot was suddenly fired by one of the soldiers and wounded one rebel. I suspect the shooting was due to old animosity towards the rebel because he was on the wanted list when Aceh was under martial law."
Information Minister Sofyan Jalil, who negotiated the historic Helsinki agreement on behalf of the government, said the shooting would not derail efforts to bring peace to the troubled province.
"I think it will not have an impact on the peace process because the disarmament process is taking place very well," he told Indonesia's private Metro TV.
Major General Bambang Darmono, the top military officer in Aceh when it was under martial law, agreed, saying, "It absolutely has no impact on the ongoing process." AMM is already investigating the alleged shooting of a GAM member by paramilitary police in western Aceh on Wednesday, before the second phase of disarmament started.
Police said the man was killed after refusing to stop at a checkpoint while driving a stolen car, but GAM said he was killed in an act of intimidation by the paramilitary police.
"We are still investigating the case with the full cooperation of both parties and we are still establishing the facts," AMM spokeswoman Faye Belnis told AFP on Friday.
Despite the shootings, disarmament has gone ahead with rebels surrendering 128 weapons in northern Aceh on Friday. Of the total, AMM recognized 91 weapons and disqualified 37 weapons deemed not to have been in working order.
The process continued Saturday at four other sites, including one in the Madat area of eastern Aceh attended by AMM chief Pieter Feith, government representatives and GAM members.
"A total of 93 weapons were handed over today (Saturday). Twelve of them were disqualified which means 81 were accepted and 21 weapons were disputed by the government," AMM spokesman Juri Laas told AFP.
Rebels have pledged to hand over their declared arsenal of 840 firearms in four stages before the end of the year. A total of 279 weapons were collected in the first phase in September but the AMM disqualified 36 of them.
In return for the disarmament the government agreed to withdraw from Aceh almost 6,000 troops and 2,000 police, or a quarter of its reinforcement troops there.
Observers see the Helsinki agreement as the best chance yet of ending the conflict which has claimed about 15,000 lives, most of them civilians, since GAM began its struggle for an independent state in 1976.
Under the accord, GAM dropped its long-held demand for independence in exchange for a form of local government in Aceh, a province of about four million people. The peace pact was spurred by the December 2004 tsunami disaster, which left 131,000 people dead in Aceh.