Thousands of Indonesian troops have begun withdrawing from Aceh province in the last phase of a peace plan agreed with the rebels. The pullout was finalised after the Free Aceh Movement surrendered their final batch of weapons, fulfilling the terms of the pact reached in August.
Presenter/Interviewer: Marion Macgregor
Speakers: Wiryono Sastrohandoyo, former Indonesian government negotiator; Jueri Laas, Aceh Monitoring Mission spokesman; Zaini Abdullah, a member of the exiled Acehnese leadership based in Sweden
MacGregor: Over the next few days, around 6,000 government troops will leave Indonesia's westernmost province of Aceh, and they won't be coming back. It's the fourth and final phase in the process which has already seen 18,000 non-local military and police units withdraw from the region.
The government committed to pulling out of Aceh four months ago when it signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Free Aceh Movement, GAM. Jueri Laas is the spokesman for the Aceh Monitoring Mission, which has been overseeing the implementation of the MOU.
Laas: Of course this a very huge step for the peace process, it's both the decommissioning and redeployment are the first steps, and they are very much confidence-building. And what we have so far is a very strong commitment from both parties.
MacGregor: The final stage of the Indonesian pullout this week comes after the former GAM members surrendered the last of their weapons. Jueri Laas says there was an atmosphere of relief as the arms were handed over at the Lhong Raya football stadium in Banda Aceh.
Laas: The AMM has accepted 840 weapons that have been handed over. In actual numbers, GAM has handed over more than 840 weapons, they have handed over 1,018, but we have disqualified 178, and this brings us to the number of 840.
MacGregor: It's exactly the number the Free Aceh Movement agreed to give up when they signed the pact with the government in August. Speaking from Sweden early this morning, GAM spokesman Dr Zaini Abdullah said the rebels have fulfilled their end of the bargain.
Abdullah: This is according to our commitment with our commander in the field, we have handed over just 840 weapons.
MacGregor: More than 15,000 people, mostly civilians, have died since the start of the separatist conflict in Aceh in 1976.
It took the December earthquake and tsunami that devastated much of the province to produce a breakthrough in Helsinki. There GAM finally agreed to drop its demand for independence for the province of four million people.
Wiryono Sastrohandoyo, the chief Indonesian government negotiator in previous Aceh peace talks, didn't think the deal would work.
Sastrohandoyo: Basically you see the problem is that the government wants autonomy as a solution, but the agreement, or the MOU as they call it, has a quasi-constitutional character. And it is establishing in a way a kind of federative relationship between Aceh and the central government.
MacGregor: Under the new structure, the government agreed to allow the Acehnese to start a local political party. For that to happen, the Parliament in Jakarta still needs to approve changes to the law.
Jueri Laas is confident that the momentum of the peace process will help the draft through. But some are less confident that the legal changes will sail through the Parliament. Former government negotiator Wiryono Sastrohandoyo says in the end, it will be a numbers game.
Sastrohandoyo: The government I think has the Golkar party supporting the government position, which means I suppose that they will comply with the agreement. PDIP, Megawati's party, has less numbers in the parliament, but the dynamics of the situation is still not clear to me. It may be that some parliamentarians, because now we are very free and very messy in our politics here, I think it's going to be still difficult to predict definitely. But I suppose the mindset is also changing because people are tired of these conflicts.