Jakarta – The government has promised to heed Acehnese leaders' demand for a greater say in a future law that will be used to guide how Aceh will be governed.
Justice and Human Rights Minister Hamid Awaluddin said Saturday during his visit to Aceh that the government and the House of Representatives would review crucial issues the Acehnese proposed in their version of the bill that the government had taken out.
"The bill has been deliberated in the House and the missing crucial issues (that the Acehnese questioned) will be reconsidered," he said in Aceh Besar.
The exclusion of crucial issues from the bill has provoked angry reactions from Acehnese leaders. They have been aggressively campaigning to have their voices heard by organizing seminars and street demonstrations in Jakarta.
The Acehnese Legislative Council and GAM had drafted their own concepts for the bill to be incorporated with the one drafted by the central government.
Acehnese figures have charged that the bill accommodates only the interests of the central government but has left out principle issues that are of great concern to the Acehnese and that are against the Helsinki peace accord both sides have agreed upon.
Among clauses the Acehnese Legislative Council drafted that are "missing" from the bill are those on independent candidacy for local elections and the management of natural resources.
Apart from the issue of independent candidates – to ensure the political participation of the Acehnese in the upcoming gubernatorial election – the Acehnese figures also questioned the proposed clause which would endorse the establishment, annulment or the merging of new regions and municipalities, districts, hamlets and subdistricts in the province.
The defense issue has also attracted criticism from the Acehnese leaders, who were part of the now-defunct Acehnese legislative team, as they questioned why the final draft failed to restrict military activities in Aceh.
"The MOU has said that the military should deal with external defense, but the final draft has given a greater role to the military, allowing it to intervene in domestic disturbances and internal security threats," an Acehnese scholar, Mawardi Ismail has said.
Mawardi is a former member of the Acehnese legislative team that drafted the initial text of the Aceh bill.
Responding to the criticism toward the military's role in Aceh, Indonesian Military (TNI) chief Gen. Indriartono Sutarto has said that he would stick to national legislation, including the Defense Law and the Military Law, which has given the mandate to the TNI to deal with "insurgency situations".
"Don't assume that the Acehnese people's dream of having their aspirations accommodated in the future law have been dashed simply because the bill submitted to the House has left out their proposals," Hamid said as quoted by Antara.
But Hamid defended the exclusion of independence candidacy from the final bill, saying that the Helsinki peace accord made no mention of such an issue. "None of the clauses in the agreement made any mention of independent candidates," he said emotionally. "We all have positive thoughts about the future law."