M. Taufiqurrahman, Jakarta – Efforts to achieve a lasting peace in Aceh could be spoiled should the government and the House of Representatives backtrack in the yet-to-be-passed bill on Aceh governance, an observer and a politician warn.

A political researcher from the Institute for Studies on Democracy and Civilian Rights, Agung Widjaya, said the Acehnese people wanted their aspirations accommodated in the bill.

"The Acehnese are now consumed by optimism that the bill on Aceh governance will accommodate their demands. Jakarta should not spoil this, because it will only breed a stronger resistance movement in the future," Agung told a discussion Tuesday organized by the Partnership on Governance Reform group.

Agung, who has spent much of his time building a grassroots democratic network in Aceh, said in spite of such optimism there was a deep-seated suspicion among the Acehnese that they were still being manipulated by the central government.

"An allegation that members of the House of Representatives Special Committee on the Aceh governance bill have taken bribes and the fact that a legislator from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) will be appointed to head a working committee in the Pansus, only strengthens this suspicion," he said.

The PDI-P faction has from the outset opposed the deliberations on the bill currently before the House. The committee has already completed discussions on 70 percent of the bill, substance-wise, and is expected to wrap up the deliberations soon.

Acehnese lawmaker Farhan Hamid of the National Mandate Party (PAN) said many Acehnese based their suspicions on several issues where they believed the government had backslid on key policies that granted special rights to the province.

"The administration of president Abdurrahman Wahid produced a law that gave Sabang Island off the western tip of Aceh special status as a free trade zone, but later there was a decision to diminish this status and now Sabang is only being made a free port," Farhan said.

There were numerous other cases where the government was reluctant to grant special rights to Aceh as mandated by the law, he said.

To prevent such a reversal in policy from recurring, Farhan said the committee and the government needed to formulate clearly defined provisions on Aceh's special status.

"There are already laws that will contravene provisions in the Aceh governance bill, such as the laws on ports, fisheries and forestry," Farhan said.