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Jakarta to issue ultimatum to Aceh rebels

Source
Straits Times - November 26, 2000

Susan Sim, Jakarta – Putting an end to months of policy drift, the Indonesian government is set to issue today an ultimatum to the Free Aceh separatist movement GAM: Start negotiations in the next seven weeks or we will wipe you out when the current "humanitarian pause" expires.

And to show it means business, Jakarta will order the police to begin enforcing a strict ban on civilians carrying weapons as provided for under the pause agreement, which means effectively that the police can start hunting down any alleged GAM member they suspect to be in possession of arms.

This new game plan is scheduled to be unveiled before Parliament today in a show of unity of purpose between the executive and legislative branches.

"We're just short of imposing a civil emergency in Aceh. But our preference is not for it now," Attorney-General Marzuki Darusman, one of the Cabinet members who formulated the new policy stance, told The Straits Times yesterday. "We want to reinvigorate the efforts of the humanitarian pause to the full."

The bottom-line remains yet unchanged – Jakarta will not brook any challenge to the sovereignty of the state by either Aceh or Irian Jaya – "we are still open to negotiation".

Jakarta, however, wants to be able to negotiate from strength and not allow GAM or the student referendum movement, Sira, to continue to dominate the discourse because it believes their goals are not necessarily shared by the public.

Especially if the government can deliver on previous promises to speed up development and bring some high-ranking military officers to trial for human-rights abuses.

Accordingly, today's policy declaration will state unequivocally that Jakarta will not further extend the humanitarian pause – first implemented on June 2 to reduce tension by stopping offensive actions on both sides – when its second phase ends on January 15.

The pause was meant to be what veteran diplomat and key negotiator Hassan Wirajuda calls an "appetiser before the main course", a confidence-building measure before substantive political talks begin between separatists and Jakarta.

But officials say that GAM has instead made use of the pause to continue intimidating the population and extorting from businesses while refusing to start talks. Noted Mr Marzuki: "Elements of GAM have now become more forceful and somewhat acting with impunity. Police and soldiers have been killed in the hundreds." In contrast, the authorities have been "very restrained", the former human-rights activist said, noting that reports of continued abuses and killings of civilians by troops were just one side of the story.

Accordingly, the police will now start implementing the law-enforcement provisos of the pause more seriously and arrest anyone with weapons.

And if there is no breakthrough by January 15, the government will 'revert to the national policy of taking action against insurrectionist movements, which could entail the security option. "But this is an act of last resort."

By issuing its new policy statement today, Jakarta is hoping to pre-empt any unilateral declaration of independence by either Irian Jaya or Aceh when their separatist movements commemorate anniversaries on December 1 and December 4 respectively.

Mr Marzuki said that the ministers in charge of security and law, under the leadership of Coordinating Minister for Politics and Security, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, reached the consensus that a tougher line had to be taken last Tuesday night.

Vice-President Megawati Sukarnoputri signed off on it the next day. "It was not easy to reach a consensus. We had to first imagine the unimaginable: What if Aceh broke away like East Timor? So we had to imagine where we started going wrong and work on that."

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