Banda Aceh – Indonesia and separatist rebels in Aceh province are expected to sign a landmark peace pact early next month, international mediators said on Tuesday.
It was hoped the deal, which would include international monitors and a fresh provincial election, would end a decades-long conflict that has claimed thousands of lives in the oil and gas rich province on the island of Sumatra.
"We are confident that the government of the Republic of Indonesia and the Free Aceh Movement are very much committed to reach an agreement," Bill Dowell, a spokesman for the Geneva-based Henry Dunant Centre, told reporters in Banda Aceh in Indonesia.
"A few issues need to be resolved but we are planning for a signing of the peace agreement on December 9, 2002," he added. The centre has been mediating in the dispute since 2000.
In Jakarta, chief security minister Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono confirmed the December 9 signing while noting some of the sticking points that remained to be resolved.
"God willing, the peace agreement, which is also the agreement to end hostility, will be signed on December 9 in Geneva," he told reporters.
"The unfinished issue is on how, when and in what way the surrender of arms can be conducted, where will the peace zone be located and how would the police and soldiers adapt to this. All of that should be formulated in one package so there will be a certainty."
Zaini Abdullah, a Free Aceh Movement (GAM) representative in the Swedish capital Stockholm, said that besides the question of weapons, the key problems to be solved were the role of the police in Aceh and the issue of special autonomy.
Jakarta has ruled out independence, saying the best it could offer was last year's autonomy package that gives the Acehnese more control over their affairs.
"There is an Indonesian announcement that the Acehnese people have already accepted special autonomy. We do not accept it," Abdullah told Reuters.
But he said that after involving the international community and the Henry Dunant Centre in solving the conflict, the GAM had to grasp the opportunity it was being offered and considered a ceasefire a necessary step.
Independence still goal
But the rebels still demand full independence and talks on that should continue as soon as fighting ends, he said. "That cannot be done until we get ceasefire. Then we can go on talking about political issues," Abdullah said.
Jakarta had wanted to sign the deal before the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan but GAM sought a delay until after that period. Ramadan in Indonesia ends on December 7.
The proposed agreement was unveiled last Friday in Banda Aceh, the province's capital on the northern tip of Sumatra island, about 1,700 km northwest of Jakarta.
The Henry Dunant Centre has said free and fair local elections would be held as part of the pact but details, including how GAM might be involved, had yet to be fleshed out.
Another key component was the formation of a joint security committee, which would investigate violations and set up 25 monitoring teams of six people with equal representation from GAM, the government and the Henry Dunant Centre.
While high hopes are pinned on the deal, more than two years of peace talks in Switzerland have done little to halt the bloodshed and clashes between troops and GAM rebels occur on an almost daily basis.
The latest peace negotiations come as up to 1,000 Indonesian troops surround a group of rebels in a North Aceh village. The troops have encircled the group for more than two weeks and recently fired mortars at them.
Many of Aceh's four million people want independence but analysts say most just long for peace and an accounting of abuses carried out during decades of military operations under the iron rule of former President Suharto, who stepped down in 1998 amid social chaos.