Aceh rebels fighting for the independence of Indonesia's northernmost province have told the Indonesian government in peace talks that they see Bougainville in Papua New Guinea as a model for self-government, a rebel spokesman said Friday.
"We can't accept the 'special autonomy' proposed by Jakarta because it's taboo for the Acehnese people, but we need self-government," Free Aceh Movement spokesman Bakhtiar Abdullah told Kyodo News in an interview Thursday in Helsinki.
The interview was held on the sidelines of the third round of six-day talks between the group, also known as GAM, and the Indonesian government in the Finnish capital, which began Tuesday.
Asked whether it means the rebels would give up seeking independence, Abdullah answered, "Our main goal is still there, but independence is not the main agenda in the current negotiations."
He gave the Bougainville autonomous government as an example of the kind of self-government that GAM wants.
After a decade of civil war, in 2001, representatives from the island of Bougainville and from the Papua New Guinea government signed a peace agreement establishing an autonomous government in Bougainville and envisaging a referendum on independence in the future. Bougainville Island is located between the island of New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.
Under the agreement, the Bougainville autonomous government has its own public service, police, tax regime, commercial banks and courts. The Papua New Guinea government retains control over defense and foreign affairs. On Dec. 15 last year, the PNG National Executive Council endorsed Bougainville's own Constitution. In May, an election will be held to elect a Bougainville president and 33 members of the island's legislature.
"We have reached mutual understanding [on the issue] and there will be further negotiations on it," Abdullah said. "There are many offers being made by Indonesia, even to GAM fighters," including economic compensation, during the negotiations, he said. "But we feel it is not appropriate for them to make such an offer to us, because if we have our own government, we will be able to solve the issue."
"This is not a fight for compensation. We don't want to receive any compensation. We never ask for money with regard to our rightful claim to our resources," he added.
Last week, legislators and officials at the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights said the government would offer some concessions, mostly in the form of economic compensation, to GAM as long as GAM consistently accepts the special autonomy offer, hands over at least 900 weapons to the Indonesian military and lets the Indonesian military and police maintain a presence in Aceh.
In a related development, Indonesia's information minister, Sofjan Djalil, said GAM submitted its written proposal to Indonesia on Thursday, the third day of the talks.
Indonesia, he said, can accept some points in the proposal that include the management of natural resources, including in the forestry and fishery sectors.
In the proposal, GAM demands its own flag and anthem, but Djalil said, "We can only accept that after they revise the points." He did not elaborate.
However, on GAM's demand that members of Indonesia's House of Representatives should have the right to veto any government-proposed measures affecting Aceh, Jakarta totally rejected it "because it violates our Constitution," the minister said.
In the proposal, GAM also elaborates on the terms "self-government" and "self-governing territory." "We can accept the term of self-government, but not for self-governing territory," Djalil said, but did not go into detail.
Djalil said Indonesian negotiators will submit the proposal to the lower house for consultations before giving an answer within two weeks.
GAM has been waging a guerrilla war since 1976, seeking independence for Aceh. The rebels accuse the central government of human rights violations in Aceh and of squandering the province's natural resources while leaving the Acehnese in poverty. Thousands of people, mostly civilians, have been killed in the conflict.