Jakarta – Indonesia's military, often accused of human rights violations, is likely to stick to a fresh peace pact in Aceh province despite frustrations over concessions to separatist rebels, analysts said.
Aceh rebels and the Indonesian government signed a peace accord in Helsinki on Monday aimed at ending 29 years of fighting in the resource-rich province which was decimated by last year's tsunami.
Under the accord, the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) dropped its long-held demand for independence for a form of local self-government and agreed to disarm and demobilize its 3,000 fighters.
Indonesia in turn promised an amnesty, to allow the creation of political parties in the province and to withdraw non-local security forces by the end of the year, leaving behind about 14,000 military and 7,000 police.
For the rebels, the last issue is one of the most sensitive, with GAM leaders complaining even as the ink was drying on the historic pact that the number of troops to remain in Aceh was too high.
Sidney Jones from the International Crisis Group think-tank said she expects the military – criticized in the past for violations in East Timor, Papua, Aceh and other areas – to adhere to the pact. "I think at the moment the commander of the TNI [the military] is committed to upholding the letter of the peace pact," she said.
However, she added, "the moment there is seen to be any sliding on the part of GAM, then there is going to be a lot of determination in the military to respond." Jones did not believe the military would be first to break the accord.
"I actually don't believe that they'll take the first step and I don't think we'll see efforts to undermine it from the outset, but I don't think they are happy campers," she warned.
"I don't think there are many people within the military who are at all happy with this kind of arrangement, with some of the concessions made to GAM," she said.
"And that means that while they'll obey the commander-in-chief, who is the president, I don't think they'll let very much slippage in the agreement go without a forceful response," she said.
More than 200 unarmed monitors from the EU and Southeast Asia will observe the implementation of the peace pact, putting both the military and GAM under the international spotlight.
Kusnanto Anggoro, a researcher with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said both sides were equally likely to commit violations, particularly among lower ranks.
"It will be difficult to control everyone down to the lowest command in the field and this will be true not only with the military but also with the GAM," he said.
After the Dec. 26 tsunami, which left some 131,000 Acehnese dead and spurred peace negotiations, military chief General Endriartono Sutarto said he had offered a ceasefire in Aceh but clashes continued on the ground.
Munarman, chairman of the Indonesian Legal Aid Institute, said the true position of the military would be clear soon enough.
"This will be a test for the civilian leaders of the military – in this case the coordinating minister for political and security affairs, and the president – on whether they can enforce their authority," he said.
Munarman said if they were successful, violations would be kept in check. "This time, any disobedience will be construed as a military crime and therefore any offender will face court-martial," he said.
The international group Human Rights Watch cautioned this week that factions within the military with lucrative business interests in the province could try to undermine the deal.
"Many senior military leaders within the military have made a lot of money out of Aceh's natural resources and would not be willing to give that up to the Acehnese," said Brad Adams, the group's Southeast Asia analyst.
GAM's uprising, aimed at creating an independent state on the westernmost tip of Sumatra, was launched in 1976.