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Indonesian rebels end 29-year insurgency
(AP)
Updated: 2005-12-28 09:01
Rebels in Indonesia's tsunami-ravaged Aceh province formally disbanded their
armed wing Tuesday, ending a 29-year struggle for independence that killed
thousands so the movement could participate in elections next year.
Free Aceh Movement fighters returned to peace talks with the government after
mammoth waves crashed into Aceh's coastlines a year ago, leaving at least
156,000 of the province's people dead or missing and a half-million more
homeless.
The two sides signed an accord in August, and the rebels last week finished
handing over their self-declared 840 weapons. Tuesday's disbanding was the next
major step under the plan, and it carried large symbolic weight.
Aceh rebel commander Sofyan Daud, center,
reads a statement, announcing demobilization of 'The Acehnese National
Army, or the armed wing of the Free Aceh Movement, in Banda Aceh,
Indonesia, Tuesday, Dec. 27, 2005.[AP] | "The
armed wing of the Free Aceh Movement has demobilized and disbanded," said rebel
commander Sofyan Daud, effectively ending the separatist insurgency that has
killed at least 15,000 people since 1976.
"The Aceh national army is now part of civil society, and will work to make
the peace deal a success," he said after meeting with President Susilo Bambang
Yudhoyono in the provincial capital, Banda Aceh.
"We are entering a political era now. We do not need weapons anymore."
Instead, the guerrillas will participate in April elections in this province
of 4 million people on the northern tip of Sumatra island.
Yudhoyono renewed his government's pledge to complete the withdrawal of more
than 24,000 troops from Aceh by Dec. 31. In a tsunami commemoration speech a day
earlier, he said the deal was "an example of how a new hope for peace can emerge
out of the ruin of destruction."
The magnitude-9.0 earthquake that ripped apart the ocean floor off Sumatra
island on Dec. 26, 2004, killed or left missing more than 216,000 people in 12
nations.
But Aceh was hardest hit, and as tens of thousand of corpses began piling up
on the road in the disaster's aftermath, the rebels and the government decided
they did not want to add to people's suffering.
When they returned to the negotiating table in Finland, both sides made
concessions.
The rebels agreed to hand over their weapons and, in an about-face, gave up
their demand for independence.
The government vowed to withdraw more than half of its nearly 50,000 garrison
from Aceh and to give the region limited self-government and control over 70
percent of the oil- and gas-rich province's mineral wealth.
So far, the deal has stuck with the help of international peace monitors.
On Tuesday, both sides played down the prospective threat from a proposal by
Indonesia's military chief Gen. Endriartono Sutarto, who suggested sending up to
500 new troops to Aceh to help with tsunami reconstruction.
Yudhoyono said any additional troops would number less than 1,000, and they
would be engineers to build roads and bridges.
"This deployment should not disturb the ongoing peace process," he said.
A senior rebel negotiator, Irwandi Yusuf, said such a deployment would breach
the peace accord, and he believed it would not happen.
"I'm not saying it will threaten the peace process if it goes ahead, but it
shouldn't happen," Yusuf told The Associated Press.
Aceh's conflict first erupted in 1873 when Dutch colonialists occupied the
previously independent sultanate. The Acehnese assisted Indonesia's successful
1945-49 war of independence against the Dutch, but launched a decade-long
uprising in the early 1950s 錕斤拷 this time against Jakarta's rule.
The current rebellion began in 1976.
A previous attempt to end the bloodshed collapsed in 2003 after the
Indonesian military kicked out foreign observers and restarted combat operations
against the rebels.
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