Aceh Rebels Sign Milestone Peace Accord With Indonesia

After 26 years of warfare, the Indonesian government and rebel leaders from Aceh signed a landmark peace accord Monday that negotiators hope will bring an end to fighting in the troubled province.

Signed in Geneva, the agreement calls for the disarmament of the rebels and a reduction of government forces but leaves key issues unresolved, including the specifics of demilitarizing the province.

The conflict is one of the longest-running in the world and has claimed an estimated 1,500 lives this year, many of them civilian. Rights activists have accused the Indonesian government of human rights abuses in the province, including kidnapping, torture and murder.

Gen. Endriartono Sutarto, chief of the Indonesian military, said the army would pull back troops who have been besieging a rebel stronghold in a monthlong campaign aimed at pressuring the separatists to accept the peace agreement.

“They are no longer our enemy,” Sutarto told reporters in Aceh. “They are our brothers working together with us to develop the country.”

Separatist leaders said they would halt hostilities and continue their quest for independence through peaceful means, including elections in 2004 provided under the agreement.

“We welcome the signing and will give this peace deal a chance,” said Isnandar Faseh, a rebel spokesman. “Even if we are attacked once or twice, we will hold back.”

Aceh, a province of 4.1 million people on the northern tip of the island of Sumatra, has been fighting for independence on and off since 1870, when the Dutch colonized the territory. The current war began in 1976 and has claimed the lives of an estimated 12,000 people.

Aceh is one of the most ardently Muslim regions of Indonesia, and many of its people favor the imposition of the strict Islamic code known as Sharia.

However, emissaries from the Al Qaeda terror network who tried to link up with the rebel Free Aceh Movement in 2000 were rebuffed, authorities say, and there is no apparent connection between the rebels and terrorists active in other parts of Indonesia.

The Aceh conflict has contributed to the country’s instability and helped scare off foreign investors. Exxon Mobil, which operates a large liquefied natural gas facility in the province, was forced to close it temporarily last year because of the fighting.

Aceh has substantial petroleum and timber resources, but the fact that little of the revenue they generate remains in the province has fueled support for the independence movement.

As part of the effort to win peace, the government earlier granted Aceh special autonomy status that could give the province as much as 70% of the revenue from oil and gas production. The autonomy grant also permits Aceh to implement Sharia.

Monday’s peace accord was negotiated over the last two years by the Geneva-based Henry Dunant Center for Humanitarian Dialogue.

The agreement calls for free elections in 2004 in which separatist political parties will be allowed to compete. It also provides for international observers to begin arriving as early as this week to monitor the accord’s implementation.

One pitfall might be the lack of a plan for demilitarizing the province.

The agreement calls for the two sides to design a “mutually agreed upon process” to disarm the rebels and withdraw government troops.

Some activists fear that army units might try to undermine the peace agreement because of their financial interest in remaining in the province. The army is known to operate numerous businesses, both legal and illegal.

In Aceh, reaction was subdued as residents waited to see how the accord would be implemented. But in Geneva, government officials were enthusiastic.

“Thanks be to God, we have signed the deal,” Indonesia’s top security minister, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, told Indonesia’s Metro TV. “The agreement is a milestone in Indonesia’s history of trying to solve the Aceh conflict. Now we can look to the future.”

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Jakarta Bureau chief Paddock is on assignment in Singapore.