Indonesia's president yesterday offered wide-ranging autonomy to separatist rebels in tsunami-devastated Aceh province and promised other concessions in upcoming peace talks.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said he had offered rebel leaders "new talks for ending the conflict peacefully and wisely."
PHOTO: AFP
"I heard that the response is positive," he said in an interview with CNBC Asia Pacific television.
The warring sides are scheduled to meet in Helsinki, Finland, today to try to hammer out a formal cease-fire. Indonesia wants the talks to be followed by more substantive negotiations on the status of Aceh.
The Free Aceh Movement, known by the Indonesian acronym GAM, has been fighting since 1976 for independence for the Holland-sized province of 4.1 million people on the northern tip of Sumatra island. A previous truce collapsed in 2003 when the Indonesian military launched a new offensive against the insurgents.
At the time, Indonesia's parliament approved a special autonomy package for the resource-rich province which would give its people self-government while keeping them within Indonesia, but the measure was never implemented because of the fighting.
Since assuming office 100 days ago, Yudhoyono has repeatedly said that he wished to restart the peace process, and last month's tsunami, which badly damaged the province, has provided a catalyst for the talks.
"I have to continue our talks with GAM leadership with the hope that this momentum can be used wisely and properly by GAM as well as my government to terminate the conflict and to unite, rebuild Aceh peacefully," he said.
"If we agree to terminate the conflict based on the special autonomy status, I will give some concessions to them," Yudhoyono said, adding that these would include an amnesty for the rebels and measures to re-integrate rebel fighters.
Mediators at the talks have said the rebels are unlikely to agree to anything less than an internationally supervised independence referendum like the one that ended Indonesian rule in East Timor in 1999.
Pro-independence sentiments are very strong in Aceh and Jakarta's rule is widely despised, making it likely that any free vote would result in a landslide victory for the separatists.
Another key rebel demand has been the full withdrawal of Indonesian forces.
In the interview, Yudhoyono said the military presence would likely decrease after a cease-fire, but that some troops would remain.
"Actually, it depends on how could we terminate the conflict," he said. "Because, after all, security is needed by our brothers and sisters in Aceh. That's the objective of deploying and employing military units in Aceh right now."
japan's aid
In other developments, two Japanese military hovercraft landed in tsunami-shattered Aceh yesterday, bringing a water purification plant and medical supplies to set in motion Japan's largest-ever overseas relief effort.
The craft beached in front of around 50 curious residents in Banda Aceh, the provincial capital and one of the areas hardest-hit areas by the Dec. 26 quake and tsunami.
The Japanese operation began as other foreign militaries, including the US, began scaling back their efforts in Aceh province, on the northern tip of Sumatra island.
The 20-meter-long hovercraft, propelled by two huge aft turbines, skimmed the surface of the water as they traveled at high speed from their mother ship, Kunisaki, anchored 2km off Banda Aceh.
Villagers stood awe-struck by the sight of the huge craft, which are able to travel over land or sea by floating on a cushion of air.
"I've never seen anything like it," said one villager, Muhamad Yunus, 53.
Both hovercraft went as far as 20 meters inland, sending sand flying in every direction as they unloaded equipment. A lone Japanese escort helicopter followed the hovercraft in, and buzzed overhead.
One craft carried three trucks and the other transported two more heavy vehicles and a large green tank, the heart of the water purification plant that will be set up in a refugee camp.
Japan sent about 1,000 soldiers for relief operations in Aceh, the largest-ever overseas relief effort by the Japanese military. They came aboard Kunisaki and two other ships, the destroyer Kurama and supply ship Tokiwa that are anchored close by.
Around 230 personnel will arrive in Banda Aceh yesterday and through today, with the remaining 770 reaching land in the next few days, said Japanese military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Hinoji Yamashita.
Japanese aid will focus on providing medical aid and disease prevention, he said without elaborating.
Tokyo has also sent three Chinooks and two multipurpose UH-60 helicopters, and three SH-60 helicopters to deliver aid to remote areas but the bulk of the troops are expected to remain in and around Banda Aceh, helping in refugee camps here.
The Indonesian government says around 100,000 people died while more than 130,000 others are missing from the quake and tsunami. More than 400,000 are also living in squalid refugee camps without proper sanitation.
DISASTER: The Bangladesh Meteorological Department recorded a magnitude 5.7 and tremors reached as far as Kolkata, India, more than 300km away from the epicenter A powerful earthquake struck Bangladesh yesterday outside the crowded capital, Dhaka, killing at least five people and injuring about a hundred, the government said. The magnitude 5.5 quake struck at 10:38am near Narsingdi, Bangladesh, about 33km from Dhaka, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said. The earthquake sparked fear and chaos with many in the Muslim-majority nation of 170 million people at home on their day off. AFP reporters in Dhaka said they saw people weeping in the streets while others appeared shocked. Bangladesh Interim Leader Muhammad Yunus expressed his “deep shock and sorrow over the news of casualties in various districts.” At least five people,
It is one of the world’s most famous unsolved codes whose answer could sell for a fortune — but two US friends say they have already found the secret hidden by Kryptos. The S-shaped copper sculpture has baffled cryptography enthusiasts since its 1990 installation on the grounds of the CIA headquarters in Virginia, with three of its four messages deciphered so far. Yet K4, the final passage, has kept codebreakers scratching their heads. Sculptor Jim Sanborn, 80, has been so overwhelmed by guesses that he started charging US$50 for each response. Sanborn in August announced he would auction the 97-character solution to K4
SHOW OF FORCE: The US has held nine multilateral drills near Guam in the past four months, which Australia said was important to deter coercion in the region Five Chinese research vessels, including ships used for space and missile tracking and underwater mapping, were active in the northwest Pacific last month, as the US stepped up military exercises, data compiled by a Guam-based group shows. Rapid militarization in the northern Pacific gets insufficient attention, the Pacific Center for Island Security said, adding that it makes island populations a potential target in any great-power conflict. “If you look at the number of US and bilateral and multilateral exercises, there is a lot of activity,” Leland Bettis, the director of the group that seeks to flag regional security risks, said in an
‘DIGNITY’: The Ukrainian president said that ‘we did not not betray Ukraine then, we will not do so now,’ amid US pressure to give significant concessions to Russia Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Friday pushed back against a US plan to end the war in Ukraine, while Russian President Vladimir Putin welcomed the proposal that includes many of his hardline demands. With US President Donald Trump giving Ukraine less than a week to sign, Zelenskiy pledged to work to ensure any deal would not “betray” Ukraine’s interests, while acknowledging he risked losing Washington as an ally. Putin said the blueprint could “lay the foundation” for a final peace settlement, but threatened more land seizures if Ukraine walked away from negotiations. Ukraine faces one of the most challenging moments in its history,
RSS