Separatists in Indonesia's Aceh province warned yesterday that Indonesia's powerful military may try to destroy an emerging peace deal to end the bloody, 30-year rebellion.
The army denied it had any such intention.
"If any armed group is going to stop the agreement from working in the field or at the table, it will be the Indonesian military," said a statement that was released by the Free Aceh Movement.
The warning comes just days after a fourth-round of talks between the separatists and the Indonesian government concluded in Helsinki, Finland.
Indonesian officials said that negotiators had resolved 90 percent of the issues involved in establishing a lasting peace in the province.
However, Indonesian army chief General Endriartono Sutarto on Saturday warned that combat operations against the rebels were ongoing and dismissed the importance of a peace deal.
The guerillas proclaimed a unilateral truce in the wake of the Dec. 26 earthquake and tsunami that killed at least 130,000 people in Aceh.
The rebel statement said the generals had "economic, political and psychological" reasons for holding on to Aceh, a natural gas-rich region on the northern tip of Sumatra island.
"Aceh is a source of income, a place to loot. The tsunami is a godsend for them, the foreign aid is a new source of loot. A peace agreement would deny them that loot," the rebels said.
Human rights groups say that the military has extensive legal and illegal business interests in Aceh, like elsewhere in the archipelago.
In 2003, the army scuttled a previous deal to end the war that started in 1976, calling off a 6-month cease fire by launching offensive operations and arresting Acehnese negotiators.
At the same time, a militia working closely with the army attacked foreign observers and forced them to abandon the province.
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