Start pushing
The TNI has abandoned any pretence of a ceasefire with GAM. General Ryamizard Ryacudu declared, “If they will not surrender, we will crush them.” He claims to have killed 120 rebels in two weeks. GAM says the real figure is six fighters and an unknown number of civilians.
The good news is that the US is sick of the TNI’s recalcitrance. During his visit to Indonesia, Paul Wolfowitz said, “If the military gets in the way of that [political resolution], then the military should be pushed to get out of the way.”
It’s time to start pushing.
Have GAM put semi autonomy, as opposed to sovereignty, on the table?
Because until they do there isn’t a hope in hell of peace. THis isn’t ET, there is no claim they can raise at international law beyond an extraordinarily wide reading of the ‘roman gold’ case for self determination (which would never be supported because SD is almost always read by the UN to mean non-white people breaking away from white people- it has been a joke in most other contexts), and it is clear as day that Indonesia won’t accept them pulling away; the oil makes certain of that.
So, peace discussions mandate them dropping the call for full sovereignty, everything else is just rhetoric.
I don’t know what they’ve put on the table, and frankly it’s not relevant to this point. The talks haven’t started yet, and nobody backs away from their ambit claim before they even turn up to negotiate.
GAM has called for talks and committed to a ceasefire. The Indonesian Government has called for talks and committed to a ceasefire. TNI ignores those instructions and starts shooting people. That can’t be supported.
(There’s no credible evidence that GAM has broken the ceasefire. The worst they seem to have done is sought food from aid workers — since their homes and families were destroyed, surely they have a valid claim to food aid?)
The standing offer from the central government is a special administrative region along the same lines as they proposed in East Timor. GAM rejects that because they don’t trust TNI to observe the terms of the autonomy statute.
TNI is desperate for a serious national security threat because the parliament is committed to ending TNI’s business operations within 5 years. If they can keep the Aceh war going they can claim they need military enterprises to fund operations. In the long term the only real solution is independence or radical military reform.
Thank God the US had finally grown some balls in Aech. Its a sad state of affairs when a country’s armed forces are effectively a seperate entity to the government and in many places, such as Aech, have more power. I’d say this is probably Indonesia’s biggest problem and its a good thing they are being cut down to size in 5 years – thats a long time now and isnt going to help the current situation. All we can really do is, like Rob said, push them out.
Are you serious?