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Time for peace and healing in Indonesia

The draft peace deal between the Indonesian Government and the rebel Free Aceh Movement, which has the potential to end a nearly three-decade-old militancy in the biggest province of the archipelago, marks a bold and wise step in the search for peace in the troubled country. Although negotiations through intermediaries have been going on for some years, it is the large scale devastation and loss of lives caused by the December 26 tsunami that prodded the two sides to work determinedly for an agreement. Militancy in the turbulent province, led by the Free Aceh Movement — known by its Indonesian acronym, GAM — has claimed thousands of lives over the past 30 years and caused untold suffering to the more than four million people. The brutal military repression of the past had deepened the crisis and prevented a solution from emerging, even after the intervention of international facilitators. The latest round of talks in Finland has produced what looks like a mutually acceptable package. GAM will be able to enter the political mainstream and contest elections, while the Government will try to reduce and then pull out troops, depending on the early return of normality and, quite possibly, a laying down of arms. A formal agreement may have to be signed with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who has given his consent to the Helsinki deal.

If the agreement can be clinched and implemented in earnest, it should provide significant relief to the people of Aceh, the Indonesian archipelago, and the whole of South East Asia. For Indonesia, it could mean an end to the second major challenge from armed militancy. The eventual decision to let East Timor, an island Indonesia annexed in 1976 and ruled with genocidal terror, break free and emerge as a new, independent country resolved one crisis. The sound solution for Aceh will be a framework of autonomy without undermining the territorial integrity of Indonesia. If things go smoothly and the insurgents launch, as in India's Mizoram, a political party and become legitimate, elected representatives of the people, Aceh can provide a model for the resolution of crises caused by insurgencies and their heavy-handed suppression. The unresolved ethnic crisis in Sri Lanka has come in the way of the international community offering a major relief and reconstruction programme for the tsunami-hit people in areas controlled by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. With GAM, unlike the LTTE, facilitating a peace deal by putting people first, tsunami recovery can begin on a massive scale in the Indonesian province. There is also a lesson in all this for the Philippines and Thailand, which are facing militancy and terrorism in their southern provinces. This is the time to push ahead with moves for a negotiated political settlement for these regions, taking the cue from the Aceh breakthrough.

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