[Kabar-indonesia] 5 Aceh Reports: Elections By Dec. 10; Vast Majority Back Sharia; Optimism

[JoyoNews at aol.com]

5 Reports:

- Indonesia's Aceh to vote in
  December - Jakarta

- Acehnese optimistic of lasting peace
  one year after peace deal

- Vast Majority Of Indonesia's Aceh
   Back Islamic Law - Poll

- Most local people think former rebel
  leaders can lead Indonesia's Aceh: survey

- update: Former Aceh rebel warns of future
  unrest over peace pact

Indonesia's Aceh to vote in December - Jakarta

By Achmad Sukarsono

JAKARTA, August 10 (Reuters) - Indonesia plans to hold the first
direct elections in once-volatile Aceh province by December 10, a
government minister said on Thursday.

Indonesia's parliament passed a landmark law last month giving Aceh
limited self-rule, a move aimed at cementing a peace pact between the
government and the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM), signed last
year in Helsinki.

The law paves the way for direct elections of local executives in the
province, on the northwestern tip of Sumatra.

"In December, we hope by the 10th of December, we will have local
elections," Information Minister Sofyan Djalil told reporters, adding
executive posts in 19 regencies and cities across Aceh would be up for
grabs besides the position of the province's governor.

The Helsinki accord marked the end of a separatist insurgency in which
more than 15,000 people, mostly civilians, died in the conflict that
went for nearly 30 years.

The pact was the result of months of talks spurred by the December
2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that left around 170,000 Acehnese dead or
missing.

Djalil, who was speaking to foreign journalists in a panel discussion,
said the elections would mark a fresh start in Aceh.

"We hope these elections can be conducted smoothly and peacefully.
Then, we start a new page of Aceh with greater autonomy and officials
directly elected by the people," he said.

GAM officials have said they welcomed the new law but that some of its
provisions must be amended because they were not in line with the
peace agreement.

The truce required that future policies related to Aceh must receive
consent from the region's legislature but the new laws had stopped
short by only stipulating the local body would be consulted in such
cases, GAM said.

"In the long term, I think popular dissatisfaction and the feeling of
injustice, the feeling of being cheated yet once again would set in,"
Nur Djuli, a member of GAM's negotiation team for the Helsinki talks,
told the forum.

The Indonesian Survey Circle, a leading pollster, said that its latest
survey in Aceh showed public scepticism in the peace process might
increase if economic woes, which sparked the rebellion, remain
unresolved after the December polls.

The Helsinki agreement came after GAM dropped its demand for an
independent Aceh state. Jakarta in turn promised to allow local
political parties, including any group set up by GAM, to operate in
Aceh, although that contradicts Indonesian laws.

Existing national laws require parties to have branches in more than
half the country's 33 provinces and individuals to obtain party
endorsements before they run in elections.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Acehnese optimistic of lasting peace one year after peace deal

Rudy Madanir and Christine Tjandraningsih

JAKARTA, August 10 (Kyodo News) -- A recent survey has found that the
majority of people in Aceh are satisfied with the current condition in
the northernmost Indonesian province and believe in lasting peace, a
year after the government and the separatist Free Aceh Movement signed
a peace deal in Helsinki.

A former rebel of the movement, locally known as GAM, separately said,
however, that injustice still occurs in Aceh and if not fully
addressed, similar movements may spring up within five to 10 years.

Pollster Lingkaran Survey Indonesia told a press conference Thursday
that 67 percent of Acehnese are satisfied with the current condition
in the province.

According to the survey, 56.7 percent of the 440 respondents,
interviewed between July 18 and 21, were confident the current
condition will lead to eventual peace.

''The survey also found that the peace deal has boosted the feeling of
nationalism among the Acehnese, with 57.8 percent of the respondents
regarding themselves as Indonesians rather than as people of certain
ethnic or religious groups,'' said Denny Januar Aly of the LSI.

A similar survey in October last year found that 45.5 of respondents
regarded themselves as Indonesians.

Asked how proud they are to be Indonesian, 77.7 percent responded by
saying very proud or quite proud, compared with only 56 percent in the
October survey.

A nationwide survey recently carried out by LSI also found that 81.2
percent of Indonesians said they wanted GAM, which fought for
independence from Indonesia for 29 years, to once and for all disband.

Separately, former senior GAM rebel leader Muhammad Nur Djuli told a
panel discussion of the Jakarta Foreign Correspondents' Club that GAM
is committed to not return to armed struggle.

''GAM will not take up arms anymore. That's for certain,'' Djuli said.

Djuli said, however, that although the entire population of Aceh,
including those who were anti-GAM, has embraced the former rebels,
many GAM fighters are still jobless and are living in poverty.

The Law on Aceh Governance, which was recently passed by the
parliament in accordance with the Helsinki peace deal to give the
province greater autonomy, ''may be enforceable, may be nice in the
short term,'' he said.

''I must say that the current government is generous, pro-peace and
pro-democracy. But this government will not last forever. So, if we
have a system that is based on the current enforcer, it (peace) won't
last long,'' he said.

''In the long term, popular dissatisfaction and the feeling of
injustice once again will set in. If the injustice is not addressed, I
feel like in five to 10 years, other (similar movements) might be
born,'' he added.

Sandra Hamid of the Asia Foundation, a U.S. nongovernmental
organization, shared a similar view, saying the most important
challenge for the government and civil society is to address the issue
of injustice, which potentially could be the peace spoiler.

''What is happening since Aug. 15 last year is encouraging and the
prospect of peace is promising for many reasons, but the most
important thing is that people really want it,'' Hamid said.

''They are tired of conflicts, and no politicians and political
parties would be willing to be seen as spoiling the peace for the
Acehnese,'' she added.

Information and Communications Minister Sofjan Djalil, who also
attended the discussion, however, promised weaknesses will be
addressed, including those related to the law.

''I think the history of abuse of the central government during the
Suharto era will never come to Indonesia forever. I do believe that,''
he said.

------------------------------------------------------------

Vast Majority Of Indonesia's Aceh Back Islamic Law - Poll

JAKARTA, August 10 (AP)--Some 90% of people in Indonesia's Aceh
province say they agree with Islamic laws that punish gamblers with
caning and force women to cover their heads in public, according to an
opinion poll released Thursday.

Aceh is the first province in secular but Muslim-majority Indonesia to
be allowed to implement laws based on the Islamic legal code, or
Sharia.

Religious police currently enforce laws criminalizing consumption and
sale of alcohol, gambling, non-Islamic dress and illicit relations
between men and women. Punishment is either by fines, short prison
terms or light caning.

Some 90% of respondents in a poll by the respected Indonesian Survey
Circle said the laws were "in line with their wishes."

The survey was conducted based on face-to-face interviews with 440
respondents in mid-July, with a margin error of approximately 4.8
percentage points.

The implementation of the laws is being watched closely by other
provinces in Indonesia that want to introduce similar laws. Members of
the country's Christian minority as well as some moderate Muslims have
expressed concerns about the development.

Aceh - which lost some 131,000 people to the 2004 Asian tsunami - is
the most Islamic Indonesian province, but foreigners and Christians
have always been welcome there.

Some local women's rights activists have said they don't agree with
the laws, but fear speaking out against them because in doing so they
may be portrayed as anti-Islam.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Most local people think former rebel leaders 
can lead Indonesia's Aceh: survey

JAKARTA, August 10 (Xinhua) -- Despite the majority of Indonesian
people will not allow former leaders of Aceh rebels to lead
Indonesia's Aceh province even if they win the regional election at
the year end, most of Acehnese can accept their leadership, a survey
by the well-known group LSI said here Thursday.

"The public in Aceh can accept them, more (Acehnese) can accept them
than those who can not," Director of the LSI Denny JA told Xinhua. But
he did not elaborate.

As the Separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM) can not establish local
political party for this year's election, due to the unfinished work
on a national law on the establishment of political parties, the
majority of Acehnese support an independent candidacy in the upcoming
provincial election, said Denny.

"About 54.1 percent of the public in Aceh agree with independent
candidates, but only 29.9 percent of the national public agree (with
them)," he said.

Denny said that most of Acehnese approve the establishment of local
political parties, but less national public give their approval.

The GAM, whose senior member said it now still has no plan to disband
itself, but possibly later may change itself into a political
organization, vowed to set up local political parties for the 2009
election, spokesman of the GAM Munawar Liga said.

"There is not any provision in the peace accord saying that the GAM
must disband itself," he told Xinhua.

But, most people in the country want the movement to dissolve itself
and start to create prosperity in the province that has just recovered
from the tsunami disaster in December 2004 that killed over 160,000
people in Indonesia and destroyed coastal areas of the province, said
Denny.

"The sentiment of anti-GAM is still very high nationwide," he said.

But, the GAM spokesman said that many people in the province wanted
several candidates from the movement for the election.

On the economic sector, most of Acehnese thought that the economic
condition declined in the province, which is undergoing 7 billion U.S.
dollar reconstruction and rehabilitation after the tsunami, said the
director of the LSI.

"If the peace pact in Helsinki and the new Aceh law on governance can
not improve the economy, it will give rise to new skepticism and
cynicism among the people," he said.

However, nearly one year after achieving peace in the province, most
of the people are satisfied with the condition and convinced that they
will have a lasting peace, said Denny.

The GAM spokesman said several members of the GAM would individually
take part in the election for the position of governor and chief of
regent in several parts of the province in the northern tip of
Indonesia's Sumatra island.

"There are some GAM members nominating themselves for the position of
governor and vice governor and chief of regent in some regencies," he
said.

The Indonesian government and the GAM signed a peace accord in
Helsinki, Finland, on Aug. 15, 2005, in an effort to end a three-
decade bloody conflict between the government troops and the GAM. More
than 15,000 people, most of them civilians, have been killed during
the conflict.

The accord stipulates that the rebel may establish local political
parties and contest seats in provincial elections.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Former Aceh rebel warns of future unrest over peace pact

JAKARTA, August 10 (AFP) -- A former senior separatist from
Indonesia's Aceh said Thursday that a new generation of rebels could
be spawned within a decade amid dismay over the implementation of a
peace pact signed a year ago.

Mohammad Nur Djuli, who was a senior member of the rebel Free Aceh
Movement (GAM) and helped negotiate the pact inked last August, said a
newly-passed law on self-rule for the province could encourage youths
to take up arms.

GAM officials and activists have complained about several articles in
the law, arguing that the power of the local administration is
curtailed in international cooperation and natural resource management
and that the military's role is unclear.

"We, the negotiators, are in danger of being ostracised by our people
for signing the MOU (memorandum of understanding, or peace pact) that
seems to be unenforceable as it is," he told a panel discussion on a
year of peace.

"If the injustices are not addressed, then I fear other GAMs might be
born in a decade from now," Djuli said, adding that thousands of
Acehnese have protested against the autonomy law.

Djuli said former guerrillas were committed not to return to fighting
because they had surrendered all their weapons.

A future generation who felt betrayed by the peace deal may however
provoke violence, he said, following in the footsteps of GAM which was
formed due to Jakarta's failure to give the province autonomy as
promised when national independence was proclaimed in 1945.

"Why did GAM take up weapons in the first instance? Because... we came
to feel that our parents were fooled by promises of autonomy... Maybe
my children or my grandchildren will think that I was stupid," Djuli
said.

"It is hoped that political leaders in Jakarta are far-sighted enough
to address this now," he said.

Information Minister Sofyan Djalil, who attended the discussion, said
dissatisfaction with the autonomy law passed last month could be
resolved by amendments or by contesting it in the country's
constitutional court.

"We adopted the law this year, but if we find some weaknesses, some
limitations then next year or two years from now we (could) change
that," Djalil told reporters.

Another speaker at the forum however said the greatest risk to the
peace deal was the lack of jobs for the hundreds of ex-guerrillas,
most of whom returned home to already-poor rural villages.

"What happened is that they are still looking for jobs and their
communities have the burden of supporting the GAM members," said
Sandra Hamid, from the Asia Foundation, a US based non-governmental
group.

"Potentially this could be a peace spoiler if not addressed."

Hamid praised the deal, saying expectations that guerrillas or
security forces might seek revenge for atrocities committed during the
long conflict had failed to materialise.

She also noted that contrary to predictions, former rebels unhappy
with the peace deal had not split from the GAM leadership and resumed
fighting.

The peace pact, signed in Helsinki and spurred on by the devastating
2004 tsunami which lashed Aceh, ended 29 years of conflict. The unrest
had claimed the lives of about 15,000 people, mostly civilians.

------------------------------------------
Joyo Indonesia News Service
------------------------------------------