Dimas, Jakarta – The surrender of Free Aceh Movement (GAM) weapons that will begin on September 15 will be done in three stages. Before being destroyed, the weapons will be verified by the TNI (armed forces).

According to communication and information minister Sofyan Djalil, in the first stage GAM will surrender its weapons to the Aceh Monitoring Mission (AMM). During this stage, the AMM will record the surrendered weapons and give a receipt to GAM. After surrendering their weapons, GAM will leave the location of the weapons surrender.

In the second stage, weapons that have been gathered by the AMM will be taken to the TNI for verification. “After verification, the weapons will then be destroyed”, said Djalil, before joining a cabinet meeting at the presidential offices on Thursday September 8. GAM’s surrendered weapons will be destroyed by the AMM.

According to Djalil, after GAM’s weapons are destroyed and placed in bags they will then be handed back to the TNI. This stage of the weapons surrender was able to be agreed to because GAM is being extremely cooperative.

Prior to GAM surrendering its weapons, the AMM will form a three-day “safe corridor”. “GAM people can then move [in] to gather the weapons at the agreed location”, said Djalil.

With regard to the small number of GAM weapons will be surrender, 840, Djalil said that GAM is not like the TNI where each soldier carries one weapon. “It can be that three or for GAM soldiers only have one weapon”, he said.

[Translated by James Balowski.]