AK-17, Banda Aceh – A day before the signing of the peace agreement, the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) has protested the continued presence of TNI (armed forces) controlled militia in Aceh. This was conveyed by GAM’s spokesperson Bachtiar Abdullah in a press release received by Aceh Kita on Sunday August 14.

According to Abdullah, based on leaked TNI intelligence documents, at present there are nine militia organisations in Aceh. One of these is the GAM Separatist Opposition Front which has 10 branches in Aceh. According to Abdullah, the leaked documents show that the militia organisations have an explicit relationship with the TNI’s district military commands (Kodims) in Aceh such as Kodim 0101/Greater Aceh, 0102/Pidie, 0103/North Aceh, 0104/East Aceh and in Langkat which is located on the Aceh-North Sumatra boarder. “There around 10,000 militia which have a relationship with the TNI in Aceh at the moment”, said Abdullah.

According to Abdullah, based on the draft agreement, the Indonesian government will be responsible for dealing with guns which are held by illegal groups. This means that the Indonesian police are responsible for the disarmament of the militia. But said Abdullah, GAM doubts that the police can do this. “It is difficult to believe that the police will remove the weapons from the militia which were given to them by the TNI”, said Abdullah. The police in Aceh he said, still work under the control of the military.

Abdullah said that based on reports from Aceh, militia members have already declared that they are going to kill GAM members after they have surrendered their weapons. “At this time, there is still no mechanism to stop this brutality”, he said. “This is part of the TNI’s plan to disrupt and destroy the peace process”.

He added that if GAM tries to defend itself against the militia who have been armed by the TNI, this could become an excuse for the TNI to relaunch military operations and restrict the peace process as a whole. “The TNI has habitually done this in East Timor, Papua, Maluku and Central Sulawesi”, he said.

Acehnese police chief Inspector General Bachrumsyah Kasman meanwhile, says that police will remove all illegal weapons from armed civilians. “After the MoU [Memorandum of Understanding] peace agreement between the Indonesian government and GAM is signed on August 15 2005, there will be no longer be a term referring to GAM as armed civilians. But they oppose these weapons being called criminal”, he told journalists in Banda Aceh on Sunday August 14.

Earlier, Kasman also promised to take action against members of anti-separatist fronts who are found to be carrying or possessing illegal weapons. [dzie]

[Translated by James Balowski.]