Indonesia, Aceh rebels cut short tsunami aid talks

Associated Press
January 30, 2005 3:46 AM ET

HELSINKI, Finland — Members of the Indonesian government and the Aceh rebel movement on Saturday cut short talks on tsunami relief operations and ways of ending a 30-year conflict in the breakaway region, but Finnish mediators invited them to continue negotiations later.

The two sides met face-to-face during two days of meetings at a secluded manor house north of the Finnish capital, Helsinki, convened by former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari, that had been scheduled to continue until Sunday.

Ahtisaari said he had invited both parties for a second meeting in Helsinki, but did not say when it would convene.

Ahtisaari declined to comment on the stance of either party or why the talks ended a day early, but said that neither party had yet agreed to resume talks.

"Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed," Ahtisaari said at a news conference which originally had been scheduled for Sunday afternoon.

Earlier, a spokeswoman for Ahtisaari's office described the closed-door talks as "very constructive" and that they were held in a "positive spirit."

The main item on the agenda was the humanitarian crisis after the tsunami disaster, spokeswoman Pauliina Arola said.

On arriving in Helsinki Thursday for separate meetings with Ahtisaari before the joint talks with Indonesian government members, a spokesman for Aceh rebel leaders said he had been cautiously optimistic about the outcome of the talks.

Earlier this week Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono offered the rebels concessions in return for a ceasefire.

"It sounds positive from our point of view," Bakhtiar Abdullah, a spokesman from the Free Aceh Movement, locally known as GAM, said.

Abdullah said the five-member GAM delegation, led by the self-exiled government's president, Malik Mahmoud, will focus on making it safe for relief workers to help rebuild Aceh in the wake of the tsunami. "That's the most important part of the negotiations," he said.

Abdullah could not be immediately reached for comment Saturday.

GAM has been fighting since 1976 for independence for the province of 4.1 million people on the northern tip of Sumatra island.

A previous truce collapsed in 2003 when the Indonesian military launched a new offensive against the insurgents.

At the time, Indonesia's Parliament approved a special autonomy package for the resource-rich province which would give its people self-government while keeping them within Indonesia, but the measure was never implemented because of the fighting.

Arola said Ahtisaari's office had been "keenly following the situation in Indonesia" for about a year before the tsunami disaster and had been negotiating to bring the two parties together.

Ahtisaari, 67, was Finland's president from 1994-2000 and has held senior UN posts including commissioner for Namibia and undersecretary general for management and administration. He was special adviser to the UN secretary general on the former Yugoslavia in 1993.

In Jakarta, Yudhoyono said the government has offered rebel leaders a chance to "terminate the conflict peacefully, of course in the framework of the unity of the Republic of Indonesia and by adopting the special autonomy status."

The warring sides were meeting to bring about a formal ceasefire. Indonesia wants the talks to be followed by more substantive negotiations on the status of Aceh.

Since assuming office 100 days ago, Yudhoyono has repeatedly said he wished to restart the peace process, and last month's tsunami, which badly damaged the province, has provided a catalyst for the talks.

GAM's leadership has been living in Sweden since the Scandinavian country granted them asylum and citizenship in the 1980s. Sweden has repeatedly denied Indonesian requests to arrest