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LHOKSEUMAWE - Indonesia will withdraw 2,600 soldiers from tsunami-battered Aceh province Tuesday with another 3,500 slated to go by month's end as part of a historic peace accord to end three decades of fighting, a military spokesman said. The agreement signed last month in Finland calls on the Indonesian military to more than halve the 60,000 troops it has in the province by the end of the year and for separatist rebels to hand in all of their self-declared 840 weapons.
If the process of demobilization and disarmament goes smoothly, it would significantly raise hopes that the agreement to end the war that has claimed nearly 15,000 lives in the oil- and gas-rich region might hold. Several other accords have collapsed, the most recent two years ago when hard-line generals arrested rebel negotiators, kicked out international observers and launched an offensive that killed thousands.
The country's powerful military reiterated that it fully supported the deal. "Indonesian military remains committed to pulling out our troops from Aceh when the rebels have handed over all their weapons," said Lt. Col. Erie Soetiko, a military spokesman. There have been a few questions about the quality of some of the 260 weapons already handed over by the rebels. The government says they should not count toward the total, but the rebels disagree.
So far, the dispute does not look serious enough to cause the deal to unravel, although analysts say plenty can still go wrong. More than 3,000 soldiers and police have already left Aceh the most recent on Sunday when 800 troops loaded down with bags and automatic weapons boarded a warship in the northern city of Lhokseumawe.
"I have been here 18 months, most of which I have spent in the jungle," said Pvt. Gatot Broto before the ship set off for the city of Medan on Sumatra island. "I am just very happy to go home." Efforts to end the conflict in Aceh picked up speed after the Dec. 26 earthquake and tsunami struck the area, killing 131,000 people in Aceh and leaving a half-million others homeless.
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