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JAKARTA - Indonesia's president on Monday hailed the successes of a one-year-old peace deal in Aceh province, but said hard work was needed to ensure that violence did not return to the tsunami-ravaged region. "Remember, the world is full of examples where a perfect peace plan is spoiled by imperfect players,'' Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said in a speech in Jakarta on Monday, a day before the one-year anniversary of the accord's signing.
"Our challenge now ... is to consolidate this peace and bring it to a point of no return,'' he said. Yudhoyono said the 2004 Asian tsunami, which killed more than 131,000 people in Aceh, provided the impetus needed to bring both sides to the negotiating table. "The tsunami produced an overwhelming moral, social, political and economic imperative to end the conflict,'' Yudhoyono told an audience that included former Finish President Martti Ahtisaari, who brokered the deal.
The pact, signed in Helsinki, saw the rebels drop their independence demand in exchange for greater self-rule and the withdrawal of most Indonesian troops. It has ended violence that had killed more than 15,000 people since 1976. Yudhoyono did not refer to complaints by some former rebels and civil rights activists that the government watered down the level of autonomy promised to Aceh in a law passed in July that cemented the terms of the deal.
"I do not know the answer as to who exactly won the conflict, but I do know that we all have won the peace,'' Yudhoyono said. "I have every confidence that we will be able to attain this permanent peace.'' Witnesses said hundreds of people planned to demonstrate in Aceh's capital on Tuesday to urge the government to live up to the terms of the deal signed in Helsinki.
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