Ahtisaari urges Aceh governor to implement reforms
The envoy who brokered the peace deal that ended the long-running war in Indonesia’s Aceh province called Friday on Aceh’s new leaders to quickly carry out reforms.
Martti Ahtisaari, a former Finnish president, negotiated an end to one of history’s longest wars by bringing together the Indonesian government and rebels from the Free Aceh Movement in 1995 on behalf of the European Union.
Their peace deal keeps Aceh - a natural gas-rich province of 4 million people located on the northern tip of Sumatra - within Indonesia but grants it substantial autonomy.
In December, former rebel leader Irwandi Yusuf was elected governor in Aceh’s first free elections. He was inaugurated last week.
“It was a fair democratic election, and we all came through that process successfully,” Ahtisaari said in his first public comment on Aceh since the successful transfer of power from the former Indonesian governor.
The peace process was launched immediately after the tsunami that hit the region on Dec. 26, 2004, killing at least 160,000 Acehnese.
Irwandi spent 18 months in an Indonesian jail but escaped after the tsunami hit his prison block.
On Friday, Ahtisaari praised progress so far in Aceh: “It is a case of so far, so good.”
But he urged quick reforms - which Aceh’s new officials, most of them former separatists, have vowed to quickly implement to raise living standards in the province.
As part of the peace agreement, Aceh was allowed for the first time to retain the majority of income derived from its natural gas and other resources.
“I hope that wisdom will prevail and that the new governor will utilize all the available expertise in Aceh to carry out the reforms he and many others want to carry out,” Ahtisaari told The Associated Press after a meeting with NATO’s secretarygeneral. AP