January 15th, 2006
Aide-Mémoire 62nd Session of the UN Commission on Human Rights 13 March to April 2006
Aceh
Decades of war and the devastating tsunami that struck the province in December 2005 have caused immense suffering for the Acehnese. But the window of opportunity that opened through this catastrophe has eventually led to a significant improvement of the human rights situation in this region. After initial difficulties, domestic and foreign organisations were by and large granted unrestricted access to the conflict zone which had previously been almost entirely closed off. Negotiations between the independence movement GAM and the Government of Indonesia (GoI) led to the signing of the Helsinki Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on August 15th, 2005. Since then, armed clashes and human rights violations have occurred only in a few exceptional cases. Under the supervision of the Aceh Monitoring Mission (AMM), comprising monitors from EU- and ASEAN countries, a substantial demilitarization of Aceh has been carried out during the last months of 2005. A few contested cases notwithstanding, all imprisoned GAM members have been released from jail and rehabilitated. Programs designed to reintegrate former combatants into society are under way. For a lasting and stable peace in Aceh it is now essential that the political and economic agreements of the peace accord are implemented as smoothly as the demilitarization. Read the complete report here
