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View all search resultsLessons from Aceh peace process may still be relevant in today’s conflicts
Peace negotiations to end the armed conflict in Aceh 20 years ago may provide a lesson to resolve today’s global conflicts, former officials involved in the deal have said.
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War and peace: Acehnese motorists pass a banner promoting peace on Sept. 14, 2005, in Banda Aceh, Aceh. Under a long-elusive peace deal between Jakarta and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), observers from the European Union and Association of Southeast Asian Nations monitored the first phase of GAM's disarmament and the pullout of government forces. (AFP/Adek Berry)
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onths of negotiations between the Indonesian government and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) 20 years ago, which ended the decades-long armed conflict between both parties, may still provide relevant lessons for today’s world that has been seeing increasing disputes, experts and former officials have said.
The peace talks led to the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between Indonesia and GAM in the Finnish capital of Helsinki in August 2005, which reiterated Indonesia’s sovereignty over Aceh and granted the region wide-ranging autonomy.
The process that unfolded two decades ago revealed many approaches toward conflict resolution that were honed in Aceh, according to Janne Taalas, CEO of international mediator organization Martti Ahttisaari Peace Foundation (CMI).
“It teases out some of the ways we approach dialogues and conflicts. It has all these ingredients that we have used in other places,” Taalas told The Jakarta Post on the sidelines of a discussion on the Aceh peace process in Jakarta on Monday.
“But now we have seen around the world this fundamental problem of politicians finding waging wars appealing, seeing it as the way to resolve problems. That is a really dangerous development,” he continued.
Read also: Peace with dignity: Reflections on a documentary of the Aceh peace process
Held by the Finnish embassy in Jakarta and the Foreign Policy Community Indonesia (FPCI), Monday’s discussion reflected the legacy of former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari, who brokered the Aceh peace process, while also examining evolving challenges in the region, as well as the importance of dialogue-driven approaches in the era of hardening rhetoric and waning statesmanship.
