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Indonesia, Aceh rebels agree peace deal in Helsinki
The Indonesian government and rebels have reached a groundbreaking agreement to end 30 years of fighting in the Aceh province and a memorandum of understanding will be formally signed next month, both sides said. "There will be peace," Indonesian Justice and Human Rights Minister Hamid Awaluddin told reporters Sunday. "The Memorandum details the agreement and the principles that will guide the transformation process in Aceh," both sides said in a joint statement at the end of a fifth round of negotiations between the government and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM).
Both sides agreed that "no substantive changes" will be introduced to the eight-page long initialed memorandum before it is signed on August 15 in Finland. "We may add a comma or correct a spelling mistake," peace talks mediator Martti Ahtisaari told reporters, refusing however to reveal any of the details of the accord before it is formally signed. "The parties have agreed that the details of the memorandum will not be made public before the signing," he said, only disclosing that the agreement among other things covered the governing of Aceh, including political participation, as well as the questions of human rights, amnesty and reintegration into society, security arrangements, and dispute settlement. A final deal would call for an immediate end to the still ongoing fighting in the province. "Of course all hostilities have to end with the signing of the memorandum of understanding on the 15th of August," he said. Both sides also agreed to establish a Aceh monitoring mission to check on progress which they hoped would be run by the European Union and a number of Asian countries. Ahtisaari said the EU had not formally replied to the invitation, but would dispatch experts to Indonesia by the end of this month to prepare a decision. "There's no formal decision yet by the EU (but) I hope that the decision can now be made when the initialing of the agreement has taken place," he said. The ongoing round of talks, which began on Tuesday and which is the fifth held in the Finnish capital since January, had been considered a last chance to bring an end to the bloodshed soon. When they convened for a first round of Helsinki talks in January it was the first time the parties had come face to face since May 2003, when Jakarta declared martial law and launched a major military offensive in the province. The renewed efforts to make peace were prompted by a need for international aid to reach Aceh, which bore the brunt of last December's tsunami. More than 131,000 people in the province perished.
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