Jakarta – The government is being urged to end negotiations with the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) because they are not producing any benefits and are even damaging Indonesia’s interests because of the involvement of foreign parties in the negotiations.

“Once again we ask the government to end the negotiations because they are a waste of time and are damaging [Indonesia’s interests]. The Minister of Justice and Human Rights Hamid Awaluddin should be ordered to return home to Indonesia immediately”, the deputy speaker of the People’s Representative Assembly (DPR), Soetardjo Soerjogoeritno, told reporters from his office at the DPR building in Jakarta on Friday.

Soerjogoeritno, who is usually called Mbah Tardjo, said that negotiations that involve a third party are an indication that an internationalisation of the Aceh question has already occurred. “We must oppose the internationalisation [of the Aceh issue,]” she said. The overseas negotiations are also damaging to Indonesia and are making it increasingly easy for foreign parties to intervene in the process.

According to Mbah Tardjo, the overseas negotiations have already veered away from the desired aims that the DPR had conveyed to the government. “We also ask that the negotiations be conducted in Indonesia. For example in Bali. Why must they be [conducted] entirely overseas”, he said. (Ant/Ol-1).

[Translated by James Balowski.]