Word: aceh
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...Aceh's hard-won peace, officiated by a 2005 agreement between GAM representatives and government officials, has allowed the Acehnese to rebuild their lives and communities after three decades of fighting and the devastation of their province in the 2004 tsunami. Some 170,000 people in the province were killed the disaster. "There is little danger in the short term of violence escalating out of control, let alone a return to armed conflict," Sidney Jones, senior adviser to the International Crisis Group (ICG), wrote in a recent report. "But the underlying causes of the tensions are not just election-related...
With less less than a week to go before national elections, snarled logistics and accurate voter rolls could spell disaster for the more remote regions of Indonesia. But Aceh, a province of four million people on the northern tip of Sumatra, is facing security challenges as well. After a string of attacks by unidentified gunmen over the past three months, the central government is planning to send an additional 1,000 soldiers and 260 national police to join an estimated 9,000 local police officers to help stabilize the restive province. At least 16 people have been killed in shootings...
...Those tensions stem mainly from the military's fear that many members of the Partai Aceh, or Aceh Party, still harbor dreams of independence. Others agree that the attacks, some targeting the offices of the Partai Aceh, the political vehicle established by separtist supporters, could be the surfacing of new internal feuds between former rebels. Others aren't as sure. "There has been some violence and harassment but I'm not sure they can be associated with politics," says Humam Hamid, a sociology professor at Syah Kuala University in Aceh."They could also be purely criminal acts, which happen everywhere...
...than 170 million Indonesians are registered to vote in the upcoming elections that will determine the fate of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who is seeking a second term and a majority in Parliament for his Democratic Party. The fate of his vice president, Jusuf Kalla, who helped broker the Aceh peace agreement signed in Helsinki in August 2005, is less clear, as his Suharto-era Golkar party is struggling to maintain the same number of seats as it won in 2004, when it finished...
...boats, and they managed to stay afloat by erecting sails made of plastic tarpaulin. Survivors from a second wave of refugees "pushed back" from Thailand - a contingent of some 580 - have also made their way to India's Andaman Islands. It is not known whether those who landed at Aceh were part of this same group. The front page of the Hong Kong daily South China Morning Post on Jan. 15 displayed pictures snapped by an Australian tourist in Thailand of Thai troops whipping recently detained Rohingya on the beach of an Andaman island popular for snorkeling - in full view...