EU urges Aceh rebels to use parliamentary route

JAKARTA, Aug 11 (Reuters) The head of a peace monitoring mission in Indonesia's Aceh province today urged former rebels to use the political process to resolve complaints over a law aimed at cementing a peace deal with Jakarta.

The Free Aceh Movement (GAM) and the Indonesian government, seeking to end a near 30-year war in which 15,000 people died, signed a pact last year in Helsinki requiring Jakarta to produce legislation giving Acehnese greater power over their own affairs.

Last month, Indonesia's parliament passed that landmark law which paved the way for direct elections of executives in the province on Sumatra island's northern tip.

GAM officials have welcomed the new law but said that some of its provisions must be amended because they were not in line with the peace agreement.

''Rather than making statements or resorting to AMM, they should enter the political process and work towards the improvement of the law in the ways that are possible,'' Pieter Feith said, referring to the European Union-led Aceh Monitoring Mission, which observes the implementation of the truce.

The veteran Dutch peace monitor, who is chief of the monitoring mission, told reporters the new Aceh bill was ''broadly in agreement'' with the truce but GAM's complaints were also not frivolous.

The truce required that future policies related to Aceh must receive consent from the region's legislature but the new laws had stopped short by only stipulating that the local body would be consulted in such cases, GAM said.

The Helsinki pact was the result of months of talks spurred by the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that left around 170,000 Acehnese dead or missing.

Nur Djuli, a member of GAM's negotiation team for the Helsinki talks, said on Thursday that GAM had renounced violent methods. But he warned disputes over the Aceh bill could trigger ''the feeling of being cheated yet once again'' among Acehnese, a situation that could spawn a new rebel movement.

Feith said Indonesia had invited the monitoring mission to extend its mandate from September. 15 to December. 15, 2006 so that the monitors could witness Aceh's first direct vote after the truce.

REUTERS DKB PM1726