Aceh talks in jeopardy

Peace talks are aimed at ending a 26-year insurgency in Aceh

Negotiators for separatists in Indonesia's Aceh province have warned that talks aimed at saving a faltering peace agreement risk failure unless fellow delegates are released from custody.

Mahmood Malik, key negotiator for the Free Aceh Movement (Gam), said his group was still travelling to Tokyo for Saturday's talks, but that the meeting would be "stalled" if Indonesian police did not free five Gam delegates arrested on the way to the airport.

Police spokesman Colonel Surya Dharma said the five men had been arrested for trying to leave the province without notifying the authorities.

The Tokyo talks, announced on Thursday, are widely seen as the last chance for Gam and the Jakarta Government to salvage their peace agreement, signed in December, which took two years to negotiate.

The peace deal should have ended a conflict that has wracked Aceh for almost three decades, and has cost about 12,000 lives.

"We will do all possible to salvage these talks, even if they are not released, but I cannot say how far we can go," Mr Malik said, before leaving for Tokyo.

"We feel shock and disappointment over the Indonesian authorities' behaviour," he said.

Mr Surya said that the detained delegates were not supposed to be representing Gam in Japan.

But Mr Malik responded: "It is not true that they were not members of our delegation."

Sidney Jones, from the non-governmental International Crisis Group, told the BBC that initially the arrests appeared to be the result of a lack of co-ordination between Jakarta and Banda Aceh, but that the rebels "wouldn't be held so long if it were not a decision by Jakarta".

Gam spokesman Sofyan Dawood described Friday's arrests as "attempts by parties who want to sabotage the peace talks".

This is the not the first time that delegates from Gam have been arrested for travel offences.

Last week, four rebel leaders were detained at the airport, again for allegedly failing to ask permission to leave the province.

Police initially said the group would be charged in connection with bomb attacks in two Indonesian cities, although all four were released within days.

International pressure

The Tokyo talks have been warmly welcomed by the international community.

In a statement released on Thursday, US President George Bush praised Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri "for her willingness to go the extra mile in pursuit of peace".

But Ms Megawati has warned that preparations for a proposed military offensive against the rebels would still continue, after they ignored a Monday deadline set by the government to lay down their arms and abandon claims for independence.

The demands were part of the 9 December peace deal, which provided for an immediate ceasefire, supervised by foreign monitors, and gradual demilitarisation leading to elections for an autonomous provincial government next year

But the rebels have been reluctant to disarm, and the army unwilling to withdraw.

Thousands of extra Indonesian troops have arrived in the province over recent days.

Acehnese resentment of the Indonesian Government has been fuelled by years of reported human rights abuses by the military and a belief that the proceeds of the regions mineral wealth have not been fairly shared.

But even older resentments are based on the Acehnese claim that the territory never formally belonged to the Netherlands, the former colonial power, and so it should not have been incorporated into Indonesia when the republic was formed in l949.