BRUSSELS -- After the second anniversary of Aceh's tragic tsunami, peace seems to have finally come to the troubled province. Official results of the Dec. 11 provincial elections came with the new year. They confirmed a landslide victory for one faction of the former rebels.
Aceh Freedom Movement (GAM) candidate Irwandi Yusuf won almost 40 percent of the vote; GAM "lite" was second with 17 percent; and six candidates were "also rans." As late as 2004, Irwandi had been in prison in Banda Aceh before escaping abroad in the chaotic aftermath of the tsunami.
Following the September 2004 Indonesian elections, when President Megawati Sukarnoputri was swept aside by her former interior minister, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, and his running mate, Jusuf Kalla, the new president and vice president immediately put out feelers to the GAM leadership. After more than a quarter century of armed struggle, a death toll of 15,000 in a population of less than 4 million and the collapse of an earlier peace accord with the collusion of Indonesian Army elements, the rebels were ready to talk again.