Kyodo - Two years after a peace deal was reached between the Indonesian government and separatist rebels in Aceh, Japanese-funded small businesses run by former guerrillas there are thriving, a recent survey shows.
The International Organization for Migration, with funding from the Japanese government, has so far helped some 5,000 former combatants establish small businesses in the province, according to a July IOM survey.
They include coffee shops, kiosks, fish traders, brick factories and tailors, as well as companies making "tempeh" fermented soybean cake.
The businesses were mostly started in July 2006, following the peace deal signed on Aug. 15, 2005, in Helsinki, and the government later granted amnesty to jailed guerrillas.
The random survey, in which 100 former rebels were interviewed, found the average monthly income earned from the businesses was well above the province‘s mandated minimum monthly wage of 850,000 rupiah (about $91) — in many cases by two or three times.
"This shows that with vocational and business training, and good advice, these ex-combatants can rebuild their lives, and contribute to the development of Aceh," Ferdinand Paredes, head of IOM‘s Post-Conflict and Reintegration Program in Aceh, said Tuesday.
Paredes said Aceh is still struggling to recover following more than three decades of conflict, with a high level of unemployment, a high rate of conflict-related trauma and a high percentage of livelihoods, farmland and housing destroyed by the conflict.
"Winning the peace in Aceh still needs a lot more work," he said.
"The years of conflict have taken a heavy toll on the Acehnese mentally, physically and economically. And for Aceh‘s peace to hold, the province needs economic development and programs which help conflict-affected communities to recover from the legacy of war," he added.
Rich in oil and gas, Aceh has long been a key source of revenue for Jakarta, but little of this money trickled back to the local economy.
Unhappy at this treatment, the Free Aceh Movement, or GAM, emerged in 1976 and spent three decades fighting for independence. But the December 2004 tsunami, which killed about 170,000 people in Aceh, changed the circumstances and views of the combatants.
Source: japantimes.co.jp (18 Agustus 2007)
