In a conspiracy and by the stroke of the pen, Holland with the backing of some winning powers of the Second World War illegally transferred its ‘sovereignty-on-paper’ over Acheh to Indonesia, without a plebiscite or any other form of consultation with the people of Acheh.

Indeed, as a colonial power, Holland along with those powers who support her, were irresponsible for this unprecedented action, which in the course of the 53 years has caused great losses to the Achenese in terms of human lives and the exploitation of the natural resources of their land by the neo-colonialist state of Indonesia.

As everyone knows, after the fall of the Suharto regime, which was mostly responsible for the unprecedented human rights abuses in Acheh during the DOM period between 1989-1998, the successive regimes under Habibie, Abdulrahman Wahid and now, Megawati, continue the repressive policy towards the Achenese.

Remember, we are a nation that has never been deterred and buckled under threats from invaders of our land and particularly when such threats came from Indonesian colonialists.

Though GAM has engaged in dialogues with the GoI for the last two years, facilitated by the HDC, it was proven that this noble endeavour has met with various difficulties and disappointments to all. This was attributed to the deceptive stance of the GoI that sabotaged every turn of the process from materializing.

As a result, since that period until now, GoI has intensified its military brutality upon the Achenese population as highlighted by the on-going siege of a couple of GAM’s base areas at Cot Trieng, Pasèe, North Acheh and at Tapaktuan region in South Acheh.

At present, a least 10 Achehnse civilians are killed everyday. This year alone, more than 2000 innocent Achenese are reportedly killed by the marauding TNI/POLRI troops in Acheh. This was a direct result of the introduction of the Inpres Nos. 4-2001, VII-2001 and I-2002, as well as the re-introduction of the KODAM Iskandar Muda territorial military command in Acheh.

Since last month, on the heels of the Geneva meeting of 29-31 October, held between the leadership of ASNLF and six members of the Achenese Civil Society, various ministers and generals of Indonesia, including its Speaker of Parliament, demanded that GAM accept the autonomy package that it has imposed on Acheh under the acronym of NAD and dictated various dates for signing the "peace agreement", with the threat that GAM would be wiped-out if they did not conform to these demands. Obviously, they have lost sensibility as how could we sign any agreement when its substance is still under negotiation. ASNLF/GAM would sign the agreement only on condition that all the outstanding issues are satisfactorily resolved.