Indonesia’s experience in solving conflicts in a number of its restive regions has been recognized as a model for solving worldwide insurgencies, with former vice president Jusuf Kalla touted as the country’s main peacemaker.
The recognition comes with Kalla’s new role in international forums discussing insurgency tensions. He ended his five-year stint as vice president last year with a track record of sealing major peace deals.
Delivering a keynote address on Tuesday at the ASEAN Secretariat, Kalla shared his experience with 50 journalists from East Asian countries attending a workshop on conflict area reporting and writing. The three-day workshop is being jointly hosted by the New Zealand Embassy, the European Union and the Indonesian government.
In his speech, Kalla said inequality was responsible for ethnic conflicts and separatist movements in Indonesia and throughout the world, adding that conflict resolution should include efforts to reduce wealth gaps.
In 2005, the then vice president offered Aceh separatists a special autonomy deal, including receiving 70 percent of the share of its natural resources yield, implementation of its own Islamic law and the formation of local parties.
The peace deal with the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) ended three decades of guerilla insurgency in the impoverished province.
Apart from the Aceh peace deal, Kalla also successfully brought conflicting parties in the two provinces of South Sulawesi and Maluku, in 2001 and 2002 respectively, to sign peace pacts when he served as coordinating public welfare minister under president Megawati.
“Kalla is a strong negotiator who can effectively convince hardline insurgents to put down their guns,” Sanata Dharma University professor of history Baskara T. Wardaya said.
“He can directly address the core issue with his approach. He embraces the rebels and has confidence
in them.”
Although reticent about his involvement in a number of international forums addressing insurgencies, Kalla has reportedly accepted an offer to get involved in a number of peace negotiations worldwide.
Kalla, the current Indonesian Red Cross chairman, is reportedly preparing to play a role in peace negotiations in southern Thailand, although he has not confirmed this, saying he would elaborate once prepared.
In 2008 in Bogor, Kalla hosted negotiations between the Thai government and Muslim separatists.
“I cannot comment on that right now,” he said Tuesday, when asked about his plan to go to southern Thailand.
Kalla also addressed an international forum last December on the possibility of applying an Aceh-style peace deal in Sudan, which has been ravaged by conflict between the North and South.
The forum was hosted by the Geneva-based Center for Humanitarian Dialogue, which brought representatives of the two rival parties in Sudan to Jakarta and Aceh.
Demographic complexities in Indonesia are a useful parallel for Sudan, given the similar size and complexity, Meredith Preston McGhie of the Center for Humanitarian Dialogue said, adding that there were 522 ethnic groups in Sudan.
Malaysia led recently a peacekeeping mission to restive southern Philippines, where Jakarta was previously involved in a peace deal under the leadership of the Organization of the Islamic Conference. Kalla did not express his interest when asked about possibly contributing to new talks by Manila.
Indonesian officials, however, said it could possibly contribute to such peace talks.
