Good Tsunami News

On the first anniversary of the devastating Asian tsunami, the 30-year rebel uprising in Indonesia's hard-hit Banda Aceh area appears to have drawn to a close. Agency France Presse reports:

Former separatist rebels in Indonesia's tsunami-ravaged Aceh province announced the dissolution of their armed wing Tuesday in another step towards implementing an historic peace pact.

The Indonesian government and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) signed the pact in August in Helsinki after agreeing to negotiate in the wake of last December's tsunami.

"On behalf of GAM combatants I have the honour to announce that TNA (Aceh National Armed Forces) has been decommissioned and demobilised," GAM spokesman Sofyan Daud told a press conference.

"We are committed to implement the memorandum of understanding (the pact) and will abide by its contents," he said.

The former rebels surrendered their final batch of weapons last week to meet the terms of the pact, while non-local Indonesian troops and police are expected to pull their final personnel out of Aceh on Thursday.

As I recall, peace talks were going nowhere or were non-existant before the tsunami. Rebuilding, rightly, appears to have become more important than tearing apart.