B2 The Daily of Geopolitical Europe. News. Files. Reflections. Reports

News BlogEU Defense (Doctrine)

“Thank you, EU” says the Jakarta Post

(BRUSSELS2) Thank you EU! Compliment strikes out Jakarta Post editorial in its late May edition (read here). And it is rare enough to be mentioned. The EU is often derided for its lack of coherence and consistency in foreign policy, sometimes rightly, sometimes wrongly.

The Jakarta Post columnist wants to publicly pay tribute to the Europeans for having deployed the Aceh mission in Indonesia (ceasefire observation mission). " From the bottom of our hearts, we would like to express our gratitude to Indonesia, the peoples and the leaders of the EU for their help in Aceh, and for the dedicated men and women who have regained a sense of security and confidence between people who had lost so much »

Of course, there is still progress to be made: it is necessary in particular to invest in the young generations, to fight against corruption, poverty and unemployment. Corn " The EU has (thus) ensured an acceptable role for the conflicting parties, the Indonesian government and the GAM. (...) Since then, the war of the last three decades, that of bullets, has been replaced by the ballot box. »

The objective of the mission was to monitor the implementation of certain aspects of the peace agreement signed between the Indonesian government and the movement for Free Aceh in Helsinki in August 2005. The European Union observers - together with observers from five Asian countries (Thailand, Malaysia, Brunei, Philippines and Singapore) as well as Norway and Switzerland - deployed for the most part from September 15, 2005 (an interim mission had already been deployed on the spot). The mission lasted more than a year, until December 2006. But most of the work was done during the first two semesters. In all there were about 80 observers under the authority of Pieter Feith (who will be found later in other CSDP posts and until recently at the head of the Civil Office in Kosovo), reduced in number to 36 at the end of the mission.

(article written with the help of MD)

Nicolas Gros Verheyde

Chief editor of the B2 site. Graduated in European law from the University of Paris I Pantheon Sorbonne and listener to the 65th session of the IHEDN (Institut des Hautes Etudes de la Défense Nationale. Journalist since 1989, founded B2 - Bruxelles2 in 2008. EU/NATO correspondent in Brussels for Sud-Ouest (previously West-France and France-Soir).

s2Member®