Aceh's Peace Hopes

The Dec. 26 tsunami left more than 123,000 dead in Indonesia's Aceh province. But when negotiators in Helsinki last week announced a breakthrough in talks between separatist rebels and the Indonesian government, it appeared that some good might come from the tragedy. The Free Aceh Movement, known as GAM, offered to drop its demand for independence. "There's not a single member of the GAM negotiating team who hasn't lost family members in the tsunami," says Damien Kingsbury, an Australian academic who advised the rebel negotiators in Finland. "There's a very deep sense of loss and the suffering of the Acehnese people...