Acheh's peace has finally arrived, but challenges remain with respect to development and recovery following the Tsunami, as well as healing community relations.

Below is an article published by The Economist:

ACEH'S separatist war is over, its people seem for now to have settled for autonomy rather than independence from Indonesia and a former leader of the armed separatist movement is now the province's democratically elected leader. But it is too early to be sure that peace will reign perpetually. Five months after Irwandi Yusuf, a former commander in the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), won election as governor, the signs are not good. The worry is that things might get far worse in two years, when most of the international aid pledged after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami dries up.

Although a superficial calm reigns and most Acehnese are delighted to be able to walk the streets at night in reasonable safety, recent weeks have seen a wave of worrying incidents. In the most serious, truckloads of Indonesian troops attacked villagers in Bireuen district in reprisal for assaults on two of their soldiers. It was disturbingly reminiscent of the military's harsh tactics during the insurgency, which raged on for three decades until the tsunami brought it to a halt.

United Nations officials in Aceh say the incident may have been due to a misunderstanding involving troops hiring themselves out as workers to supplement their pitiful salaries. But there have also been reports of men with guns accosting aid workers. Pro-Indonesian militias formed during the conflict still train in the province's mountainous centre. Far from disappearing, these have regrouped under a new banner, the Communication Forum for Children of the Nation, or Forkab.

The new provincial government is keen to attract foreign investment. On April 16th it launched a new office to attract overseas businesses. The deputy governor, Muhammad Nazar, said they should not be afraid to come, because the peace deal had made Aceh “the safest province in Indonesia”.

While Banda Aceh, the capital, now boasts a luxury hotel for visiting dignitaries and businessmen, many Acehnese tsunami victims are still living in temporary barracks, awaiting new homes, without jobs. Refugees complain that food and other aid is drying up. Of the $7 billion promised after the tsunami, about $5 billion has already been spent.

The aid has been channelled largely through Indonesia's Aceh Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Agency, which has been defending itself against criticisms of misuse of funds. Many of its employees are not Acehnese and many of the workers building new homes come from other parts of Indonesia.

Aceh's foreign aid will more or less run out in 2009. The same year, new provincial political parties will get their first chance to fight elections, which will be a big test for the whole peace process. Permitting such local parties at all was a major concession from Jakarta in the peace talks. Until now, Indonesia has allowed only parties organised on a nationwide basis to contest elections. Indonesian nationalists fear that, here and in other breakaway provinces, local parties could be a stepping-stone to full independence, something many Acehnese still privately covet.

GAM has been reborn as the Aceh Transitional Committee and its rebels have demobilised and handed over their weapons. But much mistrust remains between it and the Indonesian authorities. For example, the rebel movement has not disclosed the true names of all its members. Its leaders say their representatives came out into the open during earlier attempts to broker peace, only to be hunted down and shot after the talks broke down.

International peace monitors might help. But the European Union-led Aceh Monitoring Mission, which oversaw the early stages of the peace process, has now gone. A charitable organisation with experience in conflict resolution, Interpeace, is supposed to take on a similar role but is not yet fully ready and will not have the same resources. The top UN official in Banda Aceh, Satya Sundar Tripathi, says that what is needed is another big commitment of funds by the foreign donors—beyond that promised to help Aceh recover from the tsunami—to support and develop the peace. So far, however, that commitment has not come. And money does not buy trust, the commodity that is perhaps most needed.