The separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM) requested the government to establish a livelihood program for thousands of ex-Aceh rebels after they will have received thousands of U.S. dollars compensation funds from the government, in order to make them well use the money, a spokesman for the movement said here Tuesday.

"After it (the disbursement of the funds) is materialized, there must be a livelihood program to make the funds to be used appropriately," Bachtiar Abdullah told Xinhua.

"They (former rebels) must be given information for the sustainability of the funds," he added.

Jakarta has decided to pay cash to former rebels in Aceh province to assist them in starting new life after engaging in rebellion, Information Minister Sofyan Djalil has said.

For ex-combatants the government will provide 25 million rupiah (some 2,500 U.S. dollars) per person, a huge amount according to local standard, and 10 million rupiahs for non-ex-combatants, said Djalil.

He said there are about 3,000 ex-combatants and over 6,000 non- ex-combatants, but Abdullah said 6,200 non-ex combatants.

The decision was made after the GAM refused the government's offer of lands.

The government has allocated over 600 billion rupiahs (some 60 millions U.S. dollars) from its 2006 state budget for the demand, said the minister.

All the registration has been completed for the ex-combatants, but for the non-ex combatants, it is underway now, he said.

The top representative of the World Bank Indonesia Andrew Steer also said that the local Aceh government also should think the livelihood of Acehnese after the reconstruction and rehabilitation boom ends.

"What they (Aceh administration) need to do in coming years is really start thinking through how would people earn their income in 2009 and 2010 when the reconstruction boom start to decline," he told Xinhua.

Similarly, spokesman of the Aceh administration Hamid Zein said that livelihood is part of the integration process that would determine the sustainability of peace in the restive province of Aceh.

"In the future, one of the top priorities is the continuity of the acceleration of the integration," he told Xinhua.

The GAM had struggled for an independent state since 1976, but then it ruled out its purpose of independence before the peace accord achieved in August 2005. The peace pact was the result of months of talks spurred by the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which left over 170,000 people dead or missing, and devastated coastal areas of the oil-and-gas rich province.

Source: Xinhua