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TAPOL calls for unrestricted access to Aceh
Press Release - December 29, 2004
The Indonesian government announced today that the status of civil emergency has been lifted in Aceh because of the situation in the region in the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunamis which struck on 26 December. However, it is clear that restrictions will remain in force.
According to an announcement made in Jakarta by Vice-President Jusuf Kalla, the civil emergency status was being lifted because of the virtual breakdown of governance in the territory. However he made it clear that restrictions were still in place. "Only those involved in humanitarian activities and rehabilitation activities will be permitted to enter the region. Political activities, No! Social activities, okay," he said.
He was speaking shortly after UN sources estimated that the death toll in Aceh is now between 50,000 and 80,000, with more bodies being found all the time.
Jusuf Kalla did not explain what individuals or organisations wishing to visit Aceh would now need to do or how the continuing restrictions would be enforced. The bare, outrageous fact is that Aceh, whose people are now suffering the gravest catastrophe in their history, with tens of thousands of men, women and children dead and many more tens of thousands now homeless, with towns and villages destroyed and the survivors facing the prospect of widespread disease, is still closed to all but those able to prove that they are involved in humanitarian activities.
Of all the countries in the region which have been devastated by the disater which struck on 26 December, Indonesia is the only country whose government will not allow unrestricted access to the suffering people. It still treats Aceh as a territory which must remain under tight control, regardless of the unimaginable sufferings of its people.
Following years of conflict and repression in Aceh, martial law was imposed in May 2003. This forced many local non-governmental organisations and activists to leave the region for fear of arrest or worse. During the past year more than two hundred activists have been tried in kangaroo courts, and are now serving long sentences in dozens of prisons across Java.
Many more were forced to leave their homeland and their loved ones, for fear of their lives. A year later martial law was replaced by civil emergency status but this hardly differed from martial law: the military has continued to play a commanding role in Aceh.
Conflict has raged in Aceh since the 1970s with thousands of people killed, injured, imprisoned or raped, yet even as the true extent of the natural disaster which struck three days ago in still being calculated, the government in Jakarta insists on maintaining control over whose are allowed in. This means for instance that journalists who may wish to visit Aceh as one of the hardest-hit regions will not be allowed to visit the province because their intentions will be deemed to have nothing to do with humanitarian assistance.
Carmel Budiardjo of TAPOL said: "This is an outrageous decision by the Indonesian government and totally unforgivable under the present circumstances. It will continue to maintain a veil of secrecy over what has been happening in Aceh. It also makes it clear that as soon as the present emergency has passed, conditions in Aceh will return to a situation in which the Indonesian military can continue with their military operations, bringing yet more hardship. We call on organisations throughout the world to condemn this decision. Indonesia must lift all restrictions on access to Aceh," she said.
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