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TNI imposes restrictions on relief work threatening more loss of life
TAPOL Urgent Action - January 12, 2005
The commander of the Indonesian Armed Forces (TNI), General Endriartono Sutarto, announced Tuesday that foreign aid agencies wishing to distribute relief to people in Aceh would be restricted to two cities, Banda Aceh and Meulaboh. Special permission would be needed to go anywere else. All agencies will now be required to tell the military where they intend to deliver aid.
The International Herald Tribune, reporting from Banda Aceh, said that the general implied that permission would not be easily given. Moreover, Endriartono said that outside those cities, aid workers would have to be escorted by TNI officers. On a visit to Aceh Tuesday, the general said he was imposing the new order 'because Aceh was in the middle of a war'.
Since the tsunami struck Aceh on 26 December, killing more than 150,000 and leaving around 400,000 homeless, Acehnese people in the affected areas have been totally dependent on aid from agencies which arrived in great numbers to distribute clean drinking water, food and medicines, and treat the many people injured when the tsunami struck. Without this aid, it is certain that the death toll would have been far higher.
Moreover, the Indonesian Government has also announced that it intends to take over the relief operation in Aceh from foreign aid workers within three months. Reporting this, the Jakarta Post said this was being done 'despite lingering concerns of bottlenecks in aid distribution and the threat of diseases spreading among the displaced people'.
According to the Tribune, many agencies, including the UN's World Food Programme, are reluctant to work with military escorts because they fear they might get involved in the ongoing conflict.
Carmel Budiardjo of TAPOL said: 'Acehnese have lived in fear of the Indonesian military for decades. The new restrictions could make people reluctant to turn up for assistance. Officers may insist on the presentation of identity cards to see whether aid applicants are connected with GAM, the Free Aceh Movement. Suspected GAM members or supporters are unlikely to hold IDs', she said. 'The new regulation could disrupt the entire relief operations, add to the sufferings of the Acehnese and cause yet more disease and deaths.' She added that efforts to end the presence of foreign aid agencies within three months indicated that the Indonesian Government, almost certainly under pressure from the military, intends to end all access to Aceh as soon as possible and return to the situation before the tsunami when Aceh was closed to outside investigation and help.
Since the 1970s, Aceh has been closed to aid agencies and journalists, to conceal the extent of the fighting between the Indonesian military and the armed resistance, GAM. Thousands of people, the vast majority civilians not involved in the fighting, have died, while hundreds of Acehnese have been imprisoned and mostly held without trial.
In the wake of the tsunami on 26 December, the Indonesian authorities, unable to cope with the magnitude of the disaster and bring in desperately-needed aid to the homeless and the injured, as well as cope with the huge number of corpses needing to be buried, were forced to allow almost unrestricted access to Aceh for aid agencies. Now, three weeks after disaster struck, the military are determined to re-assert their control, even though this can only plunge the Acehnese into yet more suffering.
TAPOL calls on organisations, groups and individuals around the world: To send urgent appeals to the Indonesian president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, calling for an end to restrictions on aid agencies operating in Aceh, and stressing this is a matter of life and death for hundreds of thousands of Acehnese. The President should also be warned that any move to re-impose tight control over access to Aceh will inflict grave harm to the Acehnese people and persuade the international community that Indonesia wants to conceal from world's attention the depth of Acehnese suffering at the hands of the Indonesian military.
Letters should be faxed to:
President Susilo Bambang
Yudhoyono
Jakarta. Fax: 0062-21 725
0213
Copies to:
Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda
Fax: 006221 345 7782
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