Aceh

Batam rejects Aceh refugee

Jakarta Post - January 7, 2005

Fadli, Batam -- Dozens of survivors of the quake-triggered tsunami have found they cannot even enter Batam to find their relatives. Authorities denied them entry because they failed to meet requirements as stated in the city's regulations.

Under Batam Bylaw No. 2/2001 on population control, any visitor requesting to temporarily stay in the city has to produce an identity card as well as a return ticket and a deposit.

On of the refugees, Maswir, said on Thursday that he came to Batam after finding out that refugee camps in Medan and Banda Aceh were not fit to live in.

"I came here because I have relatives in Batam, but it turns out that there are just so many requirements to enter the island," Maswir sighed. "The authorities asked many things like a return ticket, my relatives' address, as well as deposit money."

The 34-year-old arrived in Batam with 30 other refugees from Aceh on Wednesday, by ship from Medan. "My ticket was given to me by people who felt sorry for me," Maswir said. The refugees failed to show proper identification and deposit money.

Every person arriving by sea is required to deposit Rp 130,000 (US$14) per day to the authorities before being granted entry to the city.

The refugees were sent to the Sekupang Transit House where they had to spend the night until the next ship arrived to take them back to where they had came from.

Head of Batam's population and civil registration office, Buralimar, said he was aware of the refugees' arrival in the city, ostensibly to seek help from their relatives.

According to office data, there were 35 people who were currently staying at the transit house.

He dismissed the suggestion that such regulations were insensitive to the plight of tsunami survivors. "There have been people claiming to be tsunami victims but it turned out they were just looking for jobs," he said.

Journalists told to keep quiet on Aceh skirmish

The Australian - January 7, 2005

Martin Chulov -- Australian journalists who witnessed a confrontation between Indonesian soldiers and alleged separatists in tsunami-ravaged Sumatra yesterday were ordered to leave the area and warned not to report on the incident.

The clash occurred just 40km from the provincial capital Banda Aceh, the centre of the relief operation spearheaded by US and Australian forces in Aceh, where some 100,000 people died from the Boxing Day earthquake and tsunamis.

After being the apparent target of rebel snipers, government soldiers fired into the air and roughed up Indonesians they suspected were Free Aceh Movement (GAM) sympathisers.

The incident prompted special forces (Kopassus) soldiers to confront The Australian's representatives in the area. "Your duties here are to observe the disaster, not the conflict between TNI [the Indonesian army] and GAM," a Kopassus commander told The Australian's journalist and photographer before ordering them to leave.

The international relief effort and the arrival of foreign journalists have presented the Indonesian military with a dilemma -- how to maintain military operations against the rebels while not attracting international attention to the 28-year-old conflict.

In the absence of a ceasefire, Indonesian military leaders have been anxious to avoid giving the impression that their commitment to contain the rebels was hampering their emergency relief role.

The military says yesterday's skirmish began when rebels on a fishing boat fired at tsunami victims and soldiers at Lhoknga, on Aceh's devastated west coast. No one was injured in the incident, near a destroyed bridge about 40km southwest of Banda Aceh, said Sergeant Muhammad Guntur.

The two gunshots rang out when a TNI patrol was wrapping a dead soldier in black plastic. The soldiers formed quickly into battle lines and ran across the dunes, a lieutenant calling urgently for backup. The Australian was in what was once a GAM stronghold and which for the past two years has been a hotspot in the Indonesian Government's fight against the rebels.

Within minutes, a truck carrying Kopassus soldiers arrived. Locals waiting to head south huddled with downcast eyes. Three men were hauled from the crowd, pushed into lotus positions and interrogated. Then another trio was summonsed.

As one local tried to ride off on a motorbike, a Kopassus soldier shouted angrily and fired two shots in the air. He walked up to the motorbike rider and hit him twice across the face, then threatened him with the butt of his M-16. The rider was hauled away and accused of being a GAM sympathiser who had tried to flee. We were told to leave and again reminded of constraints on reporting in Aceh.

For the past week, Lhoknga had been a staging point for refugees from the remainder of the west coast who had fled their villages, or those game enough to walk the other way along the ruined road, seeking out relatives. All morning, troops wearing combat kit had been stopping those heading south, accusing them of forming new supply lines for rebels in the hills.

This was the last TNI station between Banda Aceh and the great unknown. The only other soldiers along the coastline to Sumatra are involved in relief work. The checkpoint officers had been rigorous, to the point of pedantry. One local was asked why he was carrying five bananas on his 160km journey. He was allowed to leave after a five-minute grilling.

The official line from Jakarta has been that GAM, or the Free Aceh Movement, which has fought a decades-long guerilla campaign to win self-rule, is all but a spent force. The army believes it is now in a mopping-up phase. But during yesterday's alert a young soldier said his platoon had been involved in two contacts with rebels since the tsunami hit.

A spokesman for the Indonesian embassy in Canberra said the TNI had a role to maintain security, and this case might have been a simple example of that. "The role of the TNI is to assist in the humanitarian role but, because of the limited police, the TNI has a role in maintaining the rule of law in Aceh.

At these times there's an opportunity for the insurgents to exploit the situation. The TNI is trying to stop that."

US support for army is compromising its relief effort

The Guardian (UK) - January 6, 2005

Sidney Blumenthal -- Two days after the tsunami struck, President Bush, who had made no public statement, was vacationing at his ranch in Texas, and a junior spokesman was trotted out. The offer of US aid was $15m -- $2m less than the star pitcher of the Boston Red Sox was paid that year.

On December 27, UN emergency relief coordinator Jan Egeland had criticised wealthy nations for "stinginess". The next day Bill Clinton described the tsunami as a "horror movie", and explained that international leadership was required for a sustained effort once the "emotional tug" waned.

Now the White House spokesman reassured the country that Bush was "clearing some brush this morning; I think he has some friends coming in ... that he enjoys hosting; he's doing some biking and exercising ... taking walks with the first lady..." The spokesman said US aid would be increased to $35m, and added a jibe at Clinton: "The president wanted to be fully briefed on our efforts. He didn't want to make a symbolic statement about 'we feel your pain'."

For Bush, the war on terrorism is the alpha and omega of foreign policy, and it did not occur to him or to his national security team that the tsunami disaster, devastating Muslim regions, provided an opportunity for the US to demonstrate humanitarian motives. In this crisis, his advisers acted in character: Vice- president Cheney was duck-hunting on the plantation of a Republican donor; Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, suggested nothing to disturb her boss; and Colin Powell, the secretary of state, defended Bush as "not stingy".

Eight days after the tsunami, Bush appeared in the White House flanked by his father and Clinton, who, he announced, would lead a private aid effort, and moreover that US aid would be increased tenfold to $350m. Attacking Clinton hadn't worked; so Bush recruited him to deflect criticism.

The coastline of South Asia has been radically altered, but the political landscape in Washington remains familiar. Behind the stentorian rhetoric about the battle between good and evil lies the neoconservative struggle to remove human rights sanctions against the Indonesian military, which is waging a vicious war against the popular separatist movement on Banda Aceh, the province hardest hit by the tsunami.

The war between the Indonesian military and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) has raged for more than two decades. A ceasefire negotiated in 2002, with the involvement of former general Anthony Zinni as US representative, was brutally broken by the military in May 2003. The Indonesian military is a virtual state within a state and is unaccountable for its human rights violations and criminal activities. After its war of ethnic cleansing against East Timor concluded with independence following diplomatic intervention, the military was determined not to lose Banda Aceh.

In its war there, the military has mimicked the language of the war on terrorism and the Iraq war, calling its operation "shock and awe", targeting the population as terrorist supporters, and expelling all international observers, including the UN, from the region. Human Rights Watch documented extensive torture and abuse.

Bush administration policy has been conflicted, confused and negligent. The leading neoconservative at the Pentagon, Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defence, has tried to overthrow US restrictions on aid to, and relations with, the Indonesian military. The neoconservative thrust is undeterred by the military's obstruction of the FBI investigation into the murder of two US businessmen in 2002, killings that appear to implicate the military. When the state department issued a human rights report on Indonesia's abysmal record, its spokesman replied: "The US government does not have the moral authority to assess or act as a judge of other countries, including Indonesia, on human rights, especially after the abuse scandal at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison."

On his tour of Banda Aceh, Powell made no determined effort to restore the cease-fire. Meanwhile, GAM reports that the Indonesia military is using the catastrophe to launch a new offensive. "The Indonesians get the message when you have no high-level condemnation of what they're doing," Tom Malinowski of Human Rights Watch told me. A renewed effort by Wolfowitz against sanctions is expected soon.

In the name of the war on terrorism, neoconservatives attempt to bolster the repressive military, which flings the Bush administration's sins back in its face. In the "march of freedom", human rights are cast aside. The absence of moral clarity is matched by the absence of strategic clarity.

[Sidney Blumenthal, a former senior adviser to President Clinton, is Washington bureau chief of salon.com.]

Guards to protect orphans from child traffickers

The Guardian (UK) - January 5, 2005

Agencies -- Indonesian authorities posted police guards at refugee camps today to protect children orphaned by last week's tsunamis from child traffickers.

The UN confirmed two attempts to snatch children in Indonesia's devastated Aceh province, the first independent verification of widespread fears that children across the Indian Ocean region could fall prey to traffickers.

The Indonesian government banned children under 16 from leaving the country on Monday in an attempt to halt a potential trade in tsunami orphans.

The UN's children's agency, Unicef, warned that the disaster was the "perfect opportunity" for traffickers in Indonesia to sell youngsters into forced labour or sexual slavery in wealthy neighbouring countries such as Malaysia and Singapore. A text message was being sent around Malaysia offering three hundred Aceh orphans aged three to ten for illegal adoption, Unicef spokesman John Budd told Reuters yesterday.

Today the Malaysian government warned its citizens that only official channels were acceptable for adopting children, but said there was no evidence thus far that children from Indonesia had been smuggled into the country. Mr Budd said there were unconfirmed reports of up to 20 children being taken to Malaysia, and possibly hundreds to the Indonesian capital, Jakarta.

Criminal gangs are believed to be posing as aid agencies or family friends to gain access to children either orphaned by the tsunamis or separated from their families. Though Unicef has expressed concern for children throughout the Indian Ocean region, Aceh was particularly hard hit, and around 35,000 children lost one or both parents in the December 26 disaster.

Aceh is also close to the port city of Medan and island of Batam, well-known transit points for gangs shipping children and teenagers out of the country.

"I don't think you could have a more vulnerable child on earth than a child in this situation," Mr Budd said. "A young child who has gone through what they have witnessed will be barely surviving in terms of psychological health."

"This is a situation that lends itself to this kind of exploitation. Our concern here is ... whether these children are frankly turned into child slaves, if you will, or abused and exploited. They could be put to work -- domestic labour, sex trade, a whole series of potential abuses," said Unicef's director, Carol Bellamy.

Unicef and other aid agencies intend to set up special centres that will focus on children's needs within five Aceh refugee camps by the end of the week, and 15 more shortly after.

In Thailand, police have continued to hunt for a missing 12-year-old Swedish boy whose father and grandfather believe he was abducted after becoming separated from his mother, who is still missing, and his brother and sister, who are both now back in Sweden.

Thai police today released a German man who left hospital near Kaho Lak on Monday with a youngster, at first thought to be the missing Swedish boy, after questioning him about possible kidnapping. Police confirmed the man's account that he had helped reunite two German boys with their parents and a Swedish youth with his mother. "We have ruled out the theory that this man kidnapped anyone," police spokesman Vichai Boonruen said.

Radicals pitch in to clean up and keep Islamic law

Sydney Morning Herald - January 6, 2005

Matthew Moore, Banda Aceh -- Radical Islamic groups best known for smashing bars and violent support of the jailed cleric Abu Bakar Bashir have sent large contingents of their members to Aceh with funding provided by the Indonesian Government.

At Banda Aceh's airport, trucks with supplies to be ferried to disaster-struck areas by US Navy helicopters have been unloaded by members of Bashir's group, the MMI, including one man proudly wearing an Osama bin Laden T-shirt.

Members of the FPI (Islamic Defenders Front), famous for its attacks on nightspots in Jakarta, are now living in Banda Aceh in tents provided by the army and the Ministry of Social Affairs.

The head of the FPI contingent, Hilmy Bakar Almascaty, said about 250 members had come to Aceh with tickets provided by the Government; 800 more on board an Indonesian warship would help clean up the devastated province.

"FPI is not only an organisation that destroys bars and discos, it has a humanitarian side as well that the media is not happy to expose," Dr Almascaty said.

Early yesterday 50 of his troops wearing FPI shirts went through a series of military drills before heading off to the city to help collect corpses still not recovered from the millions of tonnes of rubble.

Dr Almascaty said his group had held discussions with the head of the army, General Ryamizard Ryacudu, the Defence Minister, Juwono Sudarsono and the Vice-President, Jusuf Kalla, and had come to Aceh with the full backing of the Government.

He said his members were in Aceh to help, although the army in the past has often been accused of using Islamic groups to fight its battles, especially in divided communities like Aceh.

Dr Almascaty agreed that, as well as helping gather corpses and clean up mosques, the FPI had come to play another role. He said he was determined to ensure the arrival of foreign soldiers and aid workers did not lead to a breakdown in the system of syariah, or Islamic law, which has been in nominal operation in Aceh for several years.

"If anyone who comes here does not respect the syariah law, traditions and constitution, we must give them a warning and then we must attack," he said.

Dr Almascaty said his group was co-ordinating with MMI and with another hardline group banned in many countries, Hizbut Tharir, in a plan to curtail Western influence. "You cannot build a bar here. If you go to your room to drink that is no problem, but you can't drink in a public area," he said.

He warned foreign soldiers and aid workers: "Don't go with Acehnese women, with Muslim women. If you come here and take women and try to westernise them, this is a problem for me." Dr Almascaty said he had already met the Indonesian military commander in Aceh, General Endang Suwarya, and urged him to set aside areas "to keep the US separate".

The head of the MMI contingent, Salman al Furizi, said his group of 50 young men from central Java had flown to Banda Aceh on a military aircraft. He was prepared to put aside his vehement opposition to the US because of the help it was providing. "We have to understand this is a disaster, so we are not talking about other problems," he said.

Dr Almascaty also welcomed the Americans and other traditional enemies of his group. "At the moment they have come as an angel," he said. "We don't know about tomorrow."

For many survivors, battered bodies, grim choices

New York Times - January 6, 2005

Jane Perlez, Banda Aceh -- In the makeshift recovery room, Dr. Paul Shumack crouched on the floor cradling the head of Novi, 35, who had already lost her husband and only child to the tsunami, and now her right leg.

The doctor had just amputated it to the buttock. Short of supplies, the surgical team had been forced to use what was described as a handsaw.

The hour-long operation drained huge amounts of blood from Mrs. Novi, already weak from asthma. There was no blood for a transfusion. Her fingers were turning white.

"She is dying," said Dr. Shumack, the leader of an emergency surgical team of Australian doctors and nurses. Ten minutes later, still holding her head, he softly pronounced her dead. "We gave her what chance we could."

International health officials have warned of soaring numbers of casualties among survivors of the tsunami 10 days ago, but doctors here say that many of the most seriously injured died even before medical teams arrived here near the center of the devastation.

"To some extent a process of natural selection has occurred," Dr. Shumack said. "People with no treatment at all are already dead."

Those at gravest risk now are people like Mrs. Novi, who suffered relatively minor injuries and could have been more easily saved if she had received emergency medical care last week. There is little way to know precisely how many people like her are now dying, but doctors say time is running out.

After days of trying to save grossly infected limbs at the poorly supplied military hospital here, Dr. Shumack and others have increasingly resorted to amputation, in the hope of saving lives. The number of amputations suddenly climbed this week, he said.

On Wednesday, four of the nine patients who went through surgery had legs amputated, a last resort that the doctors said they knew spelled a hopeless future in land lacking crutches, let alone prosthetics.

The seawater that swamped the city consisted of a foul mixture of sanitation waste, garbage and debris. Many of those who did not drown were cut by flying bits of trees, wood and metal. Even for the injured who managed to scrounge a few dabs of antiseptic and a bandage at chaotic camps, wounds have become seriously infected, in many cases septic.

"A couple of drops of this putrid water gives these people rip- roaring pneumonia and lacerations that get horrendously infected," Dr. Shumack said. "The septicemia is incredible. The surgical cases have become more complicated because the infections are becoming more spectacular."

For the last two days, Zaini, 60, a scrawny fisherman and the only survivor in his family, had refused doctors' explanations that the only way he could survive was to have his left leg cut off below the knee. He had wandered dazed and alone after the tsunami. Like many, he had suffered deep cuts that had not been cleaned. His left foot and calf were hugely swollen. The doctors deemed the lower leg "100 percent infected."

During a round of the hospital's overflowing wards on Wednesday morning, when the doctors picked out those they thought would most benefit from surgery, Mr. Zaini insisted that he only wanted his gashed leg cleaned and dressed. "He has no chance unless there is an amputation," said Rene Zwellinger, the head of the emergency trauma unit at the Perth Royal Hospital in Australia.

Mr. Zaini was brought to the pre-operation room anyway. He weighed about 95 pounds. His face was covered with fear. The doctors asked a translator, Rusma Mohammed, to explain his options one more time. "If you have the amputation you will have a chance to live," Mr. Rusma told him. "If you do not, you will die."

Finally, Mr. Zaini agreed. But after the operation the doctors were still doubtful about his chances. "If he survives the next 12 hours, he's likely to survive," said Dr. Paul Luckin, the attending anesthesiologist.

Much of the doctors' work on Wednesday was to save remnants of families. Of the nine men, women and teenagers they operated on this day, almost all had lost most of their family members.

Just before noon, a brother and sister, Joni, 27, and Sulayani, 13, were on the two operating tables having deeply infected leg wounds cleaned. The other 10 members of their family had died, they told the doctors.

Ms. Sulayani, a pretty girl with a brave smile and dressed in neatly pressed pink pajamas, had a deep wound about the size of a tennis ball on her lower left leg. The doctors had her carried into the operating room just as her brother's operation was finishing.

"If this had been treated eight days ago, it wouldn't be a problem," Dr. Zwellinger said as he carefully peeled back the layers of skin to remove pus. The infection had gone to the muscle but had stopped short of the bone.

Even so, she underwent what the doctors called radical surgery for what they believed had initially been a relatively small laceration. "Small wounds have been left so long they end up being big wounds," said David Scott, an Australian anesthesiologist, as he worked on Ms. Sulayani's leg.

In time she would need a skin graft, which might be done by an American team of doctors from the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, who were expected to begin work within a few days. The prospects for the girl were good if she got the skin graft, the Australian team said.

"She's healthy now and was very healthy before the tsunami," said Dr. Scott. "This is a normal kid. She's like the kid next door. She should be at school."

But for others amputation was unavoidable. Khatijah, 40, who said she had been tossed around in the raging tsunami water for 10 hours, lost her husband and only daughter.

Her son, Gunaidi Rusli, 25, said he borrowed his boss's motorcycle and managed to get his mother to the hospital. She understood, he said, that her right leg had to be amputated below the knee. But she was most worried about a serious infection on her lower right arm. Under no circumstances did she want that lower arm cut off. "We must absolutely save her right arm," Dr. Zwellinger assured her son.

Afterward the doctor said that the amputation of the lower leg had proceeded well but that the right arm was "still a big problem." In order to ensure that it would heal, the surgeon said, Mrs. Khatijah would be evacuated to a hospital in Medan, a city to the southeast where the prospects for keeping the wound clean were much better. "The Australian Air Force will take her to Medan very soon, we hope tomorrow," Dr. Shumack told Mr. Rusli. "How much will it cost?" he asked. "It will be free," the doctor answered to Mr. Rusli's evident astonishment.

The working conditions for the team of volunteer doctors, who were organized by the Australian government and went into action on Thursday, were far from ideal.

At one point on Wednesday, the electricity sputtered out; they continued to operate with flashlights. They brought 39,000 pounds of surgical equipment but by the time they did their first amputation on Wednesday, they realized they had run out of a special amputation saw, known as a Gigli, which allows doctors to cut through bone with minimal damage to muscle and other tissues.

They had brought only four, and although the saws are too fragile to bear much re-use, the doctors had managed it a few times in the past few days. Now they had run out.

The operation on Mrs. Novi was delayed as an Australian doctor hunted in the military hospital's storeroom. Eventually, Dr. Luckin said, they found what he called a handsaw.

Even simple things were difficult, like transportation from their living quarters, at the only other functioning Acehnese hospital. Two days ago the medical team flagged down a garbage truck and stood in the back of its trailer for their trip to work.

But the hardest thing on Wednesday, Dr. Shumack said, was the death of Mrs. Novi. On a piece of paper, with a black marker, he wrote: Novi 13:30 January 5, 2005 and tucked it into the body bag.

A little later, her sister asked four hospital volunteers to carry Mrs. Novi's body to a tiny jeep -- so small that the end of the white body bag trailed out the rear door on its way to burial.

House forms 20-strong team to supervise donations

Jakarta Post - January 5, 2005

Kurniawan Hari, Jakarta -- The House of Representatives leaders decided on Tuesday to form a team of 20 legislators with the task of supervising the distribution of humanitarian aid to tsunami- hit areas in Aceh and North Sumatra in order to help prevent misuse of funds.

House leaders also suggested that the President assign the Ministry of Finance to be the sole institution channeling donations contributed from foreign countries.

"The team is designed to prevent misuse of donations. We hope the public will report any indications of irregularities," deputy House speaker Muhaimin Iskandar told the press after a closed- door meeting.

Although he had not received any reports of irregularities, Muhaimin acknowledged that the move was taken to anticipate possible abuses.

The team would also supervise the use of state budget funds for related humanitarian relief work.

Concerns over possible abuses have also been raised by People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) Speaker Hidayat Nur Wahid, who urged that all donations for Aceh and North Sumatra be handled by one institution in a transparent and accountable way.

Several countries have pledged funds totaling hundreds of millions of dollars, as well as relief supplies and medical teams to help survivors in northern Sumatra. Quakes and tidal waves hit large areas of northern Sumatra on December 26, killing more than 90,000 people.

Japan is the largest donor, offering US$500 million to be distributed amongst all the tsunami-affected countries, followed by the United States with US$350 million.

Muhaimin, who is assigned to chair the supervisory team, called on the public to inform legislators if they come across indications of misuse of funds.

He gave an assurance that the House would protect people who reported misuse.

All reports from the public would be taken as input for legislators so that they could trace the manipulation.

According to Muhaimin, the team would start work after the opening of the next sitting session on January 10.

The public can send information via SMS to 0813 1927 6969. An e- mail address for sending reports will be announced later.

Legislators are also prepared to meet directly with members of the public, he said.

Members of the supervisory team will be taken from all 10 commissions, with each commission contributing two members.

Muhaimin added that House leaders would also hold a consultative meeting with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to discuss relief efforts in Aceh and North Sumatra sometime after January 10.

Army still at war in Aceh

The Australian - January 5, 2005

Sian Powell, Jakarta -- The Indonesian military is continuing to wage war with separatist rebels in the hills of Aceh as world leaders put the finishing touches to a multi-billion-dollar aid and investment package for the devastated province.

As international military and medical teams stepped up relief efforts yesterday in Aceh, where the tsunami killed up to 100,000 people, an Indonesian military spokesman confirmed that only two-thirds of the military's 40,000-strong force in the province was taking part in the relief effort while the remaining third was engaged in military operations against insurgents.

The rebels claimed yesterday that the Indonesian military has moved more troops into rebel-held territory under the guise of relief operations since the tsunami struck 10 days ago. They say squads of soldiers are preventing hill villagers going to help their relatives on the coast.

"They are still conducting an incessant military operation," a rebel spokesman, Teuku Jamaika, told The Australian from his base somewhere in the Aceh hills. "There's no difference between before and after the tsunami."

Thousands of Australian and US military personnel are at the forefront of the relief operation on the coast of Aceh, with the support of medical and military teams from as far away as Germany and Japan.

The Indonesian embassy in Canberra last night defended the continued military operation against the rebels. "The Indonesian military in Aceh also has a responsibility to maintain security," a spokesman said. "The main task of the military is to provide humanitarian aid but they are also meant to provide security."

Colonel Djazairi Nachrowi, the head of information analysis at the national military headquarters, said there had been no ceasefire, despite an offer from rebel leaders exiled in Sweden to suspend hostilities until Aceh had recovered.

"At first we thought positively, that GAM [the Free Aceh Movement] had a conscience, and would not use the situation like this, but it turned out they held up [aid transport]," Colonel Nachrowi said. "We are not offensive, we are defensive." There had been no outright attacks on the rebels, he said.

"Some TNI [Indonesian military] troops tried to escort a truck filled with aid," he said. "When they were on their way there was an indication they would be held up, so there was an exchange of fire. It's not TNI attacking GAM, but an exchange of fire because humanitarian aid was held up."

GAM spokesman Teuku Jamaika said military raids had continued in hill areas of Idi Rayek, in Bireuen, Gandapura and Pasongan. Local people had been prevented from leaving their villages to find relatives or simply to help, he said. "It was prohibited, blocked. If they left their villages there were threats."

University of Indonesia military specialist Salim Said said GAM rebels would try to attack aid convoys to boost their supplies while the Indonesian military continued its crackdown.

"The operation to obliterate GAM continues, nothing has changed there," Dr Said said. "Now another danger has threatened them, but they will still try to crush GAM."

Kirsten Schulze, a senior lecturer at the London School of Economics and the author of a number of papers on the Aceh insurgency, said counter-insurgency operations were continuing in the province, but she said it should be remembered the military was doing most of the dirty work in hard-hit towns such as Banda Aceh.

"In Meulaboh, there are no military operations," she said. "In East Aceh, which was not hit hard by the tsunami, yes, there are security operations going on."

Dr Schulze, in Indonesia to continue her research, said more troops had been sent into Aceh from North Sumatra, but only to bolster the relief effort. "Without the military, the aid effort would be even slower."

Bakhtiar Abdullah, a GAM spokesman based in Sweden, said the military had poured troops into the region since the disaster. "The reports we received is that they are moving in more troops under the guise of relief operations," he said.

The 19-month crackdown on the GAM rebels has become a tender issue for Indonesia. The failure of an internationally-brokered and short-lived ceasefire in 2003 prompted the massive military offensive, and Indonesia has reacted angrily to foreign criticism of various atrocities.

Before the tsunami hit, international aid workers were almost entirely prevented from operating in Aceh, journalists curtailed to an extent which made balanced coverage impossible, and diplomats largely barred from visiting.

Teuku Jamaika said two rebels were shot dead by Indonesian soldiers late last week after an all-out attack, and flatly denied the rebels had attempted to hold up an aid convoy.

"We actually already unilaterally asked the TNI for a ceasefire," he said. "We asked TNI to take a defensive position and only attack if we attack first. But it just doesn't work."

In angry waves, the devout see an angry god

Washington Post - January 5, 2005

Edward Cody, Banda Aceh -- Aceh's highly influential Islamic clerics have explained the giant wave that devastated this overwhelmingly Muslim region as a warning to the faithful that they must more strictly observe their religion, including a ban on Muslims killing Muslims.

The infusion of religious meaning into the tragedy, in a province already known as Indonesia's most fervently Muslim area, suggested the consequences of the December 26 tsunami could extend well beyond the death toll. The sweeping destruction has torn apart the infrastructure on the northern part of Sumatra island.

The idea that the killing on both sides of a years-old conflict between secessionist rebels and Indonesia's military helped bring divine wrath could affect the way Aceh's 4.7 million residents view the central government in Jakarta.

At the same time, the devout people of this region, who seem to have embraced their clerics' views, could demand even tighter strictures in Aceh, which is already governed by Islamic law, or sharia.

The extent of Islamic influence across Aceh has been on display from the moment the wave swept in from the Indian Ocean and flattened an uncounted number of towns, villages and neighborhoods. Down almost every road, beside almost every street, mosques immediately took in refugees, setting up tents and organizing food distribution before the provincial government or international aid agencies got relief operations up and running.

Azhari Banta Ali, a provincial official, said village and neighborhood imams across Aceh province have traditionally acted in tandem with local administrators in matters affecting their followers. The Islamic clerics here have little sense of hierarchy, he added, meaning the imam of each mosque wields strong moral authority within his own area.

"Wherever you go in Aceh, you will see the village leader and the imam working together," Banta Ali said. "One is the religious leader, the other is the government leader at the lowest level of the administration."

In this atmosphere, the swift care provided around mosques and the interpretation handed down in sermons and individual counseling by local imams seemed likely to be decisive for years to come in how the people of Aceh understand the tragedy that has befallen them.

"God is angry with Aceh people, because most of them do not do what is written in the Koran and the Hadith," the collected sayings and actions of the prophet Muhammad, explained Cut Bukhaini, 35, an imam. "I hope this will lead all Muslims in Aceh to do what is in the Koran and its teachings. If we do so, God will be merciful and compassionate."

Bukhaini, surrounded by refugees camping on the grounds of his Baitush Shakhir Mosque in Banda Aceh's Ulee Kareng district, said people here were guilty of forgetting their obligation to pray five times a day and of concentrating too much on earning money rather than living according to their religion.

Moreover, he explained, they offended the Almighty by entering into a conflict in which "Muslims killed Muslims" in contravention of Koranic strictures.

The provincial rebellion, by a group known as the Free Aceh Movement, began as an effort to split the region from Jakarta's rule. Although the movement has Islamic overtones, its goals are primarily separatist, and the conflict has never revolved around religion.

The soldiers dispatched here to put it down are Muslims, as are the rebels, and the central government has always voiced pride in Indonesia's role as the world's most populous Muslim nation. In that light, Bukhaini said, the conflict was unlawful under Islam, with guilt shared by both sides and the people of Aceh paying a terrible price.

In last Friday's sermon and in statements since then, imams have said the disaster should be a lesson to Muslims to more closely observe Islamic laws, including those governing consumption of alcohol and relations between the sexes, according to Aceh residents who attended weekly services in their mosques. Unlike most of Indonesia, this province enforces sharia, including a ban on public sales of liquor. But the atmosphere has never been as austere nor the enforcement as complete as in other sharia jurisdictions such as Saudi Arabia.

"I think people were making love before marriage, doing bad things, forgetting to pray to God," said Jack Solong, 25, a waiter and dishwasher at a popular Banda Aceh coffee shop. "God punished us. I believe that."

The cafe owner, Haji Nawawi, 45, who pulls down his shutters three times a day for prayers, agreed. He suggested that the disaster could persuade people to intensify their observance of the faith that, except for some Chinese Buddhists and central Sumatran Christians, nearly all of them share.

"Before the tsunami, all the people were full of bad conduct," he said. "Boys were sitting close to the girls. There was corruption in the government. This was God's punishment."

A number of people interviewed Tuesday in Banda Aceh shared Nawawi's convictions. "We have to make a lot of changes in our lives, and this is God's way of letting us know," said Hetty Meutia Dewy, an agriculture student at Bogor University and a member of the Islamic Association of Students. "The imams have said it was a warning. They said God loves the Aceh people, but the tsunami was a warning to be better people.

Neva Zarlinda, an 18-year-old high school student camped beside Baitush Shakhir Mosque, said she also viewed the disaster as a warning from God and, as a result, planned to be more observant. "I hope that I will pray more now, because I have done a lot of wrong things," she said, hanging around the government-provided tent where she, her mother, her father and her five siblings have taken up residence. "I seldom prayed. God willing, I will pray more."

Despite her resolution, Zarlinda did not bother with the head scarf worn by many Aceh women.

The Islamic Defender Front, a militant group that flew volunteers in from Jakarta to help in the relief effort, said its members were the first to clear bodies and debris from the gleaming white Baiturhahman Mosque, the main symbol of Islam in Aceh, which rises from a broad esplanade in Banda Aceh's city center.

"The mosques are central for Muslims," said Mohammed Maksouni, 36, a leader of the group, explaining why refugees instinctively flowed into mosques after they fled the wave. "And also, the houses were destroyed but the mosques were left standing."

Ansufri Sabow, 34, another member and college lecturer on mathematics and Islamic studies, said the tsunami could "cleanse the sins of the people" as well as caution them. "God has warned us," he said. "Wake up. Wake up. Wake up."

The Islamic Defender Front has made a name for itself in Jakarta by trashing bars during Ramadan, the Muslim holy month. Although it has no known links to Indonesia's underground Islamic terrorist movement, the group has criticized US and other Western influence in the country.

Sabow specified, however, that he welcomed the US Navy helicopters working out of Banda Aceh to deliver food and relief supplies to isolated refugees. "If they come here to give food, give aid, no problem," he said. "Aid, not AIDS."

Burgeoning survivor camps full of lost souls

Sydney Morning Herald - January 5, 2005

Matthew Moore, Banda Aceh -- They call them refugee camps, but the scores of little plastic tent settlements that have sprung up across Aceh are unlike the refugee camps that have long been part of this war-torn province.

Aceh's refugee camps in the past have been home to whole families fleeing the army's war with separatists, but these settlements are more like survivor camps, full of shattered souls who have often lost everyone close to them.

All camps seem to have residents like Abu Bakar Ishak, 44, who used to live in a house about a kilometre from the sea in Banda Aceh and now lives under an overhang on the building that once housed the head office of the Ministry of Social Affairs.

He was at work with his wife in the market selling Cendol, a sweet traditional drink, and had just been home to check on his five children when the tsunami struck.

"On the way back to the market I heard people screaming to run because the water was coming and I tried to go back on my motorbike to save my children but I could not."

His house and all five children were swept to oblivion and now he is alone in the camp. "We are singles here," he said, pointing to the cluster of mainly men who gathered around him to share their awful stories.

Muhammad Diah was just one of the throng to confirm their new status. "I lost my wife and three children," he said with that look of blank dumb shock you see in so many of the faces in the camps. He too survived because he was selling in the market while his family was at home in their house closer to the coast.

Torres Inigo, a Spanish refugee worker with Action Against Hunger, has been visiting the camps and said the problems for the Acehnese refugees had been exacerbated because so many had lost most of their families as well as their houses.

They had lost their relatives to grieve with. "The coping reaction that is normally generated in an emergency is not available here. We are very concerned."

Estimates of refugee numbers range from 300,000 to 1 million, many of them in camps in unsuitable areas that will have to move soon to avoid disease sweeping through their occupants. Camps are dotted beside the road, near the airport and in the grounds of office buildings that did not collapse in the earthquake.

Next to Mr Ishak's sleeping mat is Rohani, who numbly tried to describe how she had lost her only son, Iwan, 11. She had left him with relatives at home in Meulaboh on the west coast while she visited friends in Banda Aceh, and had since heard they were all dead.

She brushed at her eyes but hardly had tears left to shed as she pulled from her wallet her only photo of the smiling child. She wanted to go home to Meulaboh but did not know how to get there and was unable to comprehend that the town so close to the epicentre of the earthquake had mostly disappeared. Now that her house and little business were destroyed she had no idea how she would survive.

She and the 1500 others living in her camp are surviving thanks to food, clothing and medicines donated by Indonesian and foreign aid groups. A water system has been installed, but it is only clean enough for washing. There is a shortage of kerosene, which means cooking is hard, and the sacks of donated rice are largely unopened. As more aid arrives, the daily challenge to survive will fade. Fixing these broken lives will be a lot harder.

Army maintains anti-rebel paranoia

Laksamana.Net - January 5, 2005

Amid increasing concerns the Indonesian Defense Forces (TNI) is using the tsunami disaster in Aceh to crack down on the province's separatist movement, the military has claimed that troops are needed to stop rebels from "infiltrating" refugee camps, stealing aid and carrying out attacks.

Army chief General Ryamizard Ryacudu on Tuesday (4/1/05) said he had ordered all soldiers in Aceh to be on alert to secure all transport routes from possible rebel attacks. He accused the outlawed Free Aceh Movement (GAM) of infiltrating refugee camps in order to steal relief assistance.

"If GAM was really humane it would not do that, but instead would help, rather than seek opportunities," he was quoted as saying by detikcom online news portal.

"We must keep up our guard against GAM's strength because GAM is rather uncivilized. It has already been infiltrating. It has already made its mark by burning unused TNI posts on the western coast and in southern Aceh toward Meulaboh, close to Blang Pidie, where there was also an exchange of fire recently," he said.

Aceh's Security Restoration Operation Command on Monday issued a statement accusing GAM rebels of ambushing a convoy that had been delivering humanitarian relief to a distribution point in East Aceh district. It said the rebels attacked the convoy on Saturday at Julok village in Idi Rayeuk subdistrict.

The statement also said another group of rebels intercepted a separate convoy delivering medical aid to Malayati village in Aceh Besar district.

GAM officials living in exile in Sweden have denied the rebels are responsible for any attacks, as they declared a temporary ceasefire immediately after the December 26 earthquake and tsunamis that killed more than 100,000 people in Aceh.

Rebel spokesman Bakhtiar Abdullah accused the government of using the relief effort to send more troops to Aceh to combat GAM. He also claimed that government relief workers were harassing and beating rebel sympathizers. "The reports we received [are] that they are moving in more troops under the guise of relief operations," he was quoted as saying by the Associated Press.

Aceh Military spokesman Colonel Ahmad Yani Basuki freely admitted that reinforcements had been deployed and only two-thirds of them were being used in relief efforts. He said the remainder were needed to "prevent the rebels from attacking vital installations and relief operations".

TNI spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Nachrowi last week also said the military was continuing its attacks against GAM, but had also been spending much time assisting with humanitarian relief efforts. In a statement issued Tuesday, TNI headquarters said it had deployed 3,424 reinforcements to Aceh to assist with "humanitarian operations".

Rights groups say that about 14,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in Aceh since GAM commenced its low-level war for independence in 1976.

TNI business as usual

Acehnese community leaders in Australia on Tuesday expressed concern that TNI was exploiting the tsunami disaster to further combat GAM.

Liaison officer Nurdin Abdul Rahman was quoted by Agence France- Presse as saying Acehnese in Australia had received reports the military was not respecting the temporary ceasefire.

He said TNI had arrested several people during anti-rebel operations in Peureulak and Bireuen districts. "In reality they have breached the ceasefire. It is window dressing for the international public," he was quoted as saying by AFP.

He said the military had reportedly banned people from going to vegetable gardens in the hinterland to gather food, where many GAM rebels are based. "People are desperately in need of food but the Indonesian military have the nerve to prevent or ban people to go to their farm for food -- this is so inhumane. They say they want to keep people from contact with guerrillas."

Rahman also said he had been informed that soldiers in Lhokseumawe city were selling instant noodles that were supposed to be distributed as free government aid.

Rights groups have condemned TNI for continuing to attack alleged rebels and their suspected sympathizers, saying the military should put down its arms and devote all of its resources to saving lives in Aceh if it truly wants to win the hearts and minds of the province's people.

GAM has also been accused of violations in Aceh, but of a far less serious extent than those perpetrated by TNI.

The military said an Army Strategic Reserve Command (Kostrad) team on Monday captured a "16-year-old GAM member" who had collected illegal taxes from a refugee camp coordinator in North Aceh district. A military statement said the rebel tax collector, Fitiradi, had taken funds from refugee coordinator Saefudin at Nune Tutong village in Gandapura subdistrict.

"He thought that as a refugee coordinator, I received much money from the government whereas in reality I only get food to be distributed to tsunami survivors," said Saefudin.

Weapons recovered

Ryacudu said the military had recovered hundreds of its weapons that had been lost as a result of the Aceh tsunamis. "Hundreds of weapons were found on the beaches in piles of sand. We are continuing the search. Many were lost at Uleuleu Beach and many more in the Long Nga area, where two companies lost up to 500 or more weapons," he said.

Deadly omen?

A nationalist youth group, somewhat lacking in compassion, on Tuesday urged GAM to give up its struggle for independence following the cataclysmic natural disaster.

"The disaster can be construed as a warning to the local political elite and separatists to stop their rebellious movement," Indonesian Democratic Youth Organization (GMDI) advisory board chairman Alex Asmasubrata was quoted as saying by state news agency Antara.

He claimed that Indonesia's founding fathers had sent a warning to the people of Aceh, particularly the rebels, to stop entertaining the idea of breaking away from the Republic of Indonesia.

Separate relief operation proposed

Parliament on Tuesday suggested the government should establish a "non-combat military operation" in Aceh to completely focus on aid work in order to improve the coordination of the disaster relief effort in the province and surrounding areas.

Effendi Choirie, deputy chairman of parliament's Commission I on defense affairs, said the creation of a separate military operation would distinguish between regular combat troops and soldiers tasked to provide relief aid.

"In accordance with Chapter 17 of Law No.34/2004 on TNI, non- combat military operations can be conducted in natural disaster areas, such as Aceh. And this can be agreed to by the government and parliament," he was quoted as saying by detikcom.

He said the formation of a special operation would end uncertainty over whether the Aceh relief effort was being coordinated by a cabinet minister or the military.

Choirie stressed that his proposal would not halt the current military operation in Aceh or end the province's martial law status.

Director General for Strategic Defense Planning, Mas Widjaja, praised the proposal and said he would submit it to the Defense Minister for consideration.

"Coordination in Aceh is certainly difficult to carry out now. The proposal is good because TNI is carrying out most activities in the field, so it's appropriate that TNI be put at the center."

Presidential spokesman Andi Mallarangeng gave a less enthusiastic response to the proposal, saying that Aceh was already virtually under the status of a non-combat military operation.

"A non-combat military operation has already been in place since the president appointed the Army Chief [Ryacudu] as TNI coordinator for social services in the field," he was quoted as saying by detikcom.

"The social services operation by TNI in conjunction with the National Police could be seen as a non-combat military operation. They are both conducting a non-combat operation, he reiterated.

He brushed aside concerns the relief operation had changed Aceh's status and should have first been discussed with parliament. "I don't know about that. Ask the commander about that."

State Secretary Yusril Ihza Mahendra also gave a cold response to Choirie's proposal. "Who said that? Whose proposal is it? If it's only something he said, I don't want to respond."

Also on Tuesday, the Defense Ministry submitted to Commission I its budget of Rp235,786,514,046 ($25.4 million) for TNI to conduct relief operations in the first 30 days following the natural disaster in Aceh.

GAM seeks end to 'sinister shenanigans'

Following are recent statements issued by GAM's exiled leaders. In the first statement, GAM's self-styled military commander Muzakkir Manaf expresses hope that UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's upcoming visit to Indonesia will help bring an end to the "sinister shenanigans" of some of Indonesia's "selfish colonial military commanders".

Emergency aid needed for at least six months: UN

Agence France Presse - January 5, 2005

Emergency assistance to Asian communities affected by the tsunami disaster will be needed for at least six months, the United Nations has said, warning that a full recovery would take far longer.

The UN children's fund (UNICEF) East Asia director, Anupama Rao Singh, said the immediate concern was to keep victims alive and to rebuild infrastructure such as schools and health centres.

"In terms of immediate recovery it will take six to nine months minimum," Singh told reporters at a joint event with the UN's World Food Program, which warned it could take six months to reach all two million people in need of food aid.

Malnutrition and disease leading to further deaths are the biggest concern for the United Nations in the coming months, Singh said. Full social and economic recovery in tsunami-affected communities could take much longer, she said. "We are looking at a minimum of two to three years, if not longer depending on the scale [of destruction]," she said, adding that at least one million children had been affected by the crisis.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan previously said the rebuilding effort could take up to 10 years, while World Vision Australia chief executive Tim Costello said reconstruction would take a generation.

The number of people killed in the disaster edged up towards 146,000 Wednesday, with bodies still being found on the Indian Ocean's devastated shorelines 10 days after the catastrophe.

The WFP said it was focussing its immediate energies on getting emergency food aid to the estimated two million tsunami survivors who urgently need it.

"The challenges are immense and unprecedented in terms of the need for a response," the WFP's Asia director, Anthony Banbury, told reporters. "The total expected needs for our work are 250 million dollars for the next six months," he said adding only 65 million dollars would be spent on food with the remainder of the money needed to deliver it.

Banbury said he expected the money would be pledged at a donors meeting to be held Thursday in Geneva.

More than 900,000 tonnes of food aid has already been distributed to almost half a million people, he said, with Indonesia topping the priority list. "The biggest operational challenge right now is in northern Sumatra and Western Sumatra," he said.

He said Banda Aceh in northern Sumatra had become the hub of an unprecedented global humanitarian mission to help survivors of the December 26 catastrophe that killed more than 94,000 Indonesians.

UN operations are being coordinated out of Bangkok, but Banbury said talks were underway with an unnamed regional government to use a military base as a large-scale logistical hub, which would enable rapid aid delivery throughout the region.

Helicopter drops aid load at shopping mall

Associated Press - January 5, 2005

Medan -- A load of relief supplies slung under a US military helicopter fell and slammed into a car parked at a shopping mall in the Indonesian city of Medan early Wednesday, local officials said. Provincial government spokesman Eddy Sofyan said there were no injuries but that one car parked at the mall was damaged.

Sofyan said the North Sumatra provincial government wants US forces to stop transporting heavy loads of aid in nets hanging below helicopters. The US Navy was investigating and cooperating with local officials, said its spokesman Lt. Billy Ray Davis. It was not immediately clear if the Navy had changed the way it delivered aid.

The helicopter was delivering aid as part of a massive US military relief operation underway in tsunami and quake-hit regions of Indonesia.

More than 90,000 are confirmed dead on Sumatra island and up to a million people were made homeless by the December 26 quake and tsunami disaster.

Corruption concerns rise as tsunami relief gains momentum

Associated Press - January 5, 2005

Jakarta -- As relief officials work to help the thousands of people made homeless from last month's tsunami, another concern is quietly making the rounds of donor meetings: the threat of corruption.

The UN and other aid groups say they have seen little evidence of local officials skimming funds or reselling relief supplies in Indonesia, Sri Lanka and other hard-hit areas. Still, aid officials fear the issue could stop some individuals from contributing to the recovery effort.

"I think we're more concerned that the image of it [corruption] would hold people back from sending money because they fear the money would end up in the wrong pockets," said Michael Elmquist, head of UN relief efforts in Indonesia's Aceh province. "I don't think it's happening but the fear is there," he said, urging donors to give money to international organizations to allay their fears.

About $2 billion has been pledged to help victims rebuild from the December 26 earthquake and tsunami, which left nearly 140,000 people dead.

Corruption is expected to be on the agenda when world leaders including UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and US Secretary of State Colin Powell meet Thursday in Jakarta for a summit to coordinate relief efforts.

With the massive size of the relief operation and number of groups involved, officials acknowledge graft is an issue. They note that the last big relief effort following the December 2003 earthquake in Bam, Iran, was hampered by bureaucratic bottlenecks and allegations of corruption, including charges that one Iranian official profited from the disaster.

Indonesia appears to be the focus of most concerns for tsunami aid, given that Transparency International ranks it one of the most corrupt countries in the world. Jails are filled with local officials held on graft charges and the current governor of Aceh is on trial for taking money meant for local villages and padding the purchase price of a helicopter.

Several Indonesian relief efforts in conflict areas have also been marred by corruption. Local relief officials in Ambon, where Christians and Muslims have fought for years, are on trial for exaggerating refugee figures and pocketing the additional state funds.

Local graft activists fear more than 30% of the $1 billion projected to be spent on recovery could be stolen -- about the average that disappears each year from the country's national budget.

Part of the problem, they said, is that emergency response agencies lack auditing mechanisms to prevent theft. Conditions are worse in Aceh, where a rebel insurgency has left local authority essentially in the hands of the Indonesian military, which is often accused of corruption.

Sporadic reports are already coming into Indonesian Corruption Watch of government bureaucrats reselling donated rice in Aceh and aid supplies being pilfered before they reach the provincial capital of Banda Aceh.

"Based on our experience, corruption in disaster recovery programs in Indonesia is rampant," said Luky Djani of Indonesian Corruption Watch. "We're expecting corruption in Aceh because there is so much aid coming into the province."

So far, no cases of corruption have been reported in Sri Lanka or India, though Indian activists say it is only a matter of time. "Once major money flows in, there may be a lot of corruption," said Dr. S.R. Srikrishna, a volunteer with British group ActionAid International in southern Tamil Nadu state.

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, whose anti-graft campaign has dominated his first two months in office, is expected to appoint a ministerial level official to oversee aid.

"From the beginning, I have said all assistance must be handled with transparency and accountability," Yudhoyono told reporters Wednesday. "To assure foreign assistance is being properly used, I will personally direct and control the funds."

Most relief agencies and donors have dismissed concerns of widespread corruption, saying safeguards already in place will trump the greed of a few local bureaucrats. "We know Indonesia very well ... and I think the mechanisms we have to monitor and protect the integrity of our aid programs work pretty well here as they do elsewhere," Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer told reporters in Jakarta.

Some groups admit corruption is inevitable given the amount of relief money and the role local governments will likely play in rebuilding roads, bridges and government offices. "Corruption is an unceasing issue when you have such a large amount of money going into a country," said John Budd, a UNICEF spokesman in Aceh. "There are unscrupulous people in all areas, not just here in Indonesia, who would use an aid agency to take money illegally."

PKS to gain political capital from relief efforts

Associated Press - January 5, 2005

Disillusioned with the government's stuttering relief efforts in tsunami-hit Aceh, one of Indonesia's most popular conservative Muslim political parties organized initial relief efforts here, and come election time, analysts say, it will reap the rewards of its swift response.

The Muslim Justice and Welfare party has the biggest grass roots aid network in the region, says Irwinsyah, who heads the party's branch in the provincial capital, Banda Aceh. And he claims it was among the first organizations to distribute food, water, medicine and hundreds of prayer kits to survivors here.

"We have a highly dedicated volunteer network here. It was much easier and quicker to jump-start them," he said. "The international aid effort is good. We need so much help, but Indonesian Muslims have to show that they give as much as they can too."

Banners for the party, which in the past has campaigned for Islamic Sharia law in this secular country, hang above boxes of mineral water and instant noodles. Volunteers distribute secondhand clothes including Muslim tunics, prayer hats and mats.

Two huge tents separate the female and male refugees at Lambaro mosque's grounds, where the party opened their base one day after a 9.0-magnitude earthquake struck and the ensuing tsunami tore through Aceh claiming nearly 100,000 lives.

Other Islamic-based political parties and religious groups quickly followed suit.

Irwinsyah said the government didn't react quickly enough and that Muslim groups were helping survivors long before any international aid agencies arrived to assess the disaster.

Indonesia's government had banned foreign aid agencies and journalists from Aceh province because of a 26-year separatist war here, but last week it lifted the ban and welcomed all international aid.

"I had to do something. The government aid meetings were so laboriously slow," said Irwinsyah, who like most Indonesians uses a single name.

The Justice and Welfare party has channeled 500 tons of food and has sent 50 doctors to treat the sick and injured in every district capital, he said.

"Now, local district heads turn to us for help first," Irwinsyah said, his face dripping wet after an ablution ritual before midday prayer.

The speed with which the Justice and Welfare Party reacted to the disaster in Aceh is expected to underscore a resurgence of political Islam in Indonesia, the world's most populous Islamic nation.

The party finished sixth nationally in last year's election, and came a close second in Aceh, a staunchly Muslim province, campaigning on fighting corruption, bolstering moral values, and downplaying its previously strict Islamic credentials.

"I am so glad I voted for the Justice party," said local retiree Muhammad Noer. "They were here the fastest. They are the most trustworthy. I'll definitely vote for them again next election."

Analyst Muhammad Budiyatna said local Muslim groups' low-key relief efforts stretched to places the international effort has so far largely overlooked.

"US and international aid groups are, for the moment, just staying in coastal towns," said Budiyatna. "The Muslim groups are the real foot soldiers in this battle to get aid to the needy."

Come election time, the party will benefit, Budiyatna said. "They are savvy. They know that this is also a kind of political campaign," he said.

The government has acknowledged it was slow to react to the crisis in Aceh, and Welfare Minister Alwi Shihab said that Islamic aid groups have boosted disaster management efforts.

Supporting political parties in their relief operations across Indonesia are a sprawling and informal coalition of Muslim groups and donors including the Indonesian Red Crescent and Mercy.

But organizations such as the FPI, or Islamic Defenders Front, a militant group better known for smashing up bars and nightclubs they deem unIslamic, say they also have sent hundreds of volunteers to pick up corpses, clean up mosques, open soup kitchens and teach religious studies to many children whose schools have been destroyed.

"We have nothing but our prayers to protect us," said FPI spokesman Hilmy Bakar. "The dead are our brothers and sisters in faith. How could we refuse to pick them up and give them a Muslim burial just because we don't have the equipment? This is our religious duty."

At least 1,000 teachers missing, 50% of schools destroyed

Antara - January 5, 2005

Jakarta -- At least 1,000 teachers have been reported missing in Aceh and over 50 percent of school buildings devastated by last week's tsunamis, an official said on Wednesday.

"Provisional data shows that about 1,000 teachers are missing and approximately 140,000 elementary school students and 20,000 junior high school students have been left with nowhere to study," Director General of Elementary and Secondary Education at the Ministry of National Education Indra Jati Sidi said.

Indra said that by January 20, emergency education facilities would be ready.

He explained that, based on initial data, 914 elementary school buildings, 155 junior high school buildings, 67 senior school buildings and 15 vocational schools were devastated by the tsunamis.

Due to the lack of facilities, the government has erected 2,000 tents and deployed 1,000 teachers from North Sumatra and nearby areas to support the emergency learning activities, he said.

"The emergency schools will be set up in 95 locations near the refugee camps," he added.

NGO accuses officials of abusing aid for Aceh

Jakarta Post - January 6, 2005

Forum-Asia, an Asian-based human rights watchdog, expressed concern on Wednesday over the alleged abuse of aid for tsunami victims in Aceh as some officials were selling the food aid to survivors.

The NGO received reports from its members and partners who were working inside Aceh that officials at Banda Aceh's Sultan Iskandar Muda Airport sold instant noodles for Rp 500 (US$0.05) per pack.

The NGO also recorded that desperate survivors at some distribution centers managed by the military were denied aid if they were unable to produce proper identity cards.

"In some cases, those who fail to present their identity cards are harassed and even beaten up. It is assumed that such incidents are more prevalent in remote areas," the NGO said in its report revealed at a press conference.

To prevent further abuses in the field, the NGO appealed to the Indonesian government to immediately outline detailed procedures for the disbursement of aid on the ground.

It also demanded the military authority create a code of conduct for military personnel supporting relief work, in order to enable civil society volunteers to assist the survivors.

Government blasted for hampering relief efforts

Jakarta Post - January 6, 2005

M. Taufiqurrahman, Jakarta -- Aid organizations working for humanitarian relief programs in tsunami-hit Aceh complained on Wednesday that instead of providing them with assistance, the government had hampered effective efforts to mitigate the effects of the calamity.

Two Jakarta-based relief organizations, the Humanitarian Emergency Commission and the Aceh Working Group (AWG), said that despite the scale of the devastation the tsunamis inflicted on Aceh, it was business as usual for the government as aid workers had to deal with bureaucratic red tape in their efforts.

National coordinator of the Humanitarian Emergency Commission Faisal Basri said aid workers had to go through complicated procedures imposed by the central and local governments before embarking on a full-fledged humanitarian mission.

He said that one of the biggest hurdles for the relief program was encountered at the Office of the Vice President, which also serves as the National Disaster Mitigation Agency.

Faisal said that as a result his mission failed to dispatch six helicopters to tsunami-hit regions. "We've asked the vice presidential office to provide barrels to store fuel for our helicopters. But the office failed to meet such a simple demand. Our request may have got stuck somewhere," he said, adding that the helicopters were now sitting idle at Halim Perdanakusuma air base.

Faisal said that due to the complicated bureaucratic procedures, his humanitarian mission was now counting on personal connections with government officials.

"The only reason our mission still prevails is due to close cooperation with an Indonesian Military (TNI) general who helped us bypass all procedures. Such is the way things work," Faisal told The Jakarta Post.

He also suggested that the government install a single official to oversee all relief operations in Aceh, especially one experienced in dealing with logistical problems.

"The destruction in Aceh is similar to that of the Iraq war, so we need someone who is capable of handling massive problems, not just a minister who happens to oversee social affairs," he said, referring to the role of the Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare Alwi Shihab.

Along with Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ryamizard Ryacudu, Alwi in his capacity as Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare has been appointed by Vice President Jusuf Kalla to coordinate all relief programs in Aceh.

Contacted separately, Ori Rahman of the Aceh Working Group said the disaster mitigation agency which was superimposed on the existing bureaucratic structures complicated the already extensive bureaucratic system.

Rights group says military incompetent, abusive

Deutsche Presse Agentur - January 6, 2005

Bangkok -- The Indonesian military is hampering efforts to distribute aid to tsunami survivors in Aceh province, denying assistance and even abusing some survivors, a regional human rights organization is alleging.

The Bangkok-based Asia Forum listed a host of abuses and incompetence in managing aid distribution, and demanded that the military allow free flow of food, water and medical assistance in the devastated region at the northern end of the island of Sumatra.

The group alleged that soldiers were denying aid to survivors who were unable to present all of the proper identification documents, in spite of massive destruction to their homes and possessions.

It also said that local non-governmental organizations were being prevented from distributed their own aid, while military-held food, water, clothing and medicines were stockpiled in airports without efficient delivery.

In one case that Asia Forum said it had verified, instant noodles from relief shipments were being sold at inflated prices to victims at the Banda Aceh provincial capital airport.

"Women and children who are most vulnerable to diseases are lined up outside the only running hospital, operated by the military, and are not getting attention they desperately need for medical relief," the organization said in a public statement.

Asia Forum also criticized the army for continuing to divert resources to its ongoing counterinsurgency campaign against the separatist guerrilla Free Aceh Movement (GAM), after rejecting the rebels' December 26 offer of a ceasefire.

Delays in distributing food, water and medicines are causing mounting deaths, the statement said.

It called on the Jakarta government to suspend martial law in Aceh, limit the army to humanitarian relief efforts, and ensure the distribution of aid to all affected areas and people without discrimination.

The Acehnese deserve better

Straits Times - January 4, 2005

Anthony Reid -- The magnitude of the devastation visited on Aceh on December 26 is almost beyond comprehension. No natural disaster in Indonesian, or indeed South-east Asian, history comes close to the mounting toll of death and destruction of this undersea earthquake and tsunamis. The whole thickly populated coastal strip from Lhokseumawe in the east to Meulaboh in the west appears to have been devastated.

In the district of West Aceh, where communication is very difficult at the best of times, life appears to have almost vanished from all the coastal towns and villages, normally home to about 200,000 people. Only 200 living people were found by the first relief unit to be able to land in Meulaboh, its capital, from a pre-tsunami population of about 60,000. While one hopes that many were able to flee inland, they will face mounting difficulties to stay alive as unwanted guests of the scattered hill villages.

The provincial capital, Banda Aceh, normally home to 200,000 people and to most of the military and civilian infrastructure, has been devastated.

The Indonesian disaster response has been tragically slow, but little more could be expected given the disruption to military and civilian facilities.

Although the military has 30,000 men on a war footing in Aceh, it appears to have been largely incapacitated by the disaster. Reportedly, only one of its helicopters in the province survived.

Even worse is likely to come, as the lack of clean water and adequate food and shelter takes its toll on the survivors. Those bringing international aid encounter disorganisation, demoralisation and distrust between the military and people. They need clarity as to who is in charge.

This appalling disaster comes after more than a century of misery for the stoic people of this richly endowed region. Aceh has had only a few decades of peace since being invaded by the Dutch in 1873 with very little warning.

Forty years of bitter resistance to Dutch occupation lost Aceh perhaps a fifth of its population and transformed it from one of South-east Asia's more prosperous and strategically important centres to an embittered backwater.

Aceh was effectively under military occupation by the Dutch until 1942 and the Japanese until 1945. After a brief experience of running its own show in 1945 to 1951, it was again under military occupation in 1953 to 1962, during the Daud Beureu'eh rebellion, and in 1989 to 1998, when then president Suharto's army sought to suppress the Aceh independence movement (GAM) of Hasan di Tiro.

Still, GAM became very popular under democratic conditions after Suharto's fall.

Finally, since May 2003, a military solution has again been attempted, and thousands more people have been killed in military offensives and punitive actions, without notably removing the core of resistance.

Throughout this emergency period, foreign journalists, aid workers and others have been excluded from the province, as the government sought to remove Aceh from international headlines.

Having suffered the brutal militarisation of its institutions and its society for over a century, now Aceh has been hit by a colossal natural disaster, the losses of which on a single day dwarf even the tens of thousands that the region has lost to warfare.

To its credit, the international community has also responded in an unprecedented way. The military forces of Singapore, the United States and Australia are already in Aceh dispensing desperately needed supplies, and US$2 billion (S$3.3 billion) has been pledged in aid to the affected regions, of which at least half should in fairness be destined for Aceh. The aid givers have their first chance at the Jakarta summit on Thursday to try to ensure that Aceh's poisonous politics do not again negate all efforts for assistance.

In catastrophes such as this, military forces are best able to deliver aid quickly, and the foreign military units naturally look to their local counterparts to guide and direct. But in Aceh, the military has been the major part of the problem, not the solution.

Over the past 50 years it has killed and rendered homeless too many Acehnese for there to be trust between people and army. The carefully constructed reform legislation to give the widest possible autonomy to Aceh (the Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam or NAD law of 2001) has been completely vitiated by military control of all the levers of power since May 2003.

The need for the underfunded military to raise money from various business and protection rackets has ensured that little of Aceh's wealth has yet benefited its people. The foreign aid, in other words, must be delivered to the people who need it as directly as possible, without the mediation of the Indonesian military.

The best way to ensure this would be for the summit meeting to endorse and carry forward the ceasefire that both GAM and President Bambang Susilo Yudhoyono have said they favour. TNI units on the ground in Aceh have been quoted as ignoring this ceasefire, and the higher command needs encouragement in its resolve to bring them into line.

Both TNI and GAM need to be disarmed during the long process of reconstruction, with law enforcement becoming the responsibility of Aceh police stiffened by international police units under United Nations' responsibility.

Both TNI and GAM forces may be able to assist in the reconstruction of areas where they are strong, but only if they are disarmed while doing so, and thereby unable to continue the division and brutalisation of the populace.

The Yudhoyono government has, to its credit, declared open access to Aceh for international aid givers. This runs counter to the instincts of the local military, and again the international community will need to be clear about permanently full access, not just for aid givers, but for the journalists who will sustain global interest in the problem.

The government of former president Megawati Sukarnoputri, in which Mr Yudhoyono was largely responsible for Aceh policy, had allowed international peace monitors (from Thailand and the Philippines) during the peace agreement of 2002 to 2003.

This crisis demands an even more generous response towards accepting the internationalisation of Aceh's reconstruction. The UN needs to assume authority for the international aid effort, in cooperation with Mr Alwi Shihab, the civilian minister President Yudhoyono has placed in charge. Only the demilitarisation of Aceh under some form of international guarantee can make possible the full implementation of the NAD autonomy law and the emergence through elections of a leadership Acehnese can trust.

Acehnese have suffered enough. They deserve this.

[The writer is director of the Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore and the author of three books on Aceh's history.]

Tsunami victims pay the price of war on Iraq US

The Guardian (UK) - January 4, 2005

George Monbiot -- There has never been a moment like it on British television. The Vicar of Dibley, one of our gentler sitcoms, was bouncing along with its usual bonhomie on New Year's Day when it suddenly hit us with a scene from another world. Two young African children were sobbing and trying to comfort each other after their mother had died of Aids. How on earth, I wondered, would the show make us laugh after that? It made no attempt to do so. One by one the characters, famous for their parochial boorishness, stood in front of the camera wearing the white armbands which signalled their support for the Make Poverty History campaign. You would have to have been hewn from stone not to cry.

The timing was perfect. In my local Oxfam shop last week, people were queueing to the door to pledge money for the tsunami fund. A pub on the other side of town raised #1,000 on Saturday night. In the pot on the counter of the local newsagent's there must be nearly #100. The woman who runs the bakery told me about the homeless man she had seen, who emptied his pockets in the bank, saying "I just want to do my bit", while the whole queue tried not to cry.

Over the past few months, reviewing the complete lack of public interest in what is happening in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the failure, in the west, to mobilise effective protests against the continuing atrocities in Iraq, I had begun to wonder whether we had lost our ability to stand in other people's shoes. I have now stopped wondering. The response to the tsunami shows that, however we might seek to suppress it, we cannot destroy our capacity for empathy.

But one obvious question recurs. Why must the relief of suffering, in this unprecedentedly prosperous world, rely on the whims of citizens and the appeals of pop stars and comedians? Why, when extreme poverty could be made history with a minor redeployment of public finances, must the poor world still wait for homeless people in the rich world to empty their pockets?

The obvious answer is that governments have other priorities. And the one that leaps to mind is war. If the money they have promised to the victims of the tsunami still falls far short of the amounts required, it is partly because the contingency fund upon which they draw in times of crisis has been spent on blowing people to bits in Iraq.

The US government has so far pledged $350m to the victims of the tsunami, and the UK government #50m ($96m). The US has spent $148 billion on the Iraq war and the UK #6bn ($11.5bn). The war has been running for 656 days. This means that the money pledged for the tsunami disaster by the United States is the equivalent of one and a half day's spending in Iraq. The money the UK has given equates to five and a half days of our involvement in the war.

It looks still worse when you compare the cost of the war to the total foreign aid budget. The UK has spent almost twice as much on creating suffering in Iraq as it spends annually on relieving it elsewhere. The United States gives just over $16bn in foreign aid: less than one ninth of the money it has burnt so far in Iraq.

The figures for war and aid are worth comparing because, when all the other excuses for the invasion of Iraq were stripped away, both governments explained that it was being waged for the good of the Iraqis.

Let us, for a moment, take this claim at face value. Let us suppose that the invasion and occupation of Iraq had nothing to do with power, domestic politics or oil, but were, in fact, components of a monumental aid programme. And let us, with reckless generosity, assume that more people in Iraq have gained as a result of this aid programme than lost.

To justify the war, even under these wildly unsafe assumptions, George Bush and Tony Blair would have to show that the money they spent was a cost-efficient means of relieving human suffering. As it was sufficient to have made a measurable improvement in the lives of all the 2.8 billion people living in absolute poverty, and as there are only 25 million people in Iraq, this is simply not possible. Even if you ignore every other issue -- such as the trifling matter of mass killing -- the opportunity costs of the Iraq war categorise it as a humanitarian disaster.

Indeed, such calculations suggest that, on cost grounds alone, a humanitarian war is a contradiction in terms. But our leaders appear to have lost the ability to distinguish between helping people and killing them.

The tone of Blair's New Year message was almost identical to that of his tear-jerking insistence that we understand the Iraqi people must be bombed for their own good. The US marines who have now been dispatched to Sri Lanka to help the rescue operation were, just a few weeks ago, murdering the civilians (for this, remember, is an illegal war), smashing the homes and evicting the entire population of the Iraqi city of Falluja.

Even within the official aid budgets the two aims are confused: $8.9bn of the aid money the US spends is used for military assistance, anti-drugs operations, counter-terrorism and the Iraq relief and reconstruction fund (otherwise known as the Halliburton benevolent trust). For Bush and Blair, the tsunami relief operation and the Iraq war are both episodes in the same narrative of salvation. The civilised world rides out to rescue foreigners from their darkness.

While they spend the money we gave them to relieve suffering on slaughtering the poor, the world must rely for disaster relief on the homeless man emptying his pockets. If our leaders were as generous in helping people as they are in killing them, no one would ever go hungry.

Military offensive hinders aid to Aceh

Asia Times - January 4, 2005

Sonny Inbaraj, Bangkok -- While volunteers, relief workers and families are busy collecting and searching for bodies in Indonesia's tsunami-stricken Aceh province, Indonesian soldiers are continuing their offensive against separatist rebels, hindering the delivery of badly needed humanitarian aid, critics say.

As aid to survivors of the world's worst natural disaster in 40 years continues to hit new snags, international human-rights groups, are also urging the Indonesian government not to let politics override the emergency needs of the Acehnese people.

Although some reports say that a de facto ceasefire has been in place between the military and separatist rebels since the December 26 disaster, there are no signs yet that the state of civil emergency, which was imposed on the province in 2004 to quell the separatist movement, will be lifted.

"Delays by the Indonesian government in allowing international access to Aceh may have needlessly cost precious lives. International and Indonesian organizations must have unrestricted access to Aceh," the United States-based Non-Violence International said in a statement.

Nearly 400,000 people are now refugees and more than 94,000 have been confirmed dead in the Indonesian provinces of Aceh and elsewhere in North Sumatra as a result of the earthquake and tsunami that struck the region. The Indonesian government initially kept the international community at bay as it apparently debated whether to open Aceh up to foreigners.

Aceh has been almost entirely closed to any international presence due to military operations there against the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), which has been fighting for independence since 1976. More than 10,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed since that time.

The government put the province under martial law on May 19, 2003, before reducing this to a state of civil emergency one year later.

"Under the civil emergency, the Indonesian military continue to play a leading role and there has been no cutback in the level of military operations in most of the territory," said Paul Barber of the UK-based human-rights group Tapol. "Lifting the civil emergency would require the declaration of a presidential decree, but Indonesia's president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, has shown no inclination to move in this direction," Barber added.

On Sunday Jan Egeland, the United Nation's emergency relief coordinator, told reporters that relief efforts after the Asian tsunami disaster were falling behind in Indonesia. "We're able to reach out in all of the affected countries except in [Indonesia's] Sumatra and Aceh at the moment. That is where we are behind," he said.

Aid is beginning to filter in slowly. Sea Hawk helicopters from the US aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln have been carrying emergency aid to some of the worst-hit towns, and US and Australian transport planes, along with other civilian and military aircraft, are bringing bulk supplies and medical equipment into the capital, Banda Aceh. Distribution on the ground, however, is severely hampered by a lack of coordination, washed-out roads and a shortage of fuel and vehicles.

All eyes are on whether the government can or will make use of the opportunity for reconciliation provided by the December 26 disaster to open up Aceh to Indonesians and outsiders. How its relief efforts continue will play a key factor in this.

Many concede that the military is the institution with the best reach and logistics to help out in times of disaster. At the same time, news reports from Jakarta said hundreds of Indonesian military troops, known by their Indonesian acronym TNI, were raiding GAM hideouts across East and North Aceh, which had been devastated by the tsunami.

At present, 15,000 extra troops are being rushed to Aceh, in addition to the 40,000 already there, to help with humanitarian activities. However, Lieutenant Colonel D J Nachrowi told The Jakarta Post on Thursday that the calamity should not be seen as a way for the military to suspend security operations against GAM.

"We are now carrying out two duties: humanitarian work and the security operation," he told the daily. "The raids to quell the secessionist movement in Aceh will continue unless the president issues a decree to lift the civil emergency and assign us to merely play a humanitarian role in Aceh."

These comments infuriated Nasruddin Abubakar, president of the Aceh Referendum Information Center (Sentral Informasi Referendum Aceh, or SIRA).

"The government is still maintaining the civil emergency and continuing on with military operations in Aceh despite the fact that the death toll now is close to 100,000. Is the government not yet satisfied with the killing?" he asked in a phone interview with Inter Press Service. "Are Acehnese not citizens of Indonesia?"

Nasruddin said his group had received news from volunteers working in the province's devastated capital Banda Aceh that the military was interrogating survivors making their way to relief centers, suspecting them of being GAM members. "We want to draw everyone's attention to the need to save the Acehnese from death," he pleaded.

The New York-based East Timor Action Network (ETAN) urged aid organizations and agencies to work as closely as possible with local civil society groups and to resist Indonesian government and military attempts to keep local nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) out of the process.

"The high level of corruption in Indonesia, especially in Aceh, and the great distrust of Aceh's [provincial] government make it crucial that aid groups be allowed to distribute urgently needed food, medical supplies, and other assistance outside of government channels, distributing aid directly and through local NGOs," said ETAN's Karen Orenstein.

Tapol's Barber warned that the natural disaster that struck Aceh more than a week ago will only serve to reinforce the military's role under the cover of becoming involved in humanitarian activities.

"Following the imposition of martial law in May 2003, local NGOs fled from Aceh because of intimidation and the threat of violence against their activists," said Barber. "Even now, Acehnese activists based in Jakarta and neighboring Malaysia know that they would be taking great risks if they return to their homeland to help provide succor for the stricken population," he added.

According to Stratfor Global Intelligence, a security analysis website, the tsunami disaster could prove to be a boon to Jakarta in its campaign against GAM.

"Yudhoyono will send more troops into the province to rebuild and clean up if GAM does not agree to settle the problem peacefully. Yudhoyono will have more troops on hand to clean them out," the Stratfor analysts said. (Interpress News Service)

ExxonMobil, Aceh and the Tsunami

Democracy Now - January 4, 2005

ExxonMobil has contributed $5 million to the Tsunami relief efforts. In Aceh, the company operates one of the largest gas fields in the world and they're being sued for gross human rights violations. We speak with a lawyer who has just returned from Indonesia where he was interviewing witnesses against ExxonMobil from Aceh.

Today, as the United Nations puts the confirmed death toll from the Asian Tsunami at more than 150,000, we are going to continue our special coverage of the devestation in the hardest hit area, the Aceh region of Indonesia where the death toll is expected soon to rise above 100,000. In a few moments we are going to be joined by two Acehnese activists who were out in front of the Indonesian Mission to the UN protesting yesterday against the Indonesian military regime.

But first, we turn to a story that has gotten almost no attention and that is the story of the oil giant Exxon-Mobil, a corporation that has a massive investment in Aceh. According to some estimates, ExxonMobil has extracted some $40 billion from its operations in Aceh, Indonesia.

According to human rights groups, ExxonMobil has hired military units of the Indonesian national army to provide "security" for their gas extraction and liquification project in the region. Members of these military units regularly have perpetrated ongoing and severe human rights abuses against local villagers, including murder, rape, torture, destruction of property and other acts of terror. Human rights groups further charge that ExxonMobil has continued to finance the military and to provide company equipment and facilities that have been used by the Indonesian military to commit atrocities and cover them up through the use of mass graves.

For years, the Washington DC-based International Labor Rights Fund has fought a series of legal battles to hold ExxonMobil responsible for its record in Aceh.

One of the group's lawyers was in Aceh interviewing witnesses just days before the Tsunami hit. Derek Baxter, a lawyer for the International Labor Rights Fund in Washington, D.C. Bama Athreya, Deputy Director of the International Labor Rights Fund in Washington, D.C.

Transcript

Amy Goodman: We're joined by Bama Athreya, who is the Deputy Director of the International Labor Rights Fund, as well as Derek Baxter, who is a lawyer with that group. He has just returned from Indonesia, where he was speaking with people who are involved in the lawsuit. We want to welcome you both to Democracy Now!, and begin with Derek Baxter. Welcome.

Derek Baxter: Thank you.

Amy Goodman: It's good to have you with us, Derek. I wanted to start off by saying that we did invite ExxonMobil on the program. They said at first they would participate in the program, if we were just talking about their contribution, ExxonMobil's contribution to the relief efforts. They're one of the largest corporate contributors to the relief efforts.

They have pledged more than -- they have pledged $5 million. They did write us an email. They said, "I'm surprised your program would choose to divert attention from the unprecedented outpouring of support and coordination among multinational and local relief agencies in Indonesia, by pursuing an ambush interview with one of the largest corporate contributors to those efforts." Derek Baxter, can you respond?

Derek Baxter: Well, we welcome ExxonMobil's contribution, but ExxonMobil, we have to remember, has a long debt to the Acehnese people. They are by far the largest corporation operating in Aceh. The amount of profit that they derive from this region is enormous. It dwarfs any other industry in the area.

While we're glad that they're helping, sadly, all too long, Exxon has been part of the problem in Aceh. As our lawsuit has alleged, Exxon has knowingly operated its facilities, its natural gas facilities on the northeastern coast of Aceh. They have done so by hiring the Indonesian military forces to provide security, knowing all along, as is a matter of public record, that the Indonesian military's record in that area has been a very difficult one. The military has committed many human rights abuses against the people of Aceh in that area. Their collaboration with ExxonMobil has only worsened the problem.

Amy Goodman: Derek Baxter, you recently returned, in fact, what, just a week before the tsunami hit, from Indonesia. Can you talk about what you were doing there?

Derek Baxter: Certainly. I was very close to Aceh, and part of the problem in actually going to Aceh is that the Indonesian government has not regularly allowed foreigners, journalists, NGOs, etc., to enter without securing special permission, which is very difficult to get. So I was in North Sumatra, very close to Aceh.

I met with numerous people, villagers who lived very close to the ExxonMobil facilities in Aceh, who traveled at great personal risk to themselves to North Sumatra, the area where I was, to meet with me. They told me of continuing human rights abuses. Just on the eve of the tsunami, the human rights situation in that part of Aceh was severe, and if anything, it was worsening. I spoke with people who told me that military assigned to protect the ExxonMobil facilities accosted them, extorted them, asked them regularly for contributions of money, of rice, of possessions, which these people had very little, and if there was any protest, they would often be attacked. They would be hauled away from their families, beaten. I spoke to a very young man who had been shot in the right knee, very gruesome. But these atrocities were commonplace.

They didn't surprise anybody that I was talking to, because sadly, in that area, right by the ExxonMobil facilities, those abuses of that type have been going on for years, for the entire last decade. We have even heard reports, which we're trying to verify, that five people were killed actually on the liquification plant that ExxonMobil helps to operate. As we have -- as the ILRF have noted in the lawsuit which we filed in 2001, the torture and murder, disappearance, sexual assault of people, Acehnese, living close to these ExxonMobil facilities was all too routine over the last years.

Amy Goodman: Derek Baxter, if you are talking about the Indonesian military, why do you hold ExxonMobil accountable?

Derek Baxter: That's an excellent question, and we're not seeking to hold them accountable for everything, obviously, that happens in Aceh. There's a long, ongoing civil strife in that area, but in this particular area, ExxonMobil has contracted, as we have said and alleged in our complaint, they have contracted with the Indonesian military to provide security just for the ExxonMobil facilities. We have alleged that this relationship with the Indonesian military includes providing money, directly to them, it includes building -- constructing buildings on ExxonMobil grounds, which the military has used for the torture and disappearance of Acehnese. It includes providing excavating equipment, which ExxonMobil has provided to the military, in which we have alleged the military has then used to construct mass graves of the victims. It's a very close, ongoing relationship, and you have to remember that ExxonMobil wields enormous financial power in this region, and if they are choosing to utilize the military force that has been criticized by many human rights groups for their violations, then we believe, and we believe the law will hold us out on this point, that ExxonMobil will be legally liable for these violations.

Amy Goodman: Derek Baxter, we have to break. When we come back, we will also talk with Bama Athreya, about the overall region. Today, there's a piece in the Washington Post that talks about the collaboration between the US military right now and the Indonesian military. Yesterday we went up to the UN mission -- to the Indonesian mission to the United Nations where there was a gathering of Acehnese refugees who were encouraging international aid organizations not to funnel their money through the Indonesian government. And they were calling on the Indonesian military not to stop the aid going into Aceh.

Amy Goodman: As we continue to discuss one of the largest corporate contributors to the relief efforts, ExxonMobil -- $5 million they say they are giving, we wish we could have them on the program. They declined to participate, but we are talking about an ongoing lawsuit that involves ExxonMobil and its running of one of the largest gas fields in the world in Aceh. I believe that its facility there was not actually damaged by the tsunami. We're joined in Washington studios by two members of the International Labor Rights Fund. We're joined by the Deputy Director of the International Fund, Bama Athreya, as well as Derek Baxter, who is the lawyer who's just returned from Indonesia, a week before the tsunami, interviewing people who are participating in the lawsuit against the -- against ExxonMobil. I was wondering, Bama Athreya, if you could put this in the context of Indonesia, which you have worked on for many years, and in the context of what's happening right now, the massive -- well, the cataclysm that has taken place and what is taking place in Aceh.

Bama Athreya: Sure. That's a big question, Amy, and I'll try and focus it a little bit on the things that you just mentioned. You had mentioned that there has been a call from a number of activists to insure that the aid that people are so very generously giving to the victims of the tsunami is not all funneled through the Indonesian military. And, on context, I think it's important for people here, who are, you know, giving very generously on a personal level to recognize the political context in Aceh. The Indonesian military has been operating basically a war against a separatist movement in Aceh for decades now. And that has had a lot of fallout in terms of human rights violations against innocent civilians throughout Aceh. It's also important to remember that the Indonesian military itself are an extremely corrupt institution. It's estimated that only about 40% of the military's basic operating costs are paid for by the Indonesian government. That means they get the other 60% through extortion. You mentioned that ExxonMobil's given $5 million to the relief effort. Well, we would sure love to know how much ExxonMobil's has given to the Indonesian military over the years. We know they've paid them. We know they've given them logistical support. We know they've housed them. I'm just guessing that their donations, if you'd like to call it that, to the Indonesian military over the years have been far in excess of the $5 million they're now giving to the poor victims in Aceh. So, we're looking at a context where we've got a very corrupt institution, the Indonesian military, which has been extorting local Acehnese villagers, which has been running drug operations and prostitution rings in Aceh, which has been involved in illegal timber operations in Aceh; and now we're going to trust this same institution to be the folks who deliver the aid to the Acehnese victims? It's not a great idea, Amy, and I think that's one of the reasons why we share the position of some of our human rights colleagues here in the US that there have got to be some transparent systems in place to deliver aid to make sure those people in Aceh that have suffered the most really, truly get the food and the medicine that people are donating.

Amy Goodman: As you mentioned, Bama, Acehnese and human rights groups have been protesting the funneling of aid to the Indonesian military. Yesterday outside the Indonesian mission to the UN, a gathering of Acehnese refugees took place. They marched from the UN to thank them for supporting huge relief efforts in Indonesia, but then marched over to the Indonesian Mission to the UN, condemning what they called the Indonesian government's haphazard response to the tsunami. They accuse the Indonesian armed forces of continuing their military operations in Aceh, and of preventing the delivery of aid to victims of the earthquake and tsunami. The refugees charged that rather than helping the people, in a number of areas the troops are intimidating villagers, scaring away -- them away from their villages, looting their homes, stealing food. They called on the military to implement an immediate cease-fire.

Aceh feels the fallout

Asia Times - January 3, 2005

Bill Guerin, Jakarta -- In the wake of the tsunami tragedy that has claimed more than 80,000 Indonesian lives, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has called on his people to approach the New Year with optimism. The latest death toll in the country's poorest region -- the resource-rich but war-ravaged province of Aceh on the northwestern tip of Sumatra Island -- has been estimated at 82,000, mostly in Banda Aceh, Sabang and the west coast regencies of Aceh Jaya and Aceh Besar.

More than 40% of the population of the province was living below the poverty line before the disaster, which has deepened the poverty of thousands more by snatching away their livelihoods. Communities are shattered by the deaths of older people, traditional leaders and local officials. Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari has said officials would now offer only general estimates of the death toll because there were simply too many bodies to count.

Concluding his year-end speech to the nation by declaring 2005 "The Year of Solidarity and Togetherness", Yudhoyono asked people to open their hearts to the victims of tragedies and to assist the relief effort. "Don't let them feel alone because they are a part of us, of our national family," he said.

Aceh's military commander, Major General Endang Suwarya, said up to three-quarters of the western coastline has been destroyed, with some towns being totally leveled. Vast tracts of the province are still flooded a week after the killer waves struck on Sunday, December 26.

Lack of coordination

The Aceh provincial administration and its structure were decimated. Reports say only half of the administration's employees survived the tragedy, and most government offices there were destroyed.

According to the United Nations, it could take up to a year to secure afflicted communities from hunger and disease. The central government has been slow to get its act together and face the daunting task of sustaining rescue efforts. The relief effort is being coordinated by the National Coordination Board (Bakornas) under the Coordinating Ministry for People's Welfare.

Operational coordination units (Satkorlak) have been established in Aceh and North Sumatra provinces under the governor. Regents are leading the regency-level operational units (Satlak). Though aid is beginning to filter in slowly in the wake of the disaster, distribution on the ground is severely hampered by a lack of coordination and a severe shortage of fuel and vehicles.

Sea Hawk helicopters from the United States aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln have been carrying emergency aid to some of the worst-hit towns such as Meulaboh and Calang. US and Australian C-130 Hercules transport planes, along with other civilian and military aircraft, are bringing bulk supplies and medical equipment into the capital, Banda Aceh.

Rebels under attack

Continuing separatist fighting in Aceh has raised concern among aid workers who claim the safety of thousands of homeless refugees could be at risk if the military (TNI) and Free Aceh Movement (GAM) do not respect a cease fire in the province.

The GAM leadership in exile in Sweden has offered a unilateral cease fire, and self-styled GAM Prime Minister Malik Mahmud said the tsunami might eventually help peace prospects. Critics claim the war against the rebels and earlier restrictions on foreigners were part of an effort by the security forces and provincial government to embezzle development funds, profit from illegal businesses and cover up the extent of severe human-rights abuses.

As for the military and police, they are now concentrating on burying the thousands of dead that line the streets, amid fears that epidemic outbreaks of water-borne diseases could claim thousands more lives. More than 370 soldiers and 51 members of their families are among the dead.

Yet the TNI are still finding time to continue the offensive against the rebels. Reports from the field said hundreds of troops were raiding GAM hideouts across East and North Aceh. The president himself, possibly viewing the disaster in the war zone as an opportunity to negotiate an end to the long-running conflict, has called for a permanent end to the rebellion. "I call on those who are still raising arms to come out ... Let us use this historic momentum to join and be united again," he said in Jakarta less than two days after the earthquake.

Fears of graft

Leading parliamentarians also support the government's relief efforts but have been quick to urge extreme caution in disbursing aid to a province where corruption has been singularly rampant.

In 2003, the government allocated Rp4.06 trillion (US$429.5 million) to military operations in Aceh -- roughly three times larger than the annual provincial budget -- but a state-appointed auditor later found that about $291 million went missing. Aceh Governor Abdullah Puteh is on trial for graft in the new Anti- Corruption Court.

Speaker of the People's Consultative Assembly Hidayat Nurwahid warned the government it must ensure that relief aid to the province does not fall into the hands of corrupt officials with a propensity to "fish for great catches in murky waters". Nurwahid's younger brother Ahmad Wisanggeni and his wife died in Aceh.

The Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), which Nurwahid led prior to his appointment to the assembly, has a strong political base in Aceh, where its reputation for incorruptibility has won widespread support from ordinary voters. But despite the more favorable political landscape since Vice President Jusuf Kalla's victory over Akbar Tandjung to become Golkar's new leader, the parliamentary opposition movement still poses problems.

Speakers in the House of Representatives (DPR) and House faction and commission heads have agreed to establish a team to monitor the flow and utilization of material aid and monetary-relief funds. The move was in response to concerns voiced by Nurwahid and others that the aid should be disbursed quickly to the persons most in need and not find its way into the pockets of corrupt military and government officials. But the head of former president Megawati Sukarnoputri's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) faction in the House, Tjahyo Kumolo, said that his party would not support the formation of the monitoring team.

Reconstruction and rescheduling

Of the nine nations hit by the tsunami, Indonesia's $208 billion economy is the second largest behind India's ($600 billion). According to central bank data, total external public debt is around $81 billion, with almost half of this owed to the Paris Club of creditor nations.

As Finance Minister Jusuf Anwar points out, a moratorium would help ease pressure on foreign debt servicing and thus free up more funds for reconstruction of the disaster areas. Coordinating Minister for the Economy Aburizal Bakrie told Vice President Kalla that rebuilding Aceh and the surrounding areas will take at least five years and could cost some Rp33 trillion (about $3.5 billion).

Standard & Poor's last month raised Indonesia's long-term foreign-currency credit rating one step to the fourth-highest junk level, B+, from B.

This is the highest its credit rating has reached since the 1997 Asian financial crisis and stemmed from the "declining debt and debt-servicing burden and increased stability". The rating will mean cheaper rates for government borrowing and help reduce the interest payment on overseas debt.

"It will likely lower the interest rate by 0.25 percentage points. That would translate into a saving of around $125 million in interest payments" a year, Bakrie said, adding that the upgrade "shows that foreign investors have confidence in Indonesia".

Leaving the International Monetary Fund (IMF) rescue package at the end of 2003 makes it, in theory, more difficult for Indonesia to seek fresh debt rescheduling from the Paris Club; an IMF country program is required to be in place for a country to be eligible for debt rescheduling. But German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and French President Jacques Chirac have both said their governments would press for the principle of a debt moratorium within the Paris Club for the countries involved -- Indonesia and Somalia. The issue will be raised at the next scheduled meeting later this month.

Looking ahead

In the future, money will have to be spent on better disaster- relief programs to boost Indonesia's ability to cope with various degrees of disasters. Some measures and systems are in place now but have not been fully implemented and certainly not tested in disaster conditions. A Disaster Relief Brigade under the National Coordinating Board for Disaster Management has about 150 paramedics, doctors and disaster-management experts as well as several hundred paramedics and doctors on standby for mobilization as volunteers in case of a large-scale disaster.

The archipelago is located in an area dubbed the "Ring of Fire" for its high rate of volcanic and tectonic activity. Landslides and floods are also common, many caused by worsening environmental damage such as deforestation.

The tsunami disaster was just the latest. An earthquake measuring 6.4 on the Richter scale devastated the East Nusa Tenggara island of Alor in November, killing more than 30, damaging more than 17,000 buildings and leaving 50,000 people homeless. In Nabire, West Papua, a powerful earthquake took 32 lives in late November.

[Bill Guerin, a weekly Jakarta correspondent for Asia Times Online since 2000, has worked in Indonesia for 19 years in journalism and editorial positions. He has been published by the BBC on East Timor and specializes in business/economic and political analysis in Indonesia.]

From heart of indonesia's disaster, a cry for help

New York Times - January 2, 2005

Meulaboh -- A dozen towns that once thrived near here are gone. Some 10,000 people have been buried, local officials say, and the effort to collect bodies cannot keep up.

For seven days, the scale of the natural disaster that swallowed coastlines in southern Asia last Sunday has slowly unfolded, with death tolls doubling almost daily. But Meulaboh, just 90 miles from the earthquake's epicenter, remained almost beyond description since no one could get here and the destruction could be only imagined.

On Saturday, the president of Indonesia flew in briefly and the examination finally began. It is a picture of grief and devastation beyond that of any other in the dozen countries hit. Apart from a few sturdy mosques and buildings, there is simply nothing left under the mountains of black mud and debris. The people the president met wept as they spoke.

One man, Roosli, 52, sat near the entrance of one of the town's remaining buildings, nursing his naked 2-year-old son Bendi, who was the sole surviving child of eight children in the family. "When the water came I got out of my house and I ran in panic," said Mr. Roosli, a street trader. "I have zero left. I lost seven children. What do I need? Everything. Help us, please." Proffering a red plastic cup, he said a cup of rice was issued to all the homeless each day.

After his convoy snaked through streets of crumpled buildings, the Indonesian president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, admitted that assistance was slow in coming to Meulaboh and other areas in tremendous need, and asked the world for help. In Indonesia alone, at least 100,000 people have died, most here in Aceh Province, the government estimates, making Indonesia the worst sufferer from the quake and tsunamis.

"I appeal to the world community to contribute to the reconstruction of Indonesia that has been hit by disaster and we welcome those contributions as a manifestation of global unity," Mr. Yudhoyono said at a news conference in the modest but unscathed military headquarters here.

He acknowledged that his government had been slow in organizing and dispatching aid. Bloated bodies remain uncollected in the city of Banda Aceh, and there was no sign of any ability to clear the huge amounts of debris and black mud in this isolated town.

"I know there are problems on the ground, and I know we have had some shortcomings," he said. He promised that the government would try to improve. Decomposed bodies still lie amid wet rubble on the streets of Banda Aceh, the provincial capital that is 125 miles away from Meulaboh, at the northern tip of Sumatra island. The lieutenant governor of Aceh Province, Abu Bakar, said Saturday that 10,000 people had been buried so far, but that it would be another month before all the bodies could be cleared away.

Here in Meulaboh, the shock of last Sunday was still so strong that the military commander, a Colonel Geerhan, wept as he showed Mr. Yudhoyono a video of the townspeople as they ran from the tidal wave to higher ground.

In the video, groups of people were seen walking, then running away from the shore. In one frame a man and his small children grabbed the back door of an ambulance, opened it and clamored inside to get a ride away from the water. One of Colonel Geerhan's soldiers explained Saturday that the ambulance was missing and presumed to have been dragged out to sea.

In describing the hours of hell last Sunday, Colonel Geerhan said he was preparing to exercise at about 7:45 a.m. when he felt an earthquake. He said he checked on his men at the military headquarters and then went to help dig people out of collapsed buildings. He said the first wave of water came about 15 minutes later, although others said the first wave of water came later, about half an hour to 45 minutes after the earthquake.

"We used ambulances with sirens to mobilize people to go to higher ground," Colonel Geerhan said. "That's when the second wave came, and I found myself next to a 16-foot-by-6-foot fishing boat that had been swept in by the sea. That's when I felt a little bit afraid." Each wave was about 15 minutes apart, he said. Within three hours after the last wave, he said, the military had collected nearly 40 bodies. By Saturday, they had buried 4,000, he said The first American military helicopters pledged by the Bush administration as a key part of the American aid package arrived at the Banda Aceh airport on Saturday and made some deliveries, said Alwi Shihab, the minister for social services. American pledges of aid have risen sharply this week, in the face of local criticism that Washington had done too little to help.

Many Indonesians compare the earthquake disaster to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States, but note that the death toll here is far greater. Other nations, including Singapore and Australia to the south, got helicopters and medical assistance into Indonesia earlier than the United States.

A combination of shock, reluctance by the government to come to grips with the extent of the calamity, and the nature of the disaster appear to have delayed the efforts to help those devastated by the earthquake.

A decision was made Friday that the bodies could not be burned because it would violate the tenets of Islam, Mr. Shihab said. "We don't want to offend the deeply held beliefs of the Acehenese," he said. Instead, religious leaders have said bodies could be buried where they were found rather than being taken to a designated grave, which is the custom for Muslims.

The biggest challenge in Meulaboh appeared to be the removal of mountains of rubble and the reconstruction of destroyed homes and shops. But Maj. Gen. Judi Jusuf said Saturday that the military was stymied on how best to go about it.

Five Indonesian naval vessels arrived Saturday and were anchored offshore with 600 soldiers and some heavy equipment to begin clearing the mess. But the ships could not unload the equipment because the beaches in town had been washed away, the general said. It would also be difficult to bring heavy earth-moving equipment over land because the only existing road into the town was from the south and was too narrow and mountainous. The road to the north connecting Meulaboh to Banda Aceh had hugged the coast and was totally washed away, he said.

Along that coast from Meulaboh, 12 towns were washed away by the waves. On Saturday, as Mr. Yudhoyono flew over in a helicopter, there was no sign of life, not even of debris. The sea had apparently washed over the land with such ferocity and then fallen back with such pull that it swept everything with it.

Those few who had survived walked out to Banda Aceh. On Thursday, a correspondent for Netherlands Television, Step Vaessen, said she drove for an hour out of Banda Aceh and met a family who had walked since Sunday. "They were completely exhausted, they had had nothing to drink," she said. "Others said they had walked for three days." In Banda Aceh, morale was low because earthquake tremors frightened survivors, said Azwar Hassan, who works in Jakarta as a community development specialist and came back to his home to find his family. Much of his family was intact, except for two missing cousins.

"Everybody wants to run away," he said. "They are just praying and praying and praying." But most disturbing, he said, was the feeling among the survivors of not knowing what to do. "The military is just looking after the dead bodies," he said. Instead, Mr. Hassan said, more should be done for the living. "It's very hard for people to find help," he said.

He tried to get his family rice, the favored food here. He was disappointed, he said, that when he found an open store, stockpiles of rice from the military storehouse were being sold for the equivalent of $6 a bag, a huge markup on the usual price.

Mr. Shihab, like the president, acknowledged that there were huge problems. "Government is almost dysfunctional, administration is almost in a void," he said of what remains in the province of Aceh. "Even if there are personnel, they are dispirited. We don't have air transportation to move in replacements. Most people are depressed. People say, 'Where is the army? Where are the police?' They are depressed. They can't be replaced in one or two days."

'The distribution system is not working'

Washington Post - January 2, 2005

Edward Cody, Bung Bak Yok -- Rukaiyah's right arm has swollen dangerously, pus leaking from an angry gash along the inside of her elbow. The skin has yellowed on a forearm puffy all the way to the wrist.

Unchecked infection has led to the threat -- and maybe the onset -- of gangrene.

But Rukaiyah, 28, has not seen a doctor since a torrent of water destroyed her home a week ago in Banda Aceh, the capital of Indonesia's Aceh province, and swept her along for hundreds of yards in an uncontrollable surge marked by multiple collisions with churning debris. The mosque where she has found refuge along with 1,000 other tsunami victims has not been visited by medical personnel, refugees said. It has run short of tarpaulins to shelter from the rain, short of rice to eat, and short of pots and stoves to cook it in.

And yet Bung Bak Yok, this little village where Manassa Mosque has responded to last week's disaster as best it can, lies only three miles east of Banda Aceh's Sultan Iskandar Muda Airport, where planeload after planeload of relief supplies and emergency medical teams have begun pouring in. A week into one of the most devastating disasters in South Asia's history, an international campaign to help Indonesia recover has at last moved into gear, with the C-130 Hercules transport aircraft delivering food, medicine and tents. But from the airport on, the distribution system slapped together by still reeling local officials and visiting international aid groups has proved spotty at best. In camp after camp, village after village, people like Rukaiyah have yet to receive all the help they need.

"The distribution system is not working," said Nassir Khan Abdurrahman, a Malaysian Red Crescent volunteer who has logged more than 30 years' experience responding to natural disasters in Asia. "They know where to send it, but they have their friends, they have their families."

For Abdurrahman, two main factors slowed operations.

The first was a lack of trucks. The second was the Indonesian military, which has taken charge of the airport warehouse, where goods are received from relief flights and stored until they can be distributed around Banda Aceh and other damaged towns.

With its control of outgoing supplies, the military has played the major role in determining where scarce trucks head with their precious cargoes.

Disturbed by the way things were going, Abdurrahman said, he helped organize a protest Saturday by leaders of non-governmental aid groups to demand a change in the procedure. As a result, coordination of the aid flow out of the warehouse shifted -- at least in principle -- to a civilian logistics specialist from an Indonesian aid organization.

Aid officials from other countries, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were reluctant to be seen as criticizing the Indonesian military, also complained of the army's central role in distributing aid over the last week. For political reasons as well, they expressed eagerness to deal with Indonesia's civilian government rather than its military officers. The issue is particularly sensitive in Aceh province, where Indonesian troops have been fighting a separatist rebel movement with tough, sometimes brutal tactics.

At the same time, there is little civilian government to work with in some areas. The tsunami struck with such force across the northern tip of the Indonesian island of Sumatra, where Aceh province is located, that the civilian administrations of the province and Banda Aceh city were incapacitated. Many officials were killed in the unfurling waves. Many others lost their families, their homes and their health. As a result, the military has proved to be the only organization capable of responding swiftly with men and vehicles.

The Indonesian government's senior disaster response coordinator, Alwi Shihab, announced Sunday that he had appointed Maj. Gen. Ambang Dharmono to take command of immediate relief efforts, including aid distribution as well as the collection and burial of the bodies still strewn about some streets in Banda Aceh. Acting Governor Azwar Abubakar, who had been struggling to set up relief operations with a civilian staff decimated by the tsunami, was asked to concentrate on resuming utilities and public services.

Shihab, who is coordinating minister for welfare activities in Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, dismissed widespread reports that aid distribution was falling short. He denied that families faced hunger in towns and villages that were leveled along the coast south of here, where the tsunami destroyed bridges and left communities cut off from Banda Aceh.

Visiting two of the towns by helicopter Sunday, Shihab said, he saw "no signs of starvation or frustration with the logistics." During his stop in one town, he said that in addition to the helicopter that brought him in, he saw a US Navy helicopter and an Indonesian police helicopter delivering food.

"I can guarantee you there is no starvation, except for me, because I didn't have lunch today," he said at a news conference in Banda Aceh.

Said Sahar, a driver who brought his wife and five children here last Sunday immediately after their home in Banda Aceh was washed away, said most of the tarps, noodles and medicines available at the camp were provided by neighbors of the mosque and a group from the Kompas newspaper.

The refugees pooled their money and bought some food for themselves in suburban markets. He and other refugees got their blankets by driving a vehicle to the airport and persuading a soldier to hand some over. "The government doesn't care," complained Sahar, 48.

The camp here needs medical help to care for Rukaiyah's swollen arm, Sahar said, but also for Samsul Bahry, 35, a pedicab worker who has had trouble breathing since ingesting large quantities of water as

the waves carried him away. Doctors have pinpointed respiratory diseases caused by the ingestion of contaminated water, and gangrene caused by infected puncture wounds, as major causes of death in the days following the tsunami.

Another three miles east of the airport, about 4,000 refugees have gathered on the grounds of a mosque in Lanrabo village. No doctor has visited, even though several refugees suffer from infected cuts received while being tumbled around by the tsunami. Two of those infected died Saturday, according to Russeidi Ibrahim, 42, a physics teacher and refugee who has emerged as leader of the camp. Ibrahim said their limbs swelled badly before they died.

A government distribution truck brought rice to the mosque for the refugees, Ibrahim said. In addition, a local television station sent supplies, including dry biscuits. But more rice is needed, along with medicines, blankets and tents to provide shelter from off-and-on rains that mark the season.

Ibrahim said the camp sent a delegation to Banda Aceh to seek more food and, after filling out a form, received authorization to get 10 items on its list of needs. But when members of the delegation went to the airport to pick up the supplies, they got only three: instant noodles, rice and powdered milk.

Those in need of relief supplies -- whether refugees themselves or aid organizations seeking to help them -- have been ordered to report to the governor's headquarters in Banda Aceh to lodge their requests.

There, clerks have been assigned to help them fill out a form, after checking on the number of people to be helped and getting a stamped letter of authentication from the local community leader.

Armed with a signed authorization from the chief clerk, aid groups or refugee delegations are directed to the airport if their camp or community lies outside the city limits and to a downtown municipal services office if the refugees are inside Banda Aceh. But the downtown office ran out of food and shelter supplies within two days, its director said, and has since responded only to requests for medicine.

The director, Syahrullah, said he rented a truck with money donated by his staff and himself and went to the airport to seek more supplies. But the military logistics officers in charge at the airport warehouse declined to release the supplies, citing inadequate documentation. Told later of the problem, Syahrullah recalled, a provincial official helping to organize the relief system broke down in tears.

Corruption, one of many obstacles in aid distribution

Jakarta Post - January 3, 2004

A'an Suryana, Meulaboh -- Even during the most desperate hour of need, there are those who still think only of themselves.

"Poltak" alit from a government ambulance loaded with medicines and food aid from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).

The government staffer in his late 30s approached a PDI-P legislator and reported that the aid was ready to be loaded onto a small aircraft, which would transport it from Medan's Polonia airport to Meulaboh, West Aceh. Ninety percent of Meulaboh was destroyed by Sunday's tsunami.

Poltak ordered the ambulance driver to take the vehicle to the tarmac, where the aircraft was about to park, then asked The Jakarta Post for help.

Later, four government staffers arrived to help prepare the aid as the legislator, Yasonna H. Laoly, who represented PDI-P leader Megawati Soekarnoputri, watched from a distance.

All the medicines and food aid, packed in dozens of small cardboard boxes, were unloaded from the ambulance -- except for a box of a popular isotonic drink and another unidentified box, which allegedly held medicine.

After filling out a form, Poltak reported back to Yasonna that the job was done and left. The legislator had no idea that a small portion of his party's aid had been stolen as the ambulance left the scene.

This incident shows how corruption, no matter what the situation, prevails, even during the distribution of aid for tsunami victims.

The problem is one of the many that occurs during aid distribution to victims in Aceh. Transportation is another major problem.

On Thursday, food, medicines and other supplies were piling up at the Air Force hangar near Polonia, where the aid distribution command post was set up.

The aid could not be transported immediately due to the limited number of airplanes and helicopters, as well as Polonia's limited capacity.

As the tsunami swept through many cities, villages and kampongs along the Acehnese coast, the government has been forced to prioritize aid distribution to the most populated cities first -- which has left thousands of victims waiting and wanting.

Even in some cities with a significant population, like Meulaboh, the aid could not be distributed due to damaged roads and bridges, as well as Tjut Nyak Dhien airport, some 20 kilometers outside the city.

Only the pilots of small aircraft were able to land at the airport; helicopters could land anywhere but their numbers were too few and the distance to Meulaboh from Medan was quite far. It takes an hour for a small airplane to cover the distance, and much longer for a helicopter, which meant more fuel -- of which there is a dire shortage.

The transportation problem was compounded by those in the field. In many cases, the local government was not

functioning, as many officials numbered among the dead, not at 80,000 and still rising.

The problems have left many refugees without aid, even as of Friday, nearly a week after the disaster wreaked additional havoc on the war-torn province.

The Indonesian Military has been the most effective organization thus far, but even they were in sore need of trucks and helicopters.

In Meulaboh, only TNI Infantry 623 from Banjarmasin, South Kalimantan, were able to transport and guard the aid from Tjut Nyak Dhien airport to Meulaboh. The infantry unit, which was stationed near the airport and were in Aceh to quell the separatist Free Aceh Movement, is now part of the massive humanitarian drive to help the survivors of the Aceh quake.

60km from epicentre, a city lies in ruins

Melbourne Age - December 30, 2004

Lindsay Murdoch, Simeulue -- From the air, it could be Hiroshima -- a town hit with such devastating force it has literally been flattened.

Lone buildings and palm trees inexplicably left standing are all that remains of the Indonesian town of Meulaboh -- about 60 kilometres north-east of the epicentre of Sunday's earthquake.

From the air it looks like the people of this town, on the west coast of Sumatra, never had the chance to run. Huge waves swept in from the Indian Ocean, smashing virtually every building in their path.

Mayor Tengku Zulkarnaen said three-quarters of his city of 95,000 people had been washed away. "We can't calculate it all now, but a rough estimate is tens of thousands dead," he told El Shinta radio.

Yesterday The Age flew over Meulaboh in the first plane carrying emergency supplies to the island of Simeulue, a town 60 kilometres south of where the earthquake struck deep below the seabed. In an incredible twist of fate, only five of the 70,000 villagers on Simeulue were killed, all of them in the earthquake that struck at 7.55am last Sunday.

Although 90 per cent of the buildings along its coast have been destroyed, nobody perished in the five-metre-high walls of water that followed.

In Meulaboh, the death and destruction appear to be even worse than in Banda Aceh, the city at the tip of Sumatra where officials fear up to 10,000 people may have been killed.

From the air, we can see tiny figures walking amid the debris. They must be desperate for food and water.

We can't see any bodies from the air but there must be many. Unlike Banda Aceh, here there are no bulldozers digging the holes where thousands of bloated bodies are being buried like garbage without dignity or ceremony.

Silalahi, special envoy to Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, told The Age last night he believed Meulaboh had been harder hit than anywhere else in Indonesia. "Only 20 per cent of buildings are left," he said. "We can only make a guess about the exact number of deaths but it is in the thousands."

Mr Silalahi, a retired army general, said 300 army soldiers based in the town were washed out to sea. "They are gone for ever," he said.

One witness near Meulaboh had told of watching the sea rush a long way out after the earthquake, leaving many fish exposed. "Villagers ran out to get the fish," Mr Silalahi said. "Then the water came in and washed them all away."

Last night Indonesian soldiers and rescue workers had found at least 3400 bodies in the town. Police have warned that starvation looms for the few survivors unless aid is swiftly dispatched. But blocked roads, collapsed bridges, treacherous seas and fuel and vehicle shortages have hampered relief efforts.

Chief police detective Rilo Pambudi said food was running out. "If within three to four days relief does not arrive, there will be a starvation disaster that will cause mass deaths," he said.

Never before has Indonesia seen such a catastrophe, with fears the death toll in the country may climb to more than 33,000.

Until yesterday the focus of the relief effort had been on Banda Aceh and towns hit along Sumatra's east coast which are accessible by road.

But flying low along the coast yesterday it became clear that the worst areas are from Meulaboh north along the coast from Banda Aceh, around the tip of Sumatra to Lhokseumawe on the east coast.

On Nias, an island off Sumatra popular with surfers, the chief of police Janner Pasaribu told The Age that no foreigners had been reported missing on the island but that 83 people had been killed. Earlier officials had feared the death toll on the island would be much higher.

In Simeulue yesterday about 30,000 of the 70,000 population were camping out in the hills and mountains kilometres from the coast. "They fear another tsunami will come," said Darmili, the Mayor. "They will not come down for some time. Who could blame them?"

Mayor Darmili said villagers on the island were used to earthquakes and tsunamis. A big earthquake last struck in 2002.

"Thousands of our people were killed by a tsunami in 1907 and we have many earthquakes here," he said. "Our ancestors have a saying -- if there is an earthquake run for your life." (with agencies)

Horrific scene as corpses buried

The Australian - December 30, 2004

Sian Powell, Aceh -- It was the stuff of nightmares in Aceh's capital city yesterday but it was an essential step to preventing epidemics of cholera and other diseases -- an excavator working overtime scooping corpses into a truck for rapid transfer to a mass grave.

Four days after the sea swamped Indonesia's western-most province with giant tsunamis, killing thousands, corpses are still everywhere in Banda Aceh.

Lieutenant-Colonel Mailand Alexander, deputy of the Indonesian military hospital in Banda Aceh, the only major hospital still functioning in the city, said preventing disease was the first importance and said the supply of clean water was becoming critical. "We don't have any more bottles of water, so we are giving the patients the IV bags to drink," he said.

Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander said the rapid disposal of unclaimed bodies was essential, saying: "First they must be removed, then the place was to be sterilised."

The Australian Defence Force arrived in strength at Banda Aceh airport yesterday, bringing water, medicine, food and a medical assessment team. Group Captain John Oddie said the assessment team would work out how best to deploy crucial assistance to a province where thousands are dead, thousands more injured and tens of thousands homeless. A plane was also due in yesterday, bringing 50 Australian volunteers to provide humanitarian aid.

"There is so much to do," Group Captain Oddie said. "What we're trying to do is the things we do best, and work in partnership with the Indonesians."

Two Malaysian planes also arrived at Banda Aceh airport yesterday. Aid from Japan and Singapore was expected, too. After a slow start, international assistance has begun to reach those in need.

Two days ago, there were only a handful of aid posts on the stretch of highway between Aceh's two main cities situated at opposite ends of the province. Banda Aceh's general hospital remains unusable because of a sea of mud that swept through it. Crowds continue to sleep in the open. Further afield, in the worst-hit and long-isolated district of Meulaboh, a ship was scheduled to arrive yesterday with much-needed aid.

The only power in Banda Aceh yesterday was at a military hospital, which used a generator. Telephone lines remained cut, while food was in short supply.

Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander said there were not nearly enough staff to deal with the disaster. "Nurses and doctors were also affected by this emergency," he said. "Some have lost their children, some have lost houses."

Meulaboh is the district closest to the quake's epicentre and fears have grown that it may have been worst affected. General Ryamizard Ryacudu said there had been almost no communication with the district.

At the military hospital, the wounded moaned and wept. One woman roamed the dark corridors sobbing. "They're all still traumatised," Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander said. "That's understandable."

Horror at quake's centre

The Australian - December 30, 2004

Stephen Fitzpatrick and Patrick Walters -- The first shocking images of Sumatra's devastated west coast emerged yesterday, leading authorities to dramatically increase the estimated toll from Sunday's disaster and increasing the pressure on Australia to take a leading role in the reconstruction of tsunami-hit Indonesia.

Troops arriving in Meulaboh in Aceh province reported 10,000 bodies lying in the streets of the city, population 100,000, which was 80 per cent destroyed by the quake and resulting tsunami.

A reconnaissance flight covering about 160km of the Sumatran coast between Banda Aceh and Meulaboh revealed no signs of life, all main structures destroyed and sea water about 2km inland.

Vice-President Yusuf Kalla said 30,000 to 40,000 were estimated to have died in Aceh, making Indonesia by far the worst affected of the 10 nations hit by the Indian Ocean tsunami. The international death toll passed 60,000 yesterday as thousands more bodies were recovered from the beaches, mud and rubble of Sri Lanka, India and Thailand.

But with great tracts of northern Sumatra still under surging ocean and no word from many isolated communities, officials warned the toll would jump -- to perhaps as high as 100,000 -- when contact was finally made with the area emerging as the quake's ground zero.

The US has sent the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and five other ships to the region to help relief efforts, and added $US20 million to its initial $US15 million aid funding.

Last night, the Howard Government was also considering sending a helicopter-equipped navy vessel to Indonesia to boost relief efforts.

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer increased the nation's immediate aid commitment to $35million, including $10 million earmarked for Aceh, but warned that Australia would eventually commit "considerably more than that, particularly helping the rehabilitation of some of these communities that have been utterly devastated".

"I think it's going to be a very expensive exercise for Australia, but it's also the fact of life that we have very great responsibilities," he said.

It is understood that senior Australian government officials are already contemplating the prospect of a substantial Australian contribution to the multi-billion-dollar reconstruction of northern Sumatra once the immediate humanitarian needs have been met.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned late yesterday that the toll around the Indian Ocean rim would be "thousands, thousands if not tens of thousands, more than the figure that is generally being used now", but Jakarta Red Cross spokesman Phil Charlesworth predicted that Aceh, on the northwest tip of Indonesia's largest island, could by itself deliver the kind of figures Mr Annan expected.

"There's a population on the northwest side of Sumatra of 100,000, and most of those are unaccounted for," Mr Charlesworth said.

An exhausted Indonesian policeman who arrived in Meulaboh yesterday reported only a few hundred survivors in the coastal town of Calang which, until Sunday's monumental quake, had been a 6000-strong fishing community.

Department of Social Affairs spokesman Amrun Daulay said three ships with medicine and food were due to arrive at Meulaboh harbour last night.

Islands off the northwest Sumatran coast such as Simeulue, population 130,000, and smaller nearby islands, also took the brunt of the magnitude 9.0 quake and ensuing walls of water. "No one's heard anything," Mr Charlesworth said.

"A brief statement from Indonesia's disaster and refugees co- ordinating body late yesterday described Meulaboh as 'razed' and Simeulue as 'sunk'."

To the southeast of Simeulue, the surfing mecca of Nias Island, population 500,000, was also hard hit "and the situation there is not good", Mr Charlesworth said.

While the UN has devoted extra teams to most of the stricken zones around the Indian Ocean basin, spokesman Oliver Hall said it was the isolated nature of the northwest Sumatran coast and outlying islands that pointed to a greatly increased death toll there over coming days.

"The reason why the west coast of Sumatra was so badly hit was the fact it suffered first the earthquake, then the tsunami. It virtually had no chance," Mr Hall said. A massive toll from disease is also likely as emergency services crumble under the pressure.

Another key place where accurate figures may not be known for days and where resistance to international aid efforts may prove deadly is Burma. The historically closed Government has been extremely guarded with releasing information.

A figure of 60 dead has been reported but it is expected the coming days will reveal a much clearer -- and far grimmer -- picture.

Where tsunami isn't the only tragedy

New Zealand Herald - December 30, 2004

Maire Leadbeater -- The year is ending tragically for hundreds of thousands of our Southeast Asian neighbours. The only hope to be drawn from the sad situation is the thought that the international community is geared to respond with urgent aid.

But the Indonesian province of Aceh has been off-limits to international aid agencies for months and even after the disaster the Indonesian Government was reluctant to allow free admission to international aid agencies.

Finally the Government bowed to pressure and to news from Aceh of apocalyptic scenes of devastation. Aid agencies and journalists are being allowed in but foreigners will still have to submit application letters for processing and could be subjected to delays.

Aceh, one of the places worst-hit by the tsunami, is in an area torn by war almost continuously since 1976 -- a war which has cost an estimated 10,000 lives.

In the past two years the people have been living under martial law or under a state of civil emergency. The Indonesian Government says it is trying to wipe out the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) but most reports say that civilians, including women and children, have been the main casualties.

Indonesia has resisted calls to resume its negotiations with GAM even though the talks that were happening early last year were supported by the United States and other Western nations.

For the people of Aceh, fear was a constant companion even before this disaster, and ordinary life was overshadowed by military checkpoints, curfews and tight censorship.

Indonesian and international human rights groups have been calling for an end to the state of civil emergency, for negotiations to resume and for the process to include not just GAM but also other community and religious leaders.

It has been more difficult to get an accurate picture of the disaster from Aceh than from other parts of the region, especially from the west coast, nearest to the centre of the quake where communications have all been cut.

Recovery from the tragedy must also be made vastly more difficult because of the war.

Reports say that thousands of people have been forced to move from the coast into the hills where they will be without food and likely to get caught up in the fighting.

GAM has declared a unilateral ceasefire but armed clashes are still being recorded. The hospitals that will now be receiving the injured were already crowded with war victims. The international community must insist that humanitarian needs come before politics.

In the wake of the tsunami one of the biggest fears is that disease will take a terrible toll and it is clear that Aceh is struggling in the tropical heat with medicine, body bags and clean water in short supply.

At Christmas I feared for the safety of an estimated 6000 people trapped behind an Army cordon at the other end of Indonesia, some 4500km to the east. They had fled to the bitterly cold foothills of the Puncak Jaya mountain in Indonesian-occupied West Papua after military attacks on their remote highland villages.

Since then some have tried to return, only to be shot at. Church reports say that many villages are destroyed and that homes, churches and crops have all been burned.

Of course, it is difficult to know the full story because Indonesia has imposed a ban preventing any international media from visiting West Papua.

The military have denied access to aid and medical help and there have been many needless deaths, mostly of children, in the two months the people have been sheltering in the jungle.

Nine hundred extra troops were sent to the area, and now neither church nor humanitarian groups can reach the afflicted.

The military accuse the people of being supporters of the OPM or Free West Papua movement, but the Rev Socrataz Sofyan Yoman, president of the West Papuan Baptist Church, says the OPM is not active in the region and the military is responsible for the violence.

Before the military operation there were several mysterious killings including the murder of a Kopassus soldier and a respected pastor.

West Papua was cheated out of its right to self-determination as long ago as the 1960s, and now the people risk jail if they so much as dare to speak of independence or raise their Morning Star flag.

An estimated 100,000 have died since Indonesia took control. The population is about 2.5 million, including nearly a million new transmigrants brought in from places such as Java and Makassar under a resettlement programme supported by the World Bank.

There is a growing international campaign to persuade the United Nations to re-examine its role in the 1969 plebiscite which the Indonesians called an Act of Free Choice, but which was a blatant travesty of the democratic process.

Only 1022 hand-picked people were allowed to vote out of close to a million people, and it is widely accepted that they were coerced into their unanimous vote in support of Indonesia.

Understandably, international humanitarian focus will now shift to tsunami-affected areas but the need for immediate aid for the people in West Papua should not be set aside.

If we cannot stop natural disasters we can do something to push for a peaceful end to military conflict and for the needs and rights of civilians caught in the crossfire.

[Maire Leadbeater is spokeswoman for the Indonesia Human Rights Committee.]

A refugee's cry echoes: 'we didn't get anything'

Washington Post - December 30, 2004

Alan Sipress, Banda Aceh -- At the Indonesian military's primary airfield here, cartons of instant noodles, bottled water and medicine were stacked high inside a hangar Wednesday, awaiting delivery to camps filled with desperate tsunami victims. Two Australian military transport planes landed with more water, military rations and medicine, adding to a mountain of assistance marshaled at the base. But the supplies remained behind the gate.

Ten young men in civilian clothes lugged boxes of chicken- flavored instant noodles into the hangar for storage, showing little urgency. At one point, they stopped and broke open a box to snack on dry noodles. An Australian officer who offered to provide an unloading team, a mobile hospital, and medical and evacuation services was asked to come back the next day to discuss the proposal.

Five miles away, people camping out on the grounds of a television station's offices said they felt abandoned. "There has been no help," lamented Yasin, 42, sitting quietly on woven mats spread beneath a broad shade tree, hugging his young daughter. "We haven't gotten any help at all, nothing."

At the far end of the mats rested a single sack of rice, mostly empty. He figured it would last two more days. "I don't know what I should do then," added Yasin, clad in a gray plaid sarong. "I don't have anything left."

Among the green tents and tarp shelters hurriedly thrown up on the outskirts of the city of Banda Aceh, the only medical attention offered Wednesday to thousands of refugees from the tsunami three days before came from a dozen student volunteers handing out painkillers and vitamins.

Foreign relief officials expressed alarm Wednesday that supplies airlifted to the region were moving too slowly from the airfield to camps and shelters around Aceh province, including more than two dozen here, in the provincial capital. Some officials described coordination among the Indonesian military, civilians and foreign governments as exceedingly poor.

Senior Indonesian officials acknowledged serious bottlenecks, saying that telephone lines and roads had been severed across the province, hampering relief efforts. The officials added that the government of Aceh province had collapsed because so many public employees were dead or traumatized by the loss of family members.

Michael Elmquist, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Jakarta, said the challenge confronting Indonesian and foreign relief agencies was unprecedented. "To organize a rescue operation of this size in a couple of days has never been done," he said, adding that. delays in moving aid out of the airport were "one of the key problems that needs to be resolved."

Elmquist reported that UN agencies had begun dispatching substantial aid to the province and planned in coming days to supply 12 tons of fortified biscuits, 8 tons of noodles, half a ton of medical supplies, 5,000 body bags and 50 generators for hospitals.

At the airfield here, Air Force Lt. Ardian Budi said six Indonesian and two Malaysian transport planes hauling supplies had arrived by early Wednesday afternoon. He said the Indonesian military was devising a plan to convey the relief to distant refugee camps. Representatives from nearby camps would be asked to come to the air base to pick up their supplies. He gave no time frame.

As he spoke, the first Australian C-130 transport began unloading its cargo. Group Capt. John Oddie of the Royal Australian Air Force walked briskly to the apron, where he huddled briefly with Indonesian Maj. Gen. Bambang Darmono.

Oddie told the general he was prepared to fly seven missions a day into the airfield carrying supplies for Indonesian government and UN relief efforts.

He offered to provide a team of Australian air terminal specialists and equipment to dramatically accelerate the unloading of Australian and Indonesian planes. He also proposed providing a mobile hospital, medical staff and evacuation services to move survivors to hospitals in other Indonesian cities.

Darmono responded that he was not authorized to discuss the offer because his appointment as the military coordinator of regional relief efforts would not take effect for at least another day. He asked Oddie to return to Banda Aceh on Thursday for more talks. Oddie diplomatically agreed.

"You'll see a lot more of us in the next few days," he told reporters at the air base. "You'll see a profound strength to the relief effort building over the next few days."

Back at his camp, Yasin's family had been fortunate by the measure of death around them. They had moments to stock up on a few essentials, the rice included, and escape to higher ground before the floods flattened their home in a village on the edge of Banda Aceh.

Later, Yasin bundled his wizened mother-in-law, wife, four children and the provisions into the back of a stranger's pickup truck and headed to the camp. He heard Indonesian Red Cross workers in the camp announce that rice was on the way. "We didn't get anything. Maybe they didn't have enough to go around," he said.

Also at the camp was Abu Bakar, 42, unshaven since the weekend. He said he was worried about how long he could hold out. He and his family had squeezed into one of about a dozen green tents erected there by the Indonesian government.

Many others huddled under blue tarps strung between trees. Laundry hung from the support ropes.

Abu Bakar recounted how Indonesian Red Cross workers announced through loudspeakers a day before that refugees from each village should delegate someone to receive rice. Abu Bakar went to claim the rations. "They gave us one sack to share among more than 100 people," he fumed, putting down his cigarette. "How can we survive on that amount of supplies?"

In a neighboring tent, another villager, Basaria, 47, said she decided not to fight over the rice offered by relief workers. Instead, she found one of the few shops in Banda Aceh that had reopened and she paid inflated prices for scarce provisions. Beside her on a blue tarp were two unopened sacks of rice, a tray of eggs and a box of bottled water.

At the white guardhouse near the front gate, about a dozen people pressed up against the windows. Inside, health and agriculture students from a local university were dispensing medicine donated by a bank. They had little to offer beyond basic antibiotics, painkillers and vitamin C and B1 tablets.

The city's main hospital was battered by the flood and abandoned. The primary center for medical care is the military hospital.

On Wednesday, its lobby and corridors were crowded with scores of injured people lying on stretchers. Many had cuts and broken bones. They slept while intravenous drips hung beside them. The floors were streaked with mud and blood.

Aryono Pusponegoro, surgeon who arrived earlier in the week from the capital, Jakarta, to coordinate medical teams from elsewhere in the country, said the situation at the hospital was improving. The approximately 500 corpses in the hospital morgue would soon be buried and all the injured would be moved from corridors into wards. Also, Pusponegoro said, more than 100 doctors had flown in along with dozens of nurses and paramedics.

He planned to dispatch medical teams to the camps, but it would require gasoline, which is running very short in Aceh.

Pusponegoro added there were not enough body bags. And although the hospital had enough beds for seriously injured patients, the beds had no sheets. The hospital, he said, had run out of traditional Islamic shrouds for wrapping corpses and been forced to strip the beds.

International relations

A new wave in US-Indonesian relations?

Straits Times - January 6, 2005

John Mcbeth, Jakarta -- When relief workers brought the first aid to the devastated Western coast of Aceh a few days after the December 26 earthquake, they were greeted by one surviving Indonesian soldier asking plaintively: "Where is America, where is America?" America, in the form of a carrier battle group, urgently-needed helicopters and giant cargo planes, arrived in force in early January -- as everyone knew it would.

But will all this desperately-needed aid really change anything in the Indonesian-United States relationship? Probably not. Some memories are longer than others.

Five years after Indonesian troops and militiamen laid waste to newly-independent Timor Leste, a tenacious alliance of United Nations officials, US congressman and human rights groups refuse to let go, insisting that Jakarta accept accountability for the death and destruction that cost 1,500 lives. It is a condition that will continue to haunt Jakarta's relations with Washington for years to come, complicated as they are by the campaign against terrorism and by Washington's unilateral incursion into Iraq.

Pragmatists like Indonesia's Defence Minister Juwono Sudarsono complain that opponents in the US Congress 'shift the goal-posts' whenever progress seems to be made. Pessimists, mostly human rights activists, see little prospect of a change in focus between the old and new administrations of President George W. Bush.

And even as he senses a "unique opportunity to take an enlightened view", optimists like Mr Edward Masters, the former US ambassador to Jakarta, say they worry more, than at any other time, about where the relationship is headed.

It is now 12 years, dating back to the 1991 Dili churchyard massacre, since an Indonesian officer has taken part in the International Military Education and Training (Imet) programme. The result has been a generation of conservative, often xenophobic, officers whose world view is extremely limited. More troubling perhaps has been the way visa restrictions related to the war on terror have significantly diminished people-to-people contacts. Mr Masters, who spent a big chunk of his diplomatic career in Asia, describes it as "a very dangerous situation requiring careful attention".

Mr Juwono plans to go to Washington in March to try and convince Indonesia's critics that times are changing and that Timor Leste should not be permitted to condemn an entire military force. "When will they stop maligning the army," he asked in a recent interview with Tempo magazine, referring to what he called the "human rights industry". As he said: "The work of the NGOs is admirable, but there are times when they are stuck to the interests of foreign donors who have an agenda all of their own."

Indonesians can probably be forgiven for thinking that Congress is moving the goal-posts. For a while there, an improvement in military-to-military relations seemed to hinge on Indonesian generals cooperating in the investigation into the August 2002 murder of two American teachers in Papua. But when the FBI finally came up with a suspect and found no evidence of high- level military involvement, attention swiftly switched back to Timor Leste -- and the fact that Indonesian courts had exonerated all Indonesian-born defendants charged with crimes against humanity in the 1999 rampage.

When new President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Timor Leste President Xanana Gusmao met in Bali in mid-December, they hoped their plan for a "truth and friendship commission" to examine the events of 1999 would prove to be a mechanism that would help bury the past. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan at first seemed positive about the idea. Then a few days later, the UN said it was sticking with its parallel concept of forming a commission of experts that would decide on what individuals should get the blame for the 1,500 deaths.

The UN-funded Special Crimes Unit in Dili only recently completed handing over 95 case files containing indictments against 391 people, many of them Indonesian nationals living outside the reach of the law. Among those are former armed forces commander and presidential candidate Wiranto, and ex-military intelligence chief Major-General Zacky Anwar Makarim, neither of whom were among the 18 defendants charged with crimes against humanity before the ineffectual ad hoc human rights tribunals in Indonesia. Another is former regional commander Maj-Gen Adam Damiri, one of the generals to get off on appeal, who remains assistant chief of staff for operations and a central figure in current relief operations in Aceh.

Mr Juwono, fighting his own battle over the concept of civilian supremacy, treats the subject with brutal logic. "If we look at in terms of legal loopholes, we don't have an accountable justice system, so how can we achieve a full accounting?" he asked participants at a recent Centre for Strategic and International Studies (Cisis) seminar in Jakarta. "What we're trying to do now is have a bi-national reconciliation council so the UN Security Council won't have to investigate. That would be too painful." Congress and the NGOs, he said, must bring themselves to consider one thing: Is Indonesia worth forgiving.

Senior US officials have counted on somehow getting beyond the tragic events of 1999, pointing to the passage of time and the fact that with the notable exception of Mr Damiri, many of those involved have long since retired from the military or retreated from positions of power. But that does not cut much ice with relatives of the victims, who do not share Mr Gusmao's concern about reaching an accommodation with a large and potentially troublesome neighbour, and those activists who have made Indonesia's accountability their life's work.

Getting Indonesia on the radar screen at all in Washington is always difficult, but this has been a particularly frustrating time for US diplomats and the Bush administration itself. Interestingly, Mr Dino Djalal, a senior aide to President Yudhoyono, said it was Mr Bush, not Dr Yudhoyono, who raised the issue of restoring military-to-military ties when the two met for the first time at the Asian Pacific Economic (Apec) forum in Chile last November. Mr Djalal recounted the 'obvious personal chemistry' between the two leaders and said Dr Yudhoyono's role as a 'foreign policy president' would help define the relationship over the next five years.

Perhaps. But he and other observers see the importance of developing a better dialogue between Indonesia's House of Representatives and Congress -- something missing from the relationship so far -- and the need for the US to put more emphasis on diplomacy and other aspects of so-called 'soft power'.

Even there, US and Indonesian officials are concerned about the perceptions surrounding a US$157 million (S$257 million) programme to improve Indonesia's tattered education system, which is seen in some quarters of the Muslim community as a US effort to influence the curriculum of religious schools.

On a broader level, linking Indonesia to seemingly intractable problems like Palestine and now Iraq makes it almost impossible for Indonesia and the US to see eye-to-eye on any of today's issues. Indonesians hold no deep sympathies for the Arabs, but in the face of American unilateralism and what they see as Washington's uneven treatment of Israelis and Palestinians, the emotional ties to Muslim brotherhood are probably stronger than they have ever been.

Unfortunately for the West, it is an intersection for both extremists and moderate Muslims alike.

Indonesians, for their part, have never really grasped the devastating impact that the September 11, 2001, hits had, not only on Washington's strategic view, but more importantly on the psyche of the average American.

The underlying reason for Mr Bush's re-election victory was the insecurity felt by the millions of Middle Americans who do not have passports, who rarely venture beyond their home states -- and who view the outside world with abiding suspicion. 'We are traumatised, we are insecure', notes Mr Masters. "Indonesia, for its part, is more assertive and trying to define Islam in Indonesia."

Differing attitudes and priorities, and America's seeming lack of interest in anything that is not related to the war on terrorism, are as much a challenge as Timor Leste in trying to put relations on an even keel. For Indonesians it breeds a willingness to embrace unsubstantiated conspiracy theories.

For Americans it perpetuates a lingering ignorance of anything beyond its immediate comprehension. As US academic Karl Jackson notes: "The US and Indonesia never seem to be in the right place at the right time for collaboration. If we miss this opportunity, history will condemn us."

[The writer is the former Jakarta correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review.]

Opinion & analysis

Challenges, rooms for Susilo in addressing violence

Jakarta Post - December 30, 2004

Sidney Jones -- Indonesia continues to be plagued by astonishingly diverse forms of violence: vigilantism, communal conflict, armed insurgencies and counter-insurgency responses, terrorism, land and resource disputes, and shoot-outs between the army and police. That's not counting the occasional high-profile murder of a beloved public figure like Munir.

The challenges for Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, also popularly known as SBY, are enormous. It's not as though Indonesia will disintegrate or become dangerously unstable if these problems are not solved.

But they could affect SBY's ability to deliver on promises of economic growth and restore investor confidence, and over the long term, if left to fester, they could lead to disillusionment with Indonesian democracy, which has had such a boost with the success of the 2004 elections.

At a more fundamental level, the basic human costs in terms of lost lives and livelihoods should be incentive enough to get some creative new policies into place.

But there are aspects of Indonesian violence that complicate policy formulation.

Each conflict or pattern of violence has its own constituency. For example, Indonesia's donors and some of its closest neighbors see terrorism as the No. 1 security challenge, not only because of terrorism's global reach -- the fact that a meeting in Malaysia can lead to an operation in New York or training in Kandahar can lead to attacks in Jakarta -- but also because foreign civilians are often targets.

In combating terrorism, the Indonesian police are the lead agency and have earned praise for their success in tracking down key suspects in terrorist violence, even if some very big fish remain at large.

But for most Indonesians, terrorism is not the main issue. Their own lives are touched far more by crime, or by land and resource disputes, than by bombings in Jakarta or Bali. Popular frustration at police passivity in the face of thug violence has led to vigilantism becoming a major problem -- and causing hundreds more Indonesian deaths than Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) or like-minded organizations have done.

And local police often appear as the villains in clashes over land, as when they opened fire on farmers protesting the loss of their land to a rubber plantation in Bulukumba, South Sulawesi in June 2003 or when they were called in last month in Bojong, Bogor to put down a demonstration of villagers unhappy that their land was being used as a dump for metropolitan Jakarta's trash.

The reputation of the police may be rising in counter-terror quarters, but it appears to be sinking in the eyes of the public, if opinion polls are any indication.

This gulf in perceptions about which security issues matter most has two consequences. It is relatively easy for groups sympathetic to anti-Western violence to take control of the public spin, and portray moves to arrest terror suspects as persecution of Muslim activists -- especially when ill-treatment or torture is alleged, and there appear to be some well-founded claims.

It also makes it much more difficult for the government to push ahead with any more energetic counter-terror program, because it runs the risk of being accused of capitulating to Western pressure.

The need is to bring the security concerns into better balance. Local grievances probably deserve more attention, together with improving police capacity at the local level and seriously investigating allegations of police abuse.

At the same time, the Indonesian public deserves a better, more thorough answer from the government to the question of why it should be concerned about terrorism than it got during the Megawati Soekarnoputri administration.

The constituency concerned about Aceh (Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam) and Papua is very different. Despite the enormous loss of life, particularly in Aceh, and the long duration of both conflicts, they have remained extraordinarily localized.

What goes on at extreme ends of the archipelago doesn't seem to have much of an impact on the middle, and the tight media controls and restricted access only add to the sense of remoteness.

But for the Indonesian military, unburdened by any major external threat, separatism towers above all else as a security concern, far higher than terrorism or communal conflict. Separatism poses the only genuine threat to the unity of the Indonesian state; therefore, in the views of many (but not all) TNI officers, military force is the only possible answer.

SBY has made it clear that he doesn't share this view, but it would be desirable to get some constructive alternatives on the table fairly quickly -- particularly since the extension of the civil emergency in Aceh on Nov. 18 seemed to be sending the opposite message. The detention on corruption charges of Abdullah Puteh, Aceh's notorious governor, in early December opens some interesting possibilities for non-military steps: establishment of a transition administration, improving post-emergency governance, a new process of dialog with a much broader swath of the Acehnese population than has hitherto been the case, justice for the past, and renewed attention to the weaknesses of the Special Autonomy law.

But many Acehnese are tired of talk and are beginning to think that with the roll-over of the emergency, the ongoing media restrictions, and the lack of transparency in accounting for the cost of military operations over the last two years, they may be in for more of the same.

In Papua, the mood is much more upbeat, at least in elite circles. Despite the strange decision of the Constitutional Court, basically saying the division of Papua was unconstitutional, but the creation of West Irian Jaya would stand as a fait accompli, many Papuans appear to be optimistic that SBY will find a way to restore meaning to the idea of special autonomy.

The key here is the creation of a single Papuan People's Council (Majelis Rakyat Papua or MRP) that covers the entire territory as originally proposed by the Papuan drafting committee in August 2002 -- not one MRP per province as the Megawati government came back with in late 2003. If SBY presides over the emergence of a workable MRP, he will have taken an important step toward addressing Papuan grievances. It will at least change the atmospherics for the better and buy time to put a longer-term strategy together.

Faced with so many different kinds of conflict and so many different constituencies involved, SBY would have a difficult time under the best of circumstances. Regional autonomy, decentralization and pemekaran (administrative fragmentation) add further layers of complexity.

But SBY also has opportunities, not to mention legitimacy, from a direct election that his immediate predecessors lacked. To turn those advantages to good use, he needs to have a team that can take a broad look at the range of ongoing conflicts and violence and ensure policy input from beyond the most vocal vested interests involved (getting a few anthropologists and resource economists with field expertise into the conflict areas in question would be useful).

It is also utterly critical that no one in SBY's administration be permitted to benefit from the corruption of public funds designated for conflict prevention or resolution, including funds for military operations, assistance to the displaced, or counter-terror training. A zero-tolerance policy here, and commitment to ensure that no agency stands above the law, will help him immensely as he tackles the harder political questions.

[The writer is the Indonesian Project Director for the Brussels- based International Crisis Group (ICG).]