Aceh

Parliament urges military to wipe out GAM

Tempo Interactive - January 20, 2005

Suliyanti, Jakarta - People's Representative Assembly Commission I for Defense and Foreign Affairs is urging the military (TNI) to remain resolute and on guard against the armed separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM).

At a Commission I working meeting between the chief of the TNI, the foreign affairs minister, the minister of defense and the head of the National Intelligence Agency (BIN) which was discussing Aceh, Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle fraction member, Permadi, declared that he views GAM's condition at the moment as being quite weak as is the case for other victims of the tsunami disaster.

According to Permadi, the TNI must use the moment to put pressure on GAM. "GAM, wipe them out, but the humanitarian mission [must] continue", he said. Permadi is also of the view that present conditions could be used by the TNI to make peace with GAM. "But if they don't want peace, keep wiping them out", he said enthusiastically.

Afiffuddin Thaib from the Golkar Party fraction agreed with Permadi. However according to Thaib, if there are indeed peace negotiations, GAM must first agree to be part of the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia. "If they don't want to, then wipe them out", he said elaborating on Permadi's comments.

TNI chief General Endriartono Sutarto responded by saying that it was not within his capacity to determine the TNI's position with regard to GAM. "Wipe them out or shake hands, or sleep together, it all depends on the political policy makers. I'm ready [to do as they say]", he said. What is certain according to Sutarto, is that they should prioritise humanitarian work and not an offensive operation.

In addition to the TNI chief, a number of other parliamentary members gave their input to head of BIN, Syamsir Siregar. They are asking BIN not to take assistance from foreign troops lighly. "It's BIN's job to be suspicious", said Abdillah Toha, the head of the National Mandate Party fraction.

[Translated by James Balowski.]

Acehnese to become 'objects' under Special Authority Agency

Detik.com - January 20, 2005

Fedhly Averouss Bey, Jakarta - The Aceh Working Group (AWG) opposes the plan to form the Special Authority Agency for Aceh because it has the potential to turn the Acehnese people into 'objects'.

"Instead of facilitating recovery, the formation of this body will instead have the potential to turn the people of Aceh and North Sumatra in to objects, and not the subjects of development", charged AWG coordinator Rusdi Marpaung.

AWG he continued, believes that the a decision which was based on an agreement between the government and the People's Representative Assembly (DPR) is one which is too partial in nature and could damage Acehnese society, as well as an effective systems of government.

This was related by Marpaung at a press conference at AWG's secretariat in Central Jakarta on Thursday January 20. Also present was the coordinator of the Human Rights Working Group (HRWG), Rafendi Djamin, the executive director of the Centre for Electoral Reform (Cetro), Smita Notosusanto, as well as Centre for Legal and Policy Studies activist Bivitri Susanti.

AWG is asking the government to be careful in determining policies to restore the administration in Aceh. If there are plans to restore the devastated administration it would be better if the government conducts an assessment and develops local capacity to rebuild.

"Without paying attention to broader policies which already exist and careful improvements, the decision to form the Special Authority Agency, along with plans for rehabilitation and reconstruction towards a new Aceh will be a wasted effort", said Marpaung.

Marpaung regrets that the Indonesian government with input from the DPR has launched the idea of forming the Special Authority Agency for Aceh. AWG is also calling on the government and the DPR to make its policy decisions in the framework of a comprehensive strategic policy for Aceh.

According to Marpaung, this framework must take into consideration polices which already exist and are in force in Aceh such as Law Number 18/2001 on Special Autonomy and Law Number 31/2004 on Local Government.

"AWG is also asking the government to continue peace efforts in Aceh through a process of negotiations which have already received a warm welcome from friendly countries. Without a peace process it will be difficult for a recovery process which is effective, transparent and accountable to occur in Aceh". (sss)

[Translated by James Balowski.]

BIN: Foreigners have other goals besides humanitarian mission

Detik.com - January 20, 2005

Astrid Felicia Lim, Jakarta - National Intelligence Agencey (BIN) chief Syamsir Siregar says that foreigners in Aceh definitely have specific interests other than the humanitarian mission. Based on BIN's data, as well as thousands of volunteers the number of foreign troops presently in Aceh has reached 19,000 personnel.

"It is clear there are specific interests. How stupid would it be if the US and other countries were not like that", said Siregar at a People's Representative Assembly Commission I working meeting between the chief of the armed forces, the minister of defense, the foreign affairs minister and the chief of BIN at the DPR Building in Jakarta on Thursday January 20.

According to Siregar foreigners will definitely take advantage of every opportunity to achieve specific aims such as gaining knowledge about Indonesia's geographic conditions. They will be able to find more detailed information about Indonesia in particular about the Straits of Malacca.

For this reason BIN is of the opinion there needs to be a time limit for foreign troops remaining in Aceh. Siregar proposed at time limit of three months because within that time period Indonesia will have the capability to take over the handling of humanitarian crisis in Aceh.

Sidney Jones

Siregar revealed that there are a number of parties which are trying to use Aceh for specific interests. He mentioned one of them, the director of the International Crisis Group (IGC), Sydney Jones(1).

"Sydney Jones for example has already asked us for permission to enter [Aceh]. But we didn't give it [to her] although there were a number of ministers who also asked for it to be granted. Rather than creating a problem it was better we didn't authorise it", said Siregar.

BIN has deployed 15 of its staff in Aceh. From BIN's data it is known that the number of foreign volunteers in Aceh is already in the thousands. Meanwhile there are as many as 19,000 foreign troops. (iy)

Notes:

1. On BIN's recommendation, in June 2003 the Indonesian government refused to extend Sydney Jones' visa and she was forced to leave the country. BIN alleged that Jones was "creating unrest" although it is generally believed that the then chief of BIN, A.M. Hendropriyono, had taken offense to ICG reports which suggested that BIN had been incompetent in its handling of recent terrorist bomb attacks.

[Translated by James Balowski.]

Killing of separatists amid talk of peace

Radio Australia - January 21 2005

Indonesia's army and the Free Aceh separatist movement, GAM, have agreed to an unconditional ceasefire in the province so devasted by the tsunami. The Army Chief of Staff General Ryamizard Ryucudu says the armed forces have killed 120 GAM fighters over the last two weeks. The figure has been disputed by a GAM spokesperson who claims the ceasefire is largely holding. There are growing hopes that peace talks to end the three decade conflict can take place in the near future.

Presenter/Interviewer: Karon Snowdon

Speakers: Human Hamid, Professor of Sociology, Syiah kuala State University; Bakhtiar Abdullah, GAM spokesman

Snowdon: Indonesia's Foreign Minister, Hassan Wirajuda, says if there's any silver lining to such a disaster its that peace talks might be able to resume in Aceh as soon as next month.

According to the BBC, the army's Chief of Staff said troops were forced to take action against rebels stealing food aid meant for tsunami victims and have killed a total of 120 in the past two weeks.

Asia Pacific was unable to contact any army spokesperson during the major religious day. GAM spokesman, Bakhtiar Abdullah, who lives as an exile in Sweden confirmed there had been some fighting but says the claim of 120 dead is black propaganda.

Abdullah: Ten to 15,000 fresh troops were being brought to Aceh in the last few days. And two days ago, if I'm not mistaken, there was a heavy battle at Leouw in the district of Pidi in which we are forced to defend ourselves from marauding Indonesian forces and we haven't heard any reports of any casualties. So it still seems as though there are still military operations being carried out in several areas and in this case whatever has been issued by the Indonesian commander, it's not true.

Snowdon: As for peace talks, sections of the military might not be so interested in the end of a conflict they stand accused of prolonging for their own profit.

Lucrative business interests of the military and its individuals in the resource rich province are one reason. Strong nationalism and unwillingness to countenance dealing with GAM, the other.

Bakhtiar Abdullah says GAM has not been approached by Jakarta about future peace talks.

Abdullah: We have never closed the door for dialogue.

Snowdon: So you're waiting for a formal approach?

Abdullah: You could say that because so far nothing has been done and no approach, nothing.

Snowdon: And is it as many people are saying a good time to be considering to be talking about peace given the disaster and the need for reconciliation and for moving on, would it be a good time?

Abdullah: Yes, we feel the same, because right now you know, the losses that have suffered have not only been on our part. And considering the devastation and everything the loss of life and property, undescribable, we feel this is the right opportunity.

Snowdon: Bakhtiar Abdullah went on to say that while GAM remains committed to the idea of an independent Acehnese state, the movement would accept a different outcome if it was the result of a referendum of the population.

Indonesia declared martial law and launched a major campaign with tens of thousands of troops after the collapse of talks almost two years ago.

Yet despite election promises to find a non-military solution in Aceh, new President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono extended the state of emergency in November for six months.

At this stage it's unclear what effect the presence of previously banned foreign aid workers might have on the road to peace, if any.

Dr Human Hamid, Professor of Sociology from Syiah Kuala State University in Aceh, speaking on his mobile phone, agrees the unconditional ceasefire offered by GAM makes now the right time to talk.

Hamid: Why not? I mean because of this huge amount of deaths of the Acehnese and we have to start recovery for all of us and the presence of the international community would be a deterrent for both sides not to start a war again. So this is a chance the last chance now for the two sides to start dialogue to have a peaceful settlement. The problem now is how both sides will use the idea of good faith.

Wolfowitz on recent visit to tsunami-stricken South Asia

NewsHour PBS Television - January 19, 2005

[Interview with US Deputy Secretary of State Paul Wolfowitz. Sections not directly related to South-East Asia and Aceh have been edited out - JB.]

Newsmaker: Paul Wolfowitz

Margaret Warner: Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz is just back from a five-day trip to the area devastated by last month's tsunami. He visited Thailand, Sri. Lanka, and Indonesia, a country where he once served as US ambassador. Mr. Secretary, welcome.

Paul Wolfowitz: Good to be here.

Margaret Warner: What is your assessment after being there of how the recovery is going, how much has really been accomplished?

Paul Wolfowitz: An enormous amount has been accomplished everywhere and a lot of it is thanks to the ability of our military to get there quickly and to do things nobody else could do.

I think it's probably not an exaggeration to say tens of thousands of lives have been saved because we were able to get food and water to people who otherwise would have starved or been dehydrated.

But it's very different in different places. Thailand has already moved past the immediate relief and into recovery and, in fact, they're helping other countries in the region. That's at one end of the scale.

India has got a huge problem, but they're largely self- sufficient. That's why we didn't go there. Indonesia, where I was ambassador, is also the one that's hardest hit in every possible respect.

It's where the earth -- they had a record-breaking earthquake and then they were hit by the tsunami. The numbers are probably -- they're well over 150,000 dead or missing.

And it's in a very remote part of the country, which is hard to get to in the first place and once you get there, it's hard to get to the people who need help. So they're still trying to provide immediate relief and the recovery operation is going to be a staggering task.

Joint relief efforts

Margaret Warner: Now I gather the United States has, what, 16,000 troops in the region. How long do you think they'll be needed or wanted?

Paul Wolfowitz: Well, they're starting to come down already in Sri Lanka. They're not going to be needed in Thailand much longer, except for coordinating a region-wide effort, which the Thais have been very helpful in.

In Sri Lanka, we're, in some cases, doing things like delivering fruits and vegetables. They don't need us for that. In fact, we moved two of our big water purification units from Sri Lanka to the Maldives where they're more needed.

But in Indonesia, there's a real need. And when you ask the question of "are they wanted," it is stunning to me. I was ambassador there for three years and these are proud people, properly so. And they're people who are very suspicious of foreign militaries from any country, and yet they really open their arms to us.

They've taken away all the restrictions that might have applied. They recognize that no country could have handled a task like this -- challenge like this on their own.

And there was a little -- an indicator, I think, of Indonesian opinion when one politician came out and said our forces had to leave by March 26.

The president himself, when he met with him and with many ministers, partly because it was the right thing to do, but I think also because they were reading.

The Indonesian public was saying "Wait a minute. Don't ask the Americans to leave until we're ready to take over." They said "This is a timeline, it's not a deadline," and I think that's the attitude we've encountered.

Margaret Warner: Now while you were in Jakarta, you did say -- at least are reported to have said -- that you thought that the US should ease up on some of the restrictions we've had between the US Military and the Indonesian military, the ones that were imposed after basically the rampage in East Timor, what, in the early '90s. Why do you think it's time to change that?

Paul Wolfowitz: Well, let me be clear. I also said those restrictions are there because of a real concern about abuses by the Indonesian military. And it's a concern now that -- not only our concern, but the newly elected democratic government of Indonesia shares that concern.

And that's part of the context of my remarks is last September they had a remarkably successful free, fair presidential election. It was only the second in their history.

This is a country that's moving in an impressive way, given the challenges they face, toward democracy, and they have a government committed to it.

So I think it's important to help that government manage its own military. And now it's even more important to help that government manage this huge challenge of the humanitarian assistance.

So I also said -- and I mean it -- this is something we want to consult with the Congress on because the views of the Congress on this are strongly felt, and for good reason.

Margaret Warner: Let me just ask you this. How would have -- and I should have explained what we're talking about in terms of a relationship -- it's the supply of equipment and it's training -- how would resuming that help the democratic transformation or help the government in Jakarta have more control over the Indonesian military? Could it have the opposite effect?

Paul Wolfowitz: It could. That's why you need to calibrate these things carefully and why I wouldn't say we suddenly opened the door to unrestricted supply of lethal military assistance.

No, but one of the things we've done is severely restricted the opportunities for Indonesian officers to train in the United States. And I think, in my view, and I care a lot about the human rights aspects of this, I can't say that every officer who is trained here becomes a human rights advocate.

But the current president, for example, who is a democratic reformer, was a military officer who was one of the last people trained here. I think we can have a more positive influence that way. I think there are certain things we can do and we're doing some of them now.

The Congress doesn't prevent us from non-lethal assistance, and we've finally found a way to help them repair their transport aircraft so that they can get humanitarian assistance up to Aceh. That's a good thing, although it involves more contact with their military.

Margaret Warner: Do you think, as some observers in the region have said, though, that the Indonesian military is using this crisis as a way of actually tightening their control over the rebels in Aceh?

Paul Wolfowitz: You know, this is a tragedy, as people have said, of apocalyptic or biblical proportions. It's just enormous.

We have a chance to give some meaning to that tragedy by moving to a better future, including particularly trying to move toward a political resolution of that problem in Aceh that you alluded to. If the military gets in the way of that, then the military should be pushed to get out of the way.

But if the military can be brought on board and the Acehnese people, who are very distinctive people who occupy this one province in the extreme west of Indonesia, can see that their government and maybe even their military is able to deliver something good to them instead of just oppression, I think there's a chance to move to a new era that would benefit the whole region.

Margaret Warner: Mr. Secretary, thank you.

Paul Wolfowitz: Thank you.

Fears that TNI will not tolerate foreign interference

Associated Press - January 19, 2005

Jakarta -- Indonesia's armed forces have allowed unprecedented access to Aceh province since it was devastated by last month's tsunami, but relations with the thousands of foreigners involved in the aid effort could quickly turn sour if the military feels its control there is being threatened, some analysts warn.

Citing East Timor's bloody breakaway in 1999, the analysts said the Indonesian military has a history of intimidating UN agencies and foreign aid workers and could again resort to such tactics in Aceh, which was under tight military control before the disaster.

"They don't like it when foreigners don't play by their rules and you can be sure they'll do something about it," said Robert Hampshire, an American who served as a UN policeman in East Timor when that province voted to end 24 years of Indonesian rule enforced by the military.

In Aceh, the northernmost region of Sumatra island, the military has been fighting a brutal war against separatists of the Free Aceh Movement for almost three decades and kept the province closed to outsiders.

The devastation wrought along the Sumatran coast by the December 26 earthquake and tsunami overwhelmed Indonesia's ability to respond. Indonesia has invited thousands of foreigners to come in and carry out relief operations.

Singaporean, Australian and other foreign military forces are treating the wounded. Japanese soldiers are due to arrive soon to help with reconstruction, and US and French helicopter crews have been ferrying supplies to stricken areas.

The government in Jakarta has been pushing its generals to cooperate fully with the relief effort. Still, there are signs the military is uneasy about the influx of foreigners into Aceh.

Citing concerns that the rebels could attack relief workers, the military has asked all aid workers and journalists to register with officials and to travel outside the main population centers only with military escorts. Senior officials say they want foreign troops out of Aceh by March 26, although they insist it is not a deadline.

The rebels have welcomed the foreign aid, saying the disaster would be much worse if recovery was left to the Indonesian government. No attacks on aid workers have been reported.

Former diplomats and UN staffers say the restrictions may reflect concern among the military that the foreigners' presence is hampering their campaign against the rebels. "When they tell you they can't guarantee your security from the rebels, that's Indonesian-speak for 'we'll attack and kill you all tonight,'" said Hampshire.

Col. Achmad Yani Basuki, a military spokesman, dismissed such concerns. "The military has no such intentions, it is not true," he said. "In this situation, we should all be concentrating on humanitarian efforts, and we hope that none of the parties will be inventing groundless accusations."

Hampshire recounted how on September 4, 1999 -- five days after East Timor's voters opted overwhelmingly for independence -- militiamen, troops and police opened fire on 16 UN election workers trapped in their isolated compound in the town of Liquicia, nearly killing American policeman Earl Candler.

"This was happening all over East Timor, under the gaze of the international community and despite repeated assurances from the government to the United Nations and the United States that they would maintain security," said Robert Gelbard, who was Washington's ambassador to Jakarta at the time.

Gelbard said Indonesia's armed forces form a state-within-a- state, not answerable to any democratically elected civilian authority despite the overthrow of the military dictatorship of president Suharto in 1998.

Indonesia has increasingly democratized its institutions since Suharto's downfall, but the military has resisted attempts to bring it under civilian control. Indonesia is regularly ranked as one of the world's most graft-ridden countries, and the armed forces are considered among its most corrupt institutions.

Aceh, with large oil and gas reserves, is just one of Indonesia's resource-rich provinces struggling to break free from Jakarta. West Papua has been fighting for independence since it was incorporated into Indonesia in 1969.

After East Timor's independence referendum, Indonesian forces and militias killed about 2,000 people, devastated the province and laid siege to the UN compound in Dili, the capital.

Dutch journalist Sander Thoenes was killed during the rampage. UN prosecutors later indicted an Indonesian major and a lieutenant in the killing, but Jakarta refused to extradite them for trial in Dili.

After the crisis, the world body opened offices in Indonesian- held West Timor to repatriate the 250,000 people who fled their homes in East Timor.

The army objected and on September 6, 2000, militiamen attacked the UN office in Atambua town, killing three staffers -- an American, a Croat, and an Ethiopian. Indonesian security troops stood by during the attack but did nothing to prevent the murders.

Michel Pelletier, a retired UN staffer who took part in a 1969 mission to West Papua, said the Indonesians had developed a sense of impunity in dealing with the international community after intimidating foreigners sent to oversee a plebiscite that approved the integration of the former Dutch territory into Indonesia.

"When I tried to attend a pro-independence rally, an Indonesian officer stuck a gun in my stomach and said he would shoot me if I did not leave immediately," Pelletier recalled. Jakarta hand picked all 1,000 people allowed to vote and they unanimously backed integration in a ballot widely seen as a sham.

Too many helpers hindering relief work

Reuters - January 21, 2005

Banda Aceh -- A massive world outpouring of aid to tsunami- stricken Aceh had relief agencies rushing to reach survivors, but many are now questioning if the region is "over-aided".

United Nations figures showed at least 100 NGOs have flooded into the northern Indonesia province after the tsunami left a half- million homeless.

Medical teams in Aceh were aplenty -- so much so that a Belgian group had to post a note at a media headquarters looking for people it could help. A German hospital set up in the provincial capital Banda Aceh said it had just one patient in its first week.

The rush of numerous non-governmental organisations contributed to early coordination problems in getting emergency relief out, aid workers said. But the sheer size of the response also enabled enough aid to get to refugees and officials now believe mass hunger and major disease outbreaks may have been averted.

This week, doctors from the United States, the Pakistani military, Medecins Sans Frontieres and other groups could be found in Lamno, a west-coast town with 10,000 refugees.

"There is more medical power in this town than any small town in America," said Dr William Moore of the International Medical Corps. "We do have everybody on the planet here in Aceh, sometimes it feels," said Mr Ian Small of relief group Oxfam.

Environmental campaigner Greenpeace said it sent its famed ship Rainbow Warrior to the Aceh coast. A relief group called Global Sikhs said it had two ships offshore.

The Church of Scientology moved teams of volunteer ministers to Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand. Travel agents offered cultural trips mixed with a few days of work.

"It was the Wild West out there," said a US Navy helicopter pilot who sent supplies to remote villages.

But Mr Mans Nyberg of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said this was "perfectly normal" in such a massive effort. The infrastructure for aid delivery has became more stable, officials said.

US urges political solution in Aceh

Sydney Morning Herald - January 21, 2005

The United States yesterday called for a political solution of the conflict in the Indonesian province of Aceh, with a top Pentagon official arguing that Indonesia's military should be "pushed to get out of the way" if it tries to sabotage attempts at a negotiated settlement.

But Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz also offered Indonesian generals a reward, suggesting what he described as a calibrated renewal of bilateral military co-operation suspended after the 1999 crisis in East Timor, if they co-operated.

"We have a chance to give some meaning to that tragedy by moving to a better future, including particularly trying to move towards a political resolution of that problem in Aceh," Mr Wolfowitz said in a television interview.

With a ceasefire in effect and international aid pouring in, Indonesian Foreign Minister Hasan Wirayuda earlier had raised the possibility of talks with Aceh separatist rebels. He said talks could begin as early as this month.

Mr Wolfowitz did not specifically comment on this development, but expressed strong support for political efforts to end the conflict -- as well as resolute measures to check possible military obstructionism.

"If the military gets in the way of that, then the military should be pushed to get out of the way," he said. "But if the military can be brought on board and the Acehnese people ... can see that their Government and maybe even their military is able to deliver something good to them instead of just oppression, I think there's a chance to move to a new era that would benefit the whole region."

Meanwhile, US forces are preparing to wind down tsunami relief efforts around the Indian Ocean, confident of leaving behind stronger military ties in the region, their commander said yesterday.

Admiral Thomas Fargo, chief of the US Pacific Command, said after a tour of tsunami-devastated areas that international aid was starting to focus on reconstruction and it was time to gradually reduce the military's aid role. "We are pretty much past the immediate relief phase and we are rapidly moving toward what you would call rehabilitation and reconstruction," he said.

The US has sent more than 16,500 personnel to tsunami-stricken countries and deployed aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln as a base for relief flights into Aceh. "We will start right now transferring functions to the appropriate host nation and international organisations," Admiral Fargo said.

He said there was no deadline for withdrawal but that 60 days from the tsunami was probably enough time to hand over to other groups -- around late February -- although operations such as ferrying supplies by helicopter were likely to be the last to go.

Admiral Fargo, whose command covers more than half the globe and includes 300,000 military personnel, said the unprecedented international relief operation, involving military teams from more than a dozen nations, showed the strength of military ties.

"This habit of co-operation has developed over many years," he said, noting that the US had joined international relief efforts in Bangladesh in 1991 when floods killed more than 138,000 people.

Evangelist's tsunami efforts stir US Muslim group

Reuters - January 21, 2005

Manuela Badawy, New York -- A US Muslim group on Thursday accused evangelist Jerry Falwell of using money donated for tsunami relief to convert people in South Asia to Christianity and called on the Bush administration to denounce his actions.

In an e-mailed weekly newsletter called "Falwell Confidential," which was obtained by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the evangelist said: "Hundreds of thousands are in dire need of medical attention and personal counseling. And in this heavily Muslim part of the world, millions have never even heard of Jesus Christ."

The newsletter, which is distributed by Jerry Falwell Ministries, said donations would be used to distribute food and Gospel tracts in the region. A Muslim who received the e-mail passed it on to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, council spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said.

According to a statement on www.falwell.com and Liberty University's Web site, the school is preparing a team to travel to India, Sri Lanka and other countries in South Asia. Falwell founded Liberty University.

"Distribution of food and medical supplies, along with the dissemination of thousands of Gospel tracts in the language of the people will be the primary tasks of the team," the Web sites said. "Mission trips to the Asian region by many [Liberty University] students will follow in the months, and perhaps years, to come."

But Dr. Eddie Pate, professor and leader of Liberty's tsunami aid effort, said he did not plan to take "any materials or pass anything out." He said the team is going to South Asia to work with local Christian groups that are distributing food and medicine, and helping small businesses restart.

Falwell's office declined comment. The evangelist sparked controversy in 2002 when he called Muslims' prophet Muhammad a "terrorist" during a television interview.

"This is not the first time we hear about this kind of proselytism," Hooper said. "This has a negative impact, first, on interfaith relations, and second, on the trust and work of legitimate institutions working there."

Hooper said missionaries acting as relief groups could hurt rather than help these vulnerable societies.

"It would make work for legitimate institutions more difficult. It also harms America's image, which is already pretty tarnished in the rest of the world."

The White House had no immediate comment.

Earlier this week, reports that the missionary group WorldHelp planned to airlift 300 tsunami orphans from the Muslim province of Banda Aceh to Indonesia's capital, Jakarta, to raise them in a Christian children's home, caused a stir among Muslims. The group has dropped its plans, according to media reports.

WorldHelp officials were not immediately available for comment.

The tsunami has killed about 226,000 across Asia.

After tsunami's rampage, looters' market is on a roll

New York Times - January 19, 2005

Ian Fisher, Banda Aceh -- Business is coming back to Banda Aceh, a city hit hard by the tsunami, and not all of it fits into neat moral boxes.

On Diponegoro Street, at what was once the commercial heart of this city, a muddy man named Husnaidi, 30, picked through the debris ejected from the shops first by the tsunami and then by the looters. He knew that what he took - mostly bits of metal and plastic he could sell as scrap -- was not his.

But he said he had no choice in order to survive after the wave carried away his home, his wife, his only child. "If I could not collect these things, I don't know what I would do," he said.

Down the street, a merchant worked to empty his clothing shop of everything that was salvageable, before the looters finished the job for him. He was only partly sympathetic.

"The owners may still be alive," said the merchant, Nasruddin, 28, who like many people here has only one name. "Why are people looting? Just because they don't have a home doesn't give them the right to steal."

The wave that changed so much here has also changed economic life, and in complicated ways. Scrap dealers are thriving, as people rifle through rubble often only just before bulldozers remove the mucky debris forever. A market stall in the devastated city of Meulaboh, south of here, sells scrounged household goods like pots and pans. Landlords are demanding wildly inflated rents from the rich army of foreign aid workers and journalists.

One of Indonesia's biggest tobacco companies has donated food and several tents for refugees, but at the price of a big blue advertising banner hanging on one tent over the homeless people inside.

"Be Cool. Be Confident," reads the banner for the Sampoerna tobacco company, one of Indonesia's largest. If this seems tasteless at best, or exploitative at worst, the people crowded in lamplight on a recent night inside the tent did not see it that way.

"I'm just grateful that they gave us a place to stay," said Nurmala, 39, a woman who has lived for several weeks with her three children inside the Sampoerna tent at the Mata Ie refugee camp here. "They sincerely want to help."

In short, the lines between giving assistance and taking advantage, crime and survival, are all being blurred nearly four weeks after the tsunami hit.

Capt. Afrizal, chief of the criminal section of the Banda Aceh police department, admits to no small amount of confusion. Looting, he said, has become the No. 1 crime problem here, and on Monday alone, police officers arrested 43 people accused of the crime.

But about 300 of the city's 780 police officers died in the tsunami, and for the overstretched survivors to decide who is a looter -- or to what extent people should be allowed to pick up things carried by the waves miles from their owners -- is not easy. "We don't really even know if they are relatives of the people who died or not," he said.

Chapter 363 of Indonesia's penal code carries a quirk that increases jail sentences by seven years for people accused of crime during war or natural disasters -- it includes earthquakes at sea specifically -- and Captain Afrizal said he was determined to uphold the law. But he said that for the moment, with so many people needing money and material goods so badly, the police were arresting only those suspected of serious theft.

"If someone steals a motorbike tire or a lamp from a house, we don't arrest them," he said. The complications grow given that the main jail in Banda Aceh was destroyed in the tsunami -- all but two of the prisoners escaped -- and anyone arrested has to be trucked 25 miles away to the jail in Jantho.

Such moral difficulties here these days were on display at a roadside scrap shop not far from the police station. A man named Sulaiman, 39, who said he lost 7 of his 13 immediate relatives, including his mother and several siblings, offered a scrap dealer an iron gate that he said once protected his motorcycle repair shop. Mr. Sulaiman said he would never pick up something that was not his.

"It shouldn't be forgiven," he said. "We have already been through a disaster, and people are making another disaster" by selling other people's property, he said.

The scrap dealer, Ibrahim, offering about $7 for the gate, chimed in. "It's forbidden," he said, using a word that connotes a sin against Islam.

Still, the test that Ibrahim, who trucks the scrap south to the city of Medan, uses to determine what is looted and what is not might seem loose in other circumstances. "If the person says it is his, then I will take it," he said. A man, Tarmizi, 40, watching the transaction as he waited for a taxi nearby, was skeptical. "These are just people looting," he said. "It is not humanitarian."

Still, business is booming. One scrap dealer, Maward, 34, said he had collected about 220 pounds of scrap a day before the tsunami. Now he is taking in about four and a half tons a day, with aluminum fetching an especially high price, about $4.50 a pound in Medan, compared with about 70 cents a pound for iron.

Standing in front of piles of scrap -- sewing machines, engine blocks, bicycle rims, a noodle maker -- he said he had no qualms taking whatever people bring him. "I would not call it looting," he said. "These things were swept away by the water."

Along Diponegoro Street, a man inside the Pasar Aceh Shopping Center, which was looted and burned last week, said he was looking for gold. He was digging through piles of mud in a watch store he said belonged to his dead brother, though he gave only a halting and sketchy account of his brother's business and his fate. "My brother kept gold in here."

Outside, a man with a cart tethered to a scooter drove off with a mirror, a handsaw and a child's blue umbrella. A dump truck left with a load of refrigerators. A pair of policemen stood guard, the question of what to do apparently beyond them.

"Some of the shops had valuable things inside," said one officer, Masriswan, 24. "Most of it has been taken by the looters. A little of it has been taken by the owners."

Aceh rebels describe effort to aid 'our own'

Washington Post - January 19, 2005

Ellen Nakashima, Aceh Besar -- A rebel commander, Muharram Idris, said he knew the risk when he sent his men down from the mountains on a rescue mission after the tsunami crashed ashore. Evading Indonesian military patrols, they slogged for hours through the mud to the seaside villages closest to their hideouts in the hills, bringing all the supplies they could.

"What we had we gave to the refugees," said Muharram, as he is known, in an interview Tuesday at his remote base. He said what they had was not much -- iodine, bandages and antibiotics, some food and water. But for four or five days after the disaster, members of the Free Aceh Movement provided the first and often the only medical attention available.

They established a shelter and a first-aid station for hundreds of the injured and homeless, according to the rebels and survivors they rescued. They hiked hours back and forth through the sodden wreckage, dodging military patrols.

The rebels finally transported some of the injured to Aceh's provincial capital, Banda Aceh, for medical care, fashioning stretchers out of wood beams and sarongs found in the rubble.

Muharram and his comrades deny they are taking advantage of the disaster to stage attacks, saying they have respected a cease- fire declared by their leader, Malik Mahmud, who is exiled in Sweden. But Muharram said the Indonesian military has patrols in the vicinity of rebel encampments and has tried to draw rebel units into combat.

Guerrilla commanders allowed a reporter to meet with them Tuesday in a mountain clearing surrounded by palm and banana trees that obscured the ruined coastline hundreds of yards below. Six rebels, with AK-47 and M-16 assault rifles, met the reporter and an interpreter and escorted them part of the way.

The path to the remote rebel base, known as Camp C, passed along the coast, still strewn with corpses 22 days after an undersea earthquake and resulting tsunami devastated northern portions of Indonesia's Sumatra island.

More than 10,000 people are reported missing, and at least 700,000 people are without housing. More than 150,000 people were killed in 11 countries affected by the Indian Ocean tsunami.

Muharram, who leads more than 1,000 men in the Aceh Besar district, said most of his men are unmarried and come from fishing villages along the coast. All had lost family members. "We're victims, too," Muharram said, adding that his wife was among those killed.

The Indonesian government calls the rebels terrorists, and last week it imposed reporting requirements on aid workers, citing the rebels as a threat to the volunteers' safety.

But in interviews, Muharram and other members of the rebel organization, known by the initials GAM, said they welcomed foreign volunteers.

"This has been a golden opportunity for us to be united with the people," said Muharram, 30, who wore a camouflage T-shirt and pants and sat cross-legged, smoking a cigarette, during the rare interview.

The red rebel flag, emblazoned with a white crescent and star, served as a backdrop on the tarp-covered wooden platform where he spoke. About 50 fighters were with him at the camp. Muharram, a square-jawed, cleanshaven man, said he joined the rebel organization in 1995 after working construction. He expressed concern about efforts by the military to provoke confrontations, or to capture rebels who come down from the hills.

"We wish to thank the international volunteers who have come into Aceh and given aid to the tsunami victims," he said. "We hope that they will continue to help the people and will not set any time limits on aid."

The rebel relief workers returned upcountry after international relief workers and others began providing resources to the province on a large scale. Rebel leaders said they mobilized after Mahmud issued an order December 27 to begin relief efforts.

"We wanted to help because these are our own people," said Irwansyah bin Muhammad, known by his nom de guerre, Wan Rambo. He is a platoon commander who lost five siblings and his parents in the tsunami and spoke by cell phone from another camp, a day's hike from Camp C.

He and his comrades described hiking for hours to deliver aid through mucky rice fields and around roads blocked by debris that also were patrolled by soldiers who might recognize them.

Irwansyah said he led a team of rebels to several coastal villages whose survivors were stranded on hillsides. One village, Lamteungoh, was his own.

"I was so shocked to see my village completely flattened," Irwansyah said. "When I looked at my house, there was nothing left, only the foundation." He said he did not focus on searching for his family, but on aiding the survivors.

He carried people trapped in water to higher ground and, leading a team of 15 rebels, tended to the injured, splinting bone fractures and cleaning and bandaging wounds. Because they did not have enough medication, some of the wounds became infected, he said.

The rebels and the government have been fighting since 1976, but the conflict is rooted in a history of subjugation dating to the Dutch colonial era of the 1870s.

Until the tsunami struck, the government had closed the province to foreign journalists and aid workers in an effort to block access to the rebels.

But the scale of the tragedy has forced the government to allow in foreigners, including journalists, and the rebels have taken the opportunity to voice their views to an unprecedented international audience.

The guerrillas said they now feel a new connection to the people of Aceh, that they showed their sincerity by their reaction to the disaster. The rebel commanders said their humanitarian efforts were prompted by a sense of duty to the Acehnese people.

Previously, Irwansyah said, direct contact with the people had been difficult under martial law and civil emergency restrictions imposed by the Indonesian government. "The military always broke up the relationship between us and the people," he said.

Muhammad Nasir, a 40-year-old villager from Lamteungoh, said he was among those evacuated by the rebels. Resting on a mat in an elementary school serving as a relief camp, his left leg injured by a jagged scrap of tin roof, he recalled how he was carried there by stretcher. "It was very painful, and so I screamed," he said. "They said, 'Be patient. We're almost there.'"

Nasir, a fisherman whose family died in the tsunami, said he knew some of the rebels, because some had grown up in Lamteungoh. He was not surprised, he said, to see them come to his aid, "because they are my fellow villagers," he said. The rebels moved him three days after the tsunami. "Nobody had helped me till then," he said. "I'd still be on the mountain if it weren't for them. If we didn't get assistance from them, maybe there would be more victims from our village."

The rebel movement is opposed by some in Aceh. Especially in Banda Aceh, where the military conflict has not been as intense, some residents say the rebels have practiced extortion and kidnapping-for-ransom. Human rights groups say the rebels and the government have been guilty of human rights abuses.

The rebels say they continue to honor the cease-fire. They say they respect a gesture from Indonesian military headquarters in Jakarta to also abide by it, but they say soldiers in Aceh have violated orders from central command.

"The soldiers on the ground here keep trying to provoke GAM," Muharram said. "They issue propaganda that GAM is disrupting the relief effort. It's not true."

Although Aceh was once an independent sultanate and the rebels are often described as Islamic separatists, the rebels said their struggle was less about Islam than about autonomy and self- determination.

Muharram said the rebels did not feel any solidarity with militant Islamic groups such as Jemaah Islamiah, which is accused of several major suicide bomb attacks, including the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings. Muharram condemned that attack, which killed 202 people.

The rebels are not sure the lull in the conflict will lead to negotiations or a breakthrough. But they are grateful for the international attention focused on Aceh, they said.

"We would like the international community to impress on the Indonesian government to go back to the negotiating table without conditions," said Teungku Jamaica, a rebel spokesman in North Aceh, speaking by cell phone.

In the meantime, at Camp C, Muharram and his men were awaiting orders. Some sat on green plastic chairs, holding their weapons. One soldier fried food in a tent. A baby goat wandered by. No matter what happens, they said, they'd break camp soon. They never linger in one place. "We're guerrillas, always on the move," Muharram said.

Fighting kills 110 in Aceh

The Australian - January 19, 2005

Sian Powell, Jakarta -- Accelerating hostilities in the tsunami- devastated Indonesian province of Aceh have killed as many as 110 people since the Boxing Day disaster, separatist rebels claim, including more than 80 unarmed civilians.

The continuing clashes have prompted claim and counter-claim from the Indonesian military and the rebels, each blaming the other for the fighting.

Indonesian military spokesman Edyana Sulistiadi said yesterday there had been "many small incidents" between the military or TNI and the Free Aceh Movement, or GAM, and confirmed there had been about 34 clashes.

"The trend is that they are trying to disturb the humanitarian operation," Lieutenant-Colonel Sulistiadi said. "People need supplies -- food, medicine. But we have already made preparations to secure the routes used by humanitarian teams."

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has said he ordered the military to go "into defensive mode" the day after the tsunami hit. "I do not see any disobedience from the TNI toward my instructions as President," he told Time magazine last Friday. "There has been no offensive operation since the disaster."

Lieutenant-Colonel Sulistiadi said no Indonesian soldiers had been killed in the battles, and only one had been wounded. As for rebel casualties, he said no strict count had been kept. "We haven't counted them," he said. "If we count them, then later GAM will blame us."

GAM leader Sofyan Dawood told The Australian yesterday many of the so-called firefights were in fact the Indonesian military firing on civilians.

"They consider them to be firefights and the victims have been recorded as GAM casualties," he said. "The TNI said in total 110 GAM members had been killed, but according to our records it is 20, and the rest are civilians. So it's an old song. If an Acehnese is shot dead, they say they were GAM." The rebel leader claimed only five of the 20 rebels shot dead were armed.

Mr Dawood said the Danish Government's recent warning of a terrorist attack on foreign aid workers in Aceh was ridiculous. "In their heads the terrorists are GAM," he said.

GAM would do no such thing, and the Islamic militants in Aceh for the relief effort did not have the means or the capability for a terrorist attack. "And we would crush them if that happened," he said. "But I am afraid they could do worse than that. They could make trouble with the Acehnese, entering villages to influence the Acehnese not to accept foreigners. They will raise religious issues."

Mr Dawood admitted the rebels were running short of food and basic necessities, which were obtained clandestinely in small quantities from markets. A barn that was full of supplies before the tsunamis hit was now nearly empty, he said. "We have given it to the people -- you can ask the Acehnese who fed them for the first three days."

Militia leader denies targeting Aceh rebels

Sydney Morning Herald - January 19, 2005

Philip Cornford in Banda Aceh, Cynthia Banham and agencies -- The infamous former pro-Indonesian militia commander in East Timor, Eurico Guterres, yesterday denied he had visited Banda Aceh to organise a militia to fight against rebels from the Free Aceh Movement, known as GAM.

The Daily Telegraph in London reported that associates of the former commander had confirmed that Guterres visited Aceh last week and that 900 members of his army-backed militia had assembled in Aceh province.

But Guterres told the Herald from Jakarta that he was confined to the capital while he appeals against a 10-year jail sentence. "I have never been to Aceh," said Guterres, who was convicted of war crimes by an Indonesian court in 2002.

"I would be happy to go to Aceh to help the rehabilitation effort, but not to fight," he said. "But that would require organisation which is beyond my resources."

The British daily quoted Eddy Juliansyah, a native of Aceh who runs the militia's Aceh headquarters, as saying that it had 900 members ready to defend "Indonesian unity".

Since the tsunami devastated the province, dozens of militia members have arrived from all over Indonesia, Mr Juliansyah said. He claimed they were in Aceh to provide assistance for the refugees and to help remove the thousands of bodies.

But instead of reporting to a local military commander, they report to General Adam Damiri, a former military chief in East Timor, the Telegraph said.

One man described being kidnapped at gunpoint by a squad of soldiers and marched into the jungle where he was told to identify rebels.

A spokesman for the Indonesian military denied any knowledge of former East Timorese militia units in Aceh or of any visit by Guterres. "Many volunteers have come to Banda Aceh from all over Indonesia, but to help in the tsunami tragedy. We do not know of any militia units," Colonel Yani told the Herald.

He would not confirm that General Damiri was in Banda Aceh. "Many retired generals have come here to help," he said.

Indonesian police are interrogating two GAM suspects who were captured on Monday by an army patrol in a village 28 kilometres south-east of Banda Aceh.

A self-imposed 24-hour ban on United Nations aid workers travelling from Banda Aceh to the Sumatran capital, Medan, was lifted yesterday.

The head of UN relief operations in the province, Joel Boutroue, said the ban had been imposed because of fears of attacks on aid convoys travelling along the road. "The rumours were about possible attacks on relief workers. It was really nothing, and I repeat, nothing specific," Mr Boutroue said.

Meanwhile, the UN and the Australian Government have not reacted to a Danish Foreign Ministry alert that said Danes should avoid Aceh for fear of an imminent terrorist attack.

A spokesman for the Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, said the Government did not comment on "what other countries do", although he referred to a Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade travel advisory that says Australians should not travel to Aceh unless they were working for a recognised aid organisation that had a security plan approved by Indonesian authorities in place.

The spokesman refused to say whether Australian agencies had received any intelligence about a specific terrorist threat to aid workers in Aceh. "We'd never go into the specifics of intelligence," he said.

Tsunami: For effective relief, end inequality

Green Left Weekly - January 19, 2005

Max Lane -- On December 26, one of the worst earthquakes in a century sent a massive tsunami travelling at 800 kilometres per hour out from an epicentre off the island of Sumatra. This tsunami hit a series of countries around the Bay of Bengal and down to the tip of Sumatra, Aceh. The devastation and death caused by this natural phenomenon has been massive, with more than 150,000 dead. This scale of death and devastation, however, does not actually reflect the scale of the event of nature but rather the monstrous scale of the human-made situation that allowed so much horror to befall so many human beings.

Yes, the movement of tectonic plates does unleash massive forces and, yes, an earthquake registering nine on the Richter scale is big. But with the technology available to humankind in the 21st century, the loss of life should have been minimal. The absence of a warning system for the Asia-Pacific rim is one issue that people have pointed to. This was certainly criminal, especially given that it turns out that there are already seismology centres in most countries. They are obviously not difficult to establish.

But this is the secondary crime perhaps. The devastation and death was so great because the tsunami hit the coasts of impoverished countries that had no defence against the tidal surges. In Aceh, for example, where I have been myself, the vast majority of people live in bamboo or other poorly constructed huts. Most have no phone, no mobile, usually no TV, occasionally only a radio. They have no vehicles -- there is no personal car ownership as in the rich countries.

The material infrastructure of their existence stood no chance against anything like this. Of course, in addition, the gross underdevelopment of their country's economy means that there is no industrial development of any significance. Many Acehnese live at a subsistence level or just above it.

Underdevelopment in countries across Asia is a direct consequence and a continuation of centuries of colonial exploitation and oppression. While the peoples of these countries waged great and heroic struggles to win political independence from their colonisers, they did not win economic independence. Their economies and societies are semi-colomnial in nature and their governments are neo-colonial governments, of one sort or another, especially those of Sri Lanka and Indonesia.

These neo-colonial governments have been kept in power with the support of one or other, or a combination of different imperial powers, who have armed them, funded them and defended them from political criticism and opposition internationally. As political, military and bureaucratic elites that have acquiesced to their neo-colonial status their character is corrupt, rent-seeking and oppressive. They sit at the top of a state apparatus that is distrustful of, alienated from and often hostile to the mass of ordinary people. They serve their own immediate financial interests, mainly those of their pockets, and those of international big capital.

We now have plenty of glimpses of the operations of this state apparatus in Aceh, from the Indonesian journalists in Aceh and from the hundreds of activist volunteers from around Indonesia as well as members of the Acehnese Peoples Democratic Struggle Front, the FPDRA.

The Indonesian army has declared that only half of its forces in Aceh will be used for humanitarian relief, the rest will continue attacks on villages supporting the Free Aceh Movement. In fact, with between 20,000 and 40,000 troops in Aceh, there is little sign of even half of these being allocated to this work. On top of this, there are reports coming in from FPDRA comrades in Aceh, consistent with reports from all the other volunteer activists now in Aceh, that the bureaucratic and elitist nature of the state apparatus hampers the relief movement at every turn, especially in the remote areas.

Supplies are only released to people with so-called correct papers, refugees can't get aid without their ID cards -- most of which were lost in the tsunami. Volunteers are stopped in their work to have the ID cards checked again and again. Refugees are charged for aid parcels or to cross rivers. Aid goods pile up in Indonesian army posts and civilian district head offices or at military-controlled airports. Sometimes even civilian state officials cannot get access. I received one report from an FPDRA comrade in Medan, who witnessed a senior regional government official who had driven across to Medan from West Aceh seeking aid break down and cry when the army people at the airport turned him away for not having the right paperwork.

In First World countries, the citizenry has formal democratic rights, a longer history of modern class-struggle organisation and hugely more developed material base from which to try to hold the apparatus accountable. Also, the socio-economic status of the vast bulk of public servants is more or less the same as most other workers. In semi-colonial countries, the layers of privileged civil servants is much greater due to the heritage from feudal and colonial times and the abject poverty of the peasants and workers. So when a disaster happens, there is still a huge barrier.

The difference this makes can be seen by contrasting the natural disaster mobilisations in a workers state -- Cuba, where more than 100,000 people can be evacuated in three hours, and 2 million in total, as was shown when Hurricane Ivan hit last year. Cuba is just as poor as Indonesia, but it has prioritised public infrastructure, its people's interests and, most importantly, in many cases the people themselves are the state apparatus. In 2002, Oxfam prepared a 48-page report on Cuba's disaster management, widely acknowledged as the best in the region. It concluded: "[The Civil Defense Force, early warning system, well-equipped rescue teams, emergency stockpiles and other resources] are impressive, but if they were the only determining factor, then other wealthier countries such as the United States would have lower disaster death tolls. Thus, it is equally important to consider the role played by other 'intangible' qualities in making the Cuban system work so well.

"These include community mobilization, solidarity, clear political commitment to safeguard human life and a population that is 'disaster-aware' and educated in the necessary actions to be taken in the event of a disaster." The alienation between state apparatus and people in Cuba is so much less. And so the government trusts the people. In Indonesia and Aceh, the people are the enemy.

And so several poor, underdeveloped countries see the impact of an natural phenomenon on the lives of their people multiplied horrifically over what it should be. And then it is screened on television for audiences around the world.

There are contradictions in the response. There is a massive outpouring of solidarity and donations from the mass of ordinary people in the rich countries and disgusting miserliness on the part of corporations and government. You will have all read stories in the papers of the tens of millions donated by ordinary people in Australia, and the miserly donations by the banks and the big corporations.

Now, of course, after an obviously stingy set of initial commitments, the Australian and US governments, have changed tack. In Jakarta on January 9, Australia's Prime Minister John Howard announced "the biggest ever aid program in Australia's history" -- $1 billion for relief and reconstruction in Aceh.

Of course, it is not the biggest ever aid program in Australia's history. It pales into insignificance to the cost of the Australian aid program to the US military in Iraq, and to the US military in Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s and the British military in Malaysia in the 1960s. In any case it is $1 billion Australian dollars over five years, i.e. $200 million a year.

And then, $500 million of this is a loan. Most of the rest is made up of the cost of the Australian military deployments already in place in Aceh. And, chiming in with the US policy, it is a real part of the "war against terror".

It will enable the Australian ruling class to say that the "ingratitude" of much of the world's peoples toward imperialist countries is not because of its policies. "look how generous we are", Howard, US President George Bush and friends are saying.

The imperialist leaderships have seen the opportunity here. For just a few hundred million dollars over several years, sold as a new Marshal Plan, they want to repackage themselves in the eyes of the peoples of the world. The imperialist leaders can see that the massive, incredible donations by ordinary people around the world is indeed a potential threat if it ever developed from sympathy and empathy to political solidarity.

A billion dollars for Aceh will sound a lot to many Australians. And we will face the question from people: how much aid is enough -- $2 billion? $3 billion? How much? The reality is of course that no amount of aid can do away with fundamental inequality. No amount. The only thing that will make a real difference is an end to the continuing imperialist exploitation. There is one key step towards this that we must demand now: the cancellation -- not a temporary freeze -- of Third World debt. The original amount borrowed has been repaid many times and represents the most obvious and immediate way that the First World sucks the life out of underdeveloped countries. Its cancellation is just one step to overthrowing a world order that condemns most humans to despair and poverty.

[This is abridged from a talk given to the Marxist Summer School held by the Democratic Socialist Perspective, an affiliate to the Socialist Alliance, in Sydney in January.]

Aceh tsunami damage is 'truly staggering,' UN says

Bloomberg News - January 19, 2005

The United Nations said the destruction in Indonesia's Aceh province, the worst-hit area in the December 26 Asian tsunami, is "truly staggering" after relief teams reported back to the General Assembly.

Aceh on the northern tip of Sumatra was already hard to access and closed to foreigners for two years because of a separatist rebellion before the tsunami.

Three and a half weeks after the disaster, the UN has only now completed a full assessment of the area.

"In some areas, fatality rates top 75 percent with 100 percent of all homes and dwellings destroyed," Kevin M. Kennedy, Director of the Coordination and Response Division of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said, according to a news release on the agency's Web site. "In one area they've lost in excess of 90 percent of the population."

Indonesia's government said yesterday more than 115,000 people died in the country, mostly in Aceh, the highest toll among 12 nations hit by giant waves that were triggered by a magnitude-9 earthquake off the Sumatra coast.

Indonesia has been fighting a separatist rebellion in the region for nearly 30 years.

Hundreds of thousands of people are still missing though this may be due to double counting or the fact many people in refugee camps are unaccounted for in their homes, the UN said. 'Blowing Opportunities'

About 190,000 people were killed or are missing in the 12 Indian Ocean countries hit by the tsunami, according to figures compiled by governments.

Condoleezza Rice, President George W. Bush's nominee as US Secretary of State, was criticized by a Senator for describing the disaster as a "wonderful opportunity" to show the government is concerned about helping other parts of the world. "I think it has paid great dividends for us," Rice said in hearings to confirm her nomination.

"I was very disappointed in your statement," Democrat Senator Barbara Boxer of California told Rice according a transcript of the proceedings. Rice "blew the opportunity" to show she was the "voice of diplomacy," Boxer said.

The US government, which has sent helicopters and thousands of soldiers to ferry aid to tsunami survivors, has been criticized for not taking into account enough the views of allies and other countries over its invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Stopping counting

Indonesia's government stopped counting the number of people killed, in order to focus more on those displaced and injured, a Social Ministry official said yesterday.

"Vice President Jusuf Kalla ordered us to focus more on the helping of displaced people, curing those injured and finding those missing, not the counting of the dead," Mima Rochima said. The ministry "will still internally do the counting, but may not announce it to the public," she said.

As of yesterday, at least 115,229 people are confirmed dead, while 12,082 others are still missing, Mima said. At least 603,518 people are displaced, she said.

The World Food Program will need military help for three months to distribute food in Aceh province, Anthony Banbury, the agency's regional director for Asia, said yesterday.

The agency plans to increase food distribution by 25 percent to 500,000 people in the next 10 days it said yesterday. It had given aid to 400,000 people as of January 17.

The World Bank today said it may cost as much as $5 billion to rebuild areas in Indonesia's Aceh province, the area most severely affected by the tsunami. The disaster may slow economic growth, the World Bank said yesterday.

The Free Aceh Movement has been fighting for independence for the province since 1976. Aceh, which has strategic importance as the gateway to the Strait of Malacca, is resource-rich with natural gas, oil and timber. The Strait of Malacca is one of the busiest sea lanes in the world with 40 percent of world trade passing through the waterway.

FPI wins praise for collecting the dead

Jakarta Post - January 18, 2005

Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, Banda Aceh -- Dozens of members of the Islam Defenders Front (FPI) moved swiftly out of the pickup trucks as they arrived at the mosque in Ajun residential area in tsunami-battered Banda Aceh.

A brief prayer started their work on Sunday to locate and remove the corpses around the area and to clean up the mosque.

The economy of their movement and distribution of tasks never failed to amaze other groups of body retrievers, as FPI regularly picks up the most corpses, maybe second only to the military, reaching an average of 100 daily since they arrived on December 29.

In a long-sleeved shirt with long pants, rubber gloves, boots and a mask, one of the members leads the 10-member team as "the hunter", while the others wait to retrieve the bodies he finds, then place the remains in bodybags and load them onto the trucks or just leave them on the road for the military to pick up later.

The FPI members always carry out a simple ceremony, which includes a formal prayer for each of the dead, which, according to Islamic rites, is required before burial.

There have been interesting stories about how this laskar (paramilitary unit) has been so adept at removing dead bodies considered impossible for others without special equipment.

Once, according to the stories, six members were unable to lift the debris piled up on a corpse, but then two of their comrades stepped in and managed to remove the body out after they read Koranic verses and appealed to the deceased: "We're here just to help. Please give us a way to make this task easier."

Recently, the FPI were called by residents living near a mass burial ground, who had reported a strange odor coming from a newly dug grave. They began digging into the mass grave where dozens of students and staffers from two nearby Muslim boarding schools in Lhok Nga were buried. They then found that the smell was coming from the newly decaying body of a woman, and the body was in relatively good condition.

They removed the body and gave it a proper burial because the woman, who was recognized as a ustadzah or female preacher at one of the boarding schools.

As is the case with other body removal teams, anxiety, fatigue and nightmares have also attacked the FPI members, who have set up a tent camp inside the Heroes Cemetery in downtown Banda Aceh.

"I don't know what Habib says in his prayers, but they sure do keep us healthy and we never lose our eagerness to find as many corpses as possible each day," Hasril Pasaribu said on Sunday.

He was referring to FPI leader Habib Rizieq, who recently joined the volunteers, who have come from other parts of the country. They have been told that the people who died by drowning in a gigantic tidal wave were considered true martyrs.

"We've been called here to bury them properly," Hasril added. "Besides, the Acehnese wanted all the dead bodies to be buried properly or they think the aftershocks won't stop. We believe that prayer is what helps us through all this and protects us from the diseases we are exposed to as body retrievers," he explained. The World Health Organization has said that following natural disasters, bacteria and viruses from corpses die within 24 hours.

FPI commander Hilmy Bakar Almascaty has arranged working shifts every other day for the members so they would not have to see corpses each day.

"It's bad for them. We're also developing programs for the survivors, such as Koran teachings at boarding schools or giving education to students and orphans at the refugee camps," he said.

FPI is just one of many religious groups working in Aceh, but their presence has raised fears that they are spreading extremist ideas. However, Coordinating Minister of People's Welfare Alwi Shihab said both Christian and Muslim groups were involved in relief operations, and so far there were "no problems" as they were focusing on humanitarian work.

Deadly militia sets up in Aceh

Courier Mail (Australia) - January 18, 2005

Marianne Kearney -- A military-backed militia group responsible for widespread killing and looting when Indonesia pulled out of East Timor has established a base in tsunami-devastated Aceh. The local leader of Laskar Merah Putih, or Red and White Troops, says the group is ready to defend the province from separatists.

The appearance of the group raises fears the military will try to use the militia to sabotage a proposed post-tsunami ceasefire with the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), and to intimidate Acehnese civilians.

Confirmation of the group's presence has come as Australian Defence Minister Robert Hill toured Aceh yesterday ahead of Opposition foreign affairs spokesman, Kevin Rudd. Mr Hill said Canberra encouraged a peaceful resolution to the long-running conflict.

But Mr Rudd was less upbeat, predicting that the outpouring of grief and goodwill following the tsunami may not be enough to forge a peaceful outcome in Aceh. "I think it's fair to say that there is not a whole lot of optimism around the place that this will produce a magic wand which will solve a long-standing problem," Mr Rudd said after a meeting with his Indonesian foreign affairs minister Hassan Wirayuda.

For more than two decades GAM has been embroiled in a civil conflict with Indonesia aimed at establishing Aceh as an independent state.

Notorious East Timorese militia leader Eurico Guterres has already visited Aceh, according to Eddy Juliansyah, a native Acehnese who runs Laskar's headquarters in Banda Aceh. Guterres was charged but later acquitted of crimes against humanity for inciting his East Timorese militia group to kill hundreds of civilians during the 1999 independence ballot.

Juliansyah yesterday said Laskar had 900 members in Aceh ready to defend "Indonesian unity", and said they could draw on a 15,000 membership from across Indonesia. But he said the Aceh wing of the militia group was not armed.

Aid workers wade through minefield of nationalism

Straits Times - January 18, 2005

John Mcbeth -- Nationalism, often tinged with conspiracy theories and a measure of xenophobia, is never far from the surface in Indonesia. Just witness some of the hostile questions United States Ambassador Lyn Pascoe had to field recently from several Indonesian journalists apparently convinced that the American involvement in the international relief operation in tsunami- ravaged Aceh province was driven more by non-humanitarian motives than anything else.

That same nationalism -- and the need to demonstrate that Indonesia is in charge -- also appears to have been the reason for the government's decision to impose a three-month deadline on thousands of foreign troops.

On the surface, it gave the impression the authorities were ungrateful for their assistance, but Defence Minister Juwono Sudarsono has just "clarified" that "March 26 is not a deadline... It is a benchmark for the Indonesian government to improve and accelerate its relief efforts, so that by March 26, a large part of the burden will be carried by the Indonesian government".

Aid workers said it may take at least a year to re-open the once-picturesque 220km road between Banda Aceh, the provincial capital, and the shattered coastal town of Meulaboh. Until that happens, heavy-lift helicopters such as Singapore's CH-47 Chinooks -- which Indonesia does not have -- could continue to play a crucial role in feeding more than 130,000 refugees strung out along the west coast.

Presidential aides said the relocation of the refugees to places where they will be accessible by road and by ship will be important in slowly scaling back the need for foreign military involvement. But after initially saying he wanted all foreign forces out by March 26 or "the sooner the better", Vice-President Jusuf Kalla later informed Western diplomats that the deadline was in fact flexible.

Top United Nations relief official January Egeland had expressed serious concern over the deadline and also possible restrictions on the movement of relief workers, ostensibly to protect them against Free Aceh Movement separatists.

"I am sure the Indonesian government will agree that the most important thing is to save lives and not have deadlines," said Mr Egeland, UN Under-Secretary for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordination.

But the most interesting reaction came from the Indonesian Armed Forces, which has often been cast as the institution most uncomfortable about the presence of foreign military forces. "We need the foreign troops badly," military commander, General Endriartono Sutarto, said in an interview in yesterday's edition of Tempo news weekly. "Australian soldiers, for example, sent a water purifier, along with plastic containers. We can't even afford the containers, let alone the purifier, so should we let our people die because of national pride?"

Gen Sutarto, nearing the end of four years at the helm, indicated his main worry will continue to be getting food and water to the pockets of refugees who survived the tidal waves that carried away entire towns and left the western coast a wasteland. He said: 'I'd rather be fired than ban foreign troops from coming in to do their humanitarian mission. Are we expected to deliver aid from Banda Aceh to Meulaboh by bicycle?"

Foreign helicopter carriers -- from the US, Singapore, India, Australia and France -- are assisting in relief efforts.

Although the Jakarta government has talked of sending thousands of troop reinforcements to Aceh to help in the clean up -- and perhaps give the appearance of reinforcing national sovereignty -- Gen Sutarto startled observers on January 12 by saying that he could not deploy even three battalions because of cost considerations and worries that it would disturb security in other parts of the country.

His suggestion that the work would best be done by the Acehnese themselves appears to have been picked up by the UN Development Programme, which days later began paying 3,000 tsunami survivors US$3 (S$4.90) a day to clear away wreckage.

Aceh was the biggest casualty of the Indian Ocean disaster. Indonesia's official death toll is 110,000, but Jakarta health officials said that with more than 77,000 people unaccounted for, it may eventually top the 200,000 mark. Relief workers fear that thousands of bodies were swept as far as 5km inland and remain buried.

Singaporean, Australian and American officers all said cooperation from the Indonesian army has been exceptional. "As an issue, the deadline has been way overstated," said a senior Australian officer, who tells of receiving a text message from an Indonesian general thanking him for his help.

"The work of the military will probably be over in three months anyway, and it will be up to the United Nations to bring in what is needed. None of this is confrontational to us. We'll go when they want us to go."

It was not so long ago, in the wake of the bloody 1999 independence referendum in then East Timor, that Australian and Indonesian troops came close to open hostilities that would have set relations back decades. Five years on, much of that has been forgotten. The Australian officer said the key to the success of the aid and recovery operation so far was probably getting the Indonesian military to take control, something that has become more apparent than ever in recent days.

Still, nationalism remains an issue, particularly with the Muslim-orientated Justice and Welfare Party -- part of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's ruling coalition -- and other Islamic groups critical of the US role in the Middle East.

International and Indonesian officials are reluctant to point a finger over why ship-borne US marines were forced to scale back their presence on shore to address Indonesian sensitivities and security concerns.

The US aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln that serves as a key base for relief operations had to leave Indonesian territorial waters, reportedly because Jakarta objected to routine training flights by American jet fighters that must go on as part of keeping the flat-top battle ready.

Indonesian government sources insisted it was an American decision to conform with maritime law. Whatever the truth, the re-positioning of the carrier added half an hour to helicopter supply flights.

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

Homeless of Aceh wary of program to resettle

New York Times - January 18, 2005

Jane Perlez and Evelyn Rusli, Kling Meria -- Like many of the hundreds of thousands of survivors left homeless by the recent tsunami, Mohamed Adan, his wife and their six children confront an unpalatable choice about where to go now. But here in Aceh that decision must be made at the intersection of natural calamity and civil war.

The couple has returned several times to the shards of their house, and as they contemplate the landscape of loss, they wonder if they will ever be able to come back. "Who will rebuild it?" asked Mr. Adan, 60, of the brick, tin-roofed home he built with his own hands, where his wife tended a garden of lush mango trees and brilliant bougainvillea.

They could stay in a neighboring village with one of their grown daughters but are afraid of the added burden on her. Or they could go to one of the 24 resettlement camps that the government has started to build for some of the displaced.

But the notion of large numbers of people in close quarters guarded by soldiers raises sour memories -- and some real fear -- in the Aceh region of northwestern Sumatra, where the government has fought an insurgency for nearly 30 years.

In various phases of the long-running civil conflict, the government has herded people into relocation camps, often after houses were destroyed by the army. Under the banner of security, the government used the camps to keep separatist rebels from mixing with local populations.

Some Indonesian aid agencies say the new camps could end up serving a similar purpose, and local people share the concern.

"I am worried that this is another kind of martial law," said Livia Iskander, a psychologist and a member of an Acehnese aid agency, Recovery. "The relocation camps should not be controlled by the military. They should be given back to the community, so people will not live in constant fear."

The government has already begun construction of two resettlement camps, which it prefers to call centers, that it will administer with the United Nations high commissioner for refugees. The first two camps, one near the Banda Aceh airport, will consist of 10 barracks-style buildings made of wood and metal sheeting, said the site supervisor, Adi Putra.

"Of course we will have soldiers there," said Maj. Gen. Bambang Darmono, the officer in charge of the operation.

The United Nations refugee agency says it is not opposed to the army's presence at the camps if it is to provide security and is for the purpose of "law and order," said the deputy representative for the agency in Southeast Asia, Stiphane Jaquemet. But he added, "If it goes beyond that and its purpose is to control the people, we may have questions."

United Nations officials say they are also trying to insist on refugees moving voluntarily to the new centers. "The idea is that there will be no forced relocation," said Michael Elmquist, the head of emergency assistance for the United Nations in Indonesia.

But for those like Mr. Adan and his family there may be little choice. Mr. Adan said he wanted nothing to do with an official resettlement camp -- in part, he said, because he knew that a camp would be a long way from his daughter Masaran. "I would like to stay here near my daughter," he said. "This is my soil."

But Masaran's own resources are depleted. She is already looking after her father's other children. Her house was spared by the tsunami, but her rice field is flooded under dirty saltwater that washed in from the ocean. The field was her only source of support. "I don't feel comfortable living off my daughter forever, but I don't want to move," Mr. Adan said.

One of the concerns of the refugee agency is that the large centers could become permanent features in Aceh, leaving families isolated from their home communities and extended family relationships.

To try to limit the number of people in the new refugee centers, the United Nations refugee agency says it will assist victims whose houses can be repaired. "We will start helping people rebuild their damaged houses by providing materials," said Mans Nyberg, a spokesman for the agency.

To complement the government-built camps, the refugee agency said it had started to distribute 10,000 lightweight tents, made for tropical weather, to provide shelter for 100,000 people.

About 200,000 survivors in Aceh are believed to be living with relatives, and while many prefer that arrangement over moving to one of the big centers, they are clearly becoming an increasing financial burden on their host families.

Mr. Adan's wife, Rusmini, said that with a little investment she could make a go of it for her family in Angan, the village bordering Kling Meria where she and her husband have temporarily settled.

She says she will do everything she can to avoid life in a camp. "I want to own a becak and sell vegetables at the market where many of my friends are," she said referring to the small motorized vehicles that villagers use for transportation. "There is hope for this, but I have no money right now."

Officials of the United Nations refugee agency say it is concentrating on housing for now and has not tackled the question of offering small loans to help survivors get back on their feet.

In the meantime, frictions are emerging in the small villages like Angan that were left unscathed but now have become makeshift refugee centers and must cope with housing the homeless.

Many of the displaced survivors sleep in a small open-sided tin- roofed hut usually used as a public meeting place. A makeshift kitchen has opened on the side of the shelter, and vats of steaming rice are readied at lunchtime.

The 370 refugees staying with relatives in Angan are too much of a burden for the families, said the village leader, Surya Darma. Already it is too difficult for to guarantee a steady supply of relief food.

Most of the food aid that has flooded into Aceh has gone to the makeshift refugee camps, bypassing families that had taken in their own kin, said Mr. Darma's wife, Yulisma, who is the self- appointed aid coordinator. "Maybe there is food from the military and the government, but we haven't received it yet," she said.

Where there is limited food, there is also limited patience. Mr. Adan and his family and the others had better move on, Mr. Darma said, adding, "They should move as soon as possible -- the faster, the better."

[Ian Fisher contributed reporting from Banda Aceh for this article.]

Tetanus begins to take toll on tsunami survivors

Jakarta Post - January 17, 2005

Andi Hajramurni, Banda Aceh -- At least six people in Banda Aceh, including two children, have died of tetanus over the past several days, while 30 others have been hospitalized with severe infections.

Rina Tantri, a volunteer doctor at the state-owned Zainoel Abidin Hospital, said on Saturday the hospital had received at least two tetanus patients every day since it resumed operations last Monday.

"They were admitted here already in poor condition. We have a patient die almost every day," she said.

The Tengku Fakinah Hospital in Banda Aceh is also treating several people for tetanus.

On Friday, Medecins Sans Frontiers said in a statement that tetanus has been detected in at least 67 people. Several patients have undergone surgery to have parts of their limbs amputated to stop the spread of the fatal infection. The surgeries have been performed by a team of doctors from Australia.

Rina said the hospital was being overwhelmed with tetanus patients because tetanus vaccines were still not widely available.

Tetanus was seen as less of a threat to tsunami survivors than diarrhea, respiratory infection, malaria and hepatitis, so medical teams only prepared enough vaccines for people collecting corpses and police officers helping to clear debris from the city.

"We predicted only endemic diseases such as diarrhea and lung and respiratory infections would appear at the camps for internally displaced persons," Rina said.

The head of the national medical team under the disaster coordination task force in Banda Aceh, Idrus Paturusi, said hospitals now had sufficient medicine and vaccines to deal with tetanus.

However, the team expects more patients with tetanus because people continue to return to their destroyed homes looking for the bodies of loved one or trying to salvage usable items.

"They dig through their houses without wearing safety equipment or without first receiving a tetanus vaccine, and they are being exposed to tetanus through rusting nails and pieces of metal," Rina said.

Another doctor, Misnah D Basir, said tetanus had an incubation period of up to 60 days and most people came to the hospital too late.

"We encourage people to come to a medical tent as soon as they suffer an injury while digging through the ruins," she said.

Rebels grieve - now it's back to the fight

Sydney Morning Herald - January 17, 2005

Matthew Moore, Banda Aceh -- Muharram believes the foreign presence in Aceh will help GAM's cause.

Together with his band of 50 warriors, the Acehnese independence fighter watched stunned as the water vanished and then, in horror, when it returned as a thick, foaming mountain. "We screamed, we prayed and we cried," he said, recounting how he and his comrades, hardened enemies of Indonesia, stood transfixed in their jungle perch as the sea tore through the flimsy houses on the mud flats below where they knew their families had no chance.

The fighters of the Free Aceh Movement, called GAM, ran down the mountainside to help but were too late to do anything more than climb through the rubble searching for the dead and missing. They were so overcome with grief, Muharram allowed them a break from their 29-year war to search for their families. He figured three days was enough.

Now all have returned to the tree-covered hills above Banda Aceh to resume their fight. They clean their guns and take shifts hiding in the bushes, just a few kilometres from the capital's and within easy view of foreign warships. They are unable, because of fear of the military, to help their countrymen carry on the search for missing family and friends. They cannot attend remembrance services or share their grief, except with each other.

Muharram, GAM's handsome 30-year-old military commander for the Aceh Rayeuk/Aceh Besar regions that surround the capital, lost his wife to the tsunami. They had only just married. Many of his men lost more. Forty-seven-year-old Hasan Basri, the oldest of the fighters, lost his wife and five children, a typical toll among the guerillas. Only his 12-year-old son survived.

It irks Muharram that despite the biggest aid operation in history, no help has come his way. "We wonder why the TNI [Indonesian military] get help from foreign countries, they get food, they get medical treatment, they get everything but we get nothing," he says after a lunch of buffalo and rice.

He knows the answer, of course. The aid lies in the refugee camps and to get to it risks clashes with the military.

With thousands of overseas troops, aid workers and journalists pouring into Aceh, Muharram and his exiled leaders in Sweden hope the world might at last notice their struggle, which has raged in a province long off-limits to foreigners.

The tsunami has taken many GAM supporters, but he believes it has also brought GAM its best chance to show others the injustices they suffer.

"It's been 29 years we've been fighting and fighting and thousands of Acehnese have been killed, yet still the UN closes its eyes. What we want is for the UN to send a special team to investigate in Aceh, a team to tell people what is actually happening here."

But he knows that is wishful thinking. When asked which country supports GAM's fight for an independent state, he nominates only Vanuatu. And yet he believes the longer foreigners remain in Aceh, the more GAM will benefit. "Indonesia today is afraid that the international aid agencies will find out about the atrocities of the TNI in Aceh and that is why Indonesia set a ... deadline for foreign countries to leave Aceh," he says.

Indonesia's Vice-President, Jusuf Kalla, said last week he expected all foreign troops to be out of Aceh by March 26, but Muharram believes it will soon be widened to include all outsiders.

"Now is our one big chance for us, the Aceh people, to inform, to explain, to show the foreigners the reality in Aceh, what exactly the Aceh people want." Rules introduced under the emergency declared in Aceh in May 2003 banned all contact with GAM. But the minister in charge of aid, Alwi Shihab, told a press conference this month those rules were now suspended to allow the aid operation to go more smoothly, something for which GAM is clearly grateful.

Muharram has been a GAM fighter for nine years, during which there has been only one glimmer of independence, when Abdurrahman Wahid, president from 1999 to 2001, promised a referendum. It never happened -- a national outcry forced Mr Wahid into a humiliating climbdown.

Hasan Basri explains why he left his family eight years ago to sleep with a gun by his side. "It's my own nation, we have our own flag, it's our own Aceh. We don't want to be controlled by those Javanese colonialists."

Although armed with an odd mixture of ageing weapons from China, Russia and Thailand, the troops seem fit and well-disciplined and Muharram insists they have lost only 10 per cent of their number since Indonesia declared martial law and stepped up the fight in May 2003. Even if that is true, GAM's few thousand fighters are hopelessly outgunned by the 40,000 troops Jakarta has committed to the fight.

But this is no simple war, and Acehnese know that GAM and the Indonesian military often work together to squeeze money out of villagers and local businesses. Muharram does not admit that, but he does agree friends in the military sell munitions and sometimes give advance warnings of raids. It is an arrangement that suits both sides.

Muharram is happy to talk about his war, less comfortable with the notion of making peace. He can sense that the tsunami has brought huge change, but is nervous at the suggestion that GAM could suspend its campaign for independence and lay down its arms to allow the aid mission to proceed more smoothly.

"No," he says. "We're sticking to our demand of independence because we have historical and cultural grounds, we have the land, and we have the people.

"Our goal remains gaining independence. As mentioned in the UN charter, every nation has the rights to set their own goal on their own soil. We are a nation, Aceh already existed before Indonesia existed. Now we want independence, and we ask that by using weapons. Indonesia does the same, we attack each other. There is no resolution."

'I dream another wave is coming'

The Guardian (UK) - January 17, 2005

John Aglionby -- Rahmatun is almost inaudible over the drone of the low-flying aid helicopter. Pointing upwards, the softly spoken 14-year-old eventually makes herself understood. "That's what I want to do when I grow up," she says. Her smile implies she is aware that this is not the standard career choice of a devoutly Muslim teenage girl in Aceh. "I want to be a pilot. It would be a great way to see the world."

Rahmatun's ambition and self-confidence are unusual in this largely conservative society, but they are extraordinary given that she became an orphan and lost two siblings on Boxing Day when the Indian Ocean tsunami wiped her village, Bubun, off the map.

Bubun used to be a thriving fishing hub north of Meulaboh on the west coast of Aceh province, but after the earthquake struck and sent 20m-high waves cascading towards the area, Meulaboh was reduced to a collection of 11 mosques. "All the houses were destroyed," Rahmatun, who likes to be called Fitri, says. "I don't know why the only buildings left standing are the mosques, but I am glad because I ran to the nearest one to escape the waves. I climbed up to the first floor as the first wave came through, then I went down again because I thought the danger had passed, but a second wave came, so we all had to rush upstairs again. We stayed there for several hours."

Of the 3,500 people living in Bubun, only 220 survived, Rahmatun says. And as with many of the regions that were blighted that fateful Sunday morning, a large proportion of the surviving children have lost one or both of their parents.

The United Nations' children's organisation, Unicef, estimates that up to 14,000 of the 350,000 people in Sumatra who were displaced by the tsunami are unaccompanied children. Tom Alcedo, the director of Save the Children in Indonesia, puts the high figure down to the exceptional nature of the disaster. "In the chaos of the earthquake and tsunami it was quite natural for people to scatter, panic and become separated," he says. "Some were swept out to sea and dumped elsewhere and many others have just disappeared." Around 70,000 bodies have been buried, but 130,000 additional people remain unaccounted for.

There are genuine concerns that in the confusion, the young survivors might fall prey to child-trafficking gangs. The UN says it has proof of one case in Sumatra and local media, in the first week after the disaster, widely reported credible but unsubstantiated claims of further incidents.

With nowhere else to go and terrified that another tsunami would strike at any minute, Rahmatun spent the first night in the mosque with a crowd of strangers, united in their grief and fear. The following day, her group of several dozen moved a couple of miles inland and built a refugee camp with a gaggle of other survivors.

Among them were five other children who had also just become orphans and, it turned out, were Rahmatun's extremely distant relatives. Ekayanti, 10, with a lazy right eye; Yuli, eight, with a cheeky smile and barely old enough to understand the enormity of what happened; brothers Orizal, 13, and Kasman, nine, who spent hours alone in the water, clinging for dear life to planks of debris before being unceremoniously deposited into the forest at the back of the village; and Rahmat, 12. Rahmat tried to escape the wall of water by climbing a tree, but was ripped from the trunk and had his clothes shredded from his body as he spent hours in nature's equivalent of a washing machine, before being dumped on a ruined house.

"We didn't know what was going to happen to us," Orizal says. "We were sad, we were crying and we didn't know what to do. We had lost our parents, many of our brothers and sisters, cousins, uncles and aunts and had nothing left."

Then Indonesia's almost magical bush telegraph kicked into gear. On the third day after the tsunami, two cars suddenly arrived from Meulaboh, a day's drive away along roads that were barely passable in places, thanks to the shredded tarmac and mountains of strewn wreckage, with yet more distant relatives. One of those cars -- a Suzuki jeep that survived several hours in the water with the loss of only one back light, the air conditioning, the horn and the power to the electric windows -- was driven by Adi. "We had heard rumours that a lot of children might have survived in Bubun, but without their parents, so we thought we should go and have a look," he says. "I was surprised to find so many relatives alive. I thought more would have died. We decided there and then to take them home." The children jumped into the cars and went off to Meulaboh.

Across Aceh, there have been many such acts of kindness as people whose houses survived the tempest ahve taken pity on their friends and relatives and made room in their already overflowing homes. The six Bubun orphans are now living in two groups of three: Eka, Fitri and Rahmat with Adi, and the others with Adi's cousin Mulyadi, a few hundred metres away. As with most homes in the third of Meulaboh that survived intact, the conditions in Adi's home are extremely cramped -- 30 people sleep in a six-room wooden shack with electricity but no bathroom, the nearest fresh(ish) water 200m away across a muddy field, and the wallpaper made of newspaper.

"The house is small and crowded but it is our new home," says Rahmat. "I am happy here. It is better than being in the camp. Anyway, we don't have any choice. We are lucky still to have family who want to help us." Shortly after arriving, the six orphans decided to go for a tour of Meulaboh. "I am glad we did it," says Kasman. "It was amazing to see so many destroyed houses. It was like what I imagine hell to be. But it made me sad. So we have not been back since and I don't want to go again."

Kasman, who idolises the footballer Michael Owen, can't be blamed for not wanting to relive his tsunami memories: the smell of death still hangs over large parts of the town as the corpse- evacuation crews, made up of Indonesian soldiers and volunteers from the capital, Jakarta, struggle to clear the thousands of bloated bodies intertwined in the rubble, which are still lying there.

"We all still have nightmares," Fitri says. "I dream that another tsunami is coming." "I dream that my parents are still alive and then wake up to realise that they will never come back," says Eka, who appears to be the most traumatised of the six. She rarely engages with the others, speaks infrequently unless directly addressed, and has a glazed stare.

The children, who are all Muslims, use their five daily prayer sessions for support. "I know God cannot bring back my mummy and daddy, even though I would like him to," says Kasman. "So I pray that there will not be another tsunami. That is what we don't want, more than anything." The others all nod in agreement.

Now the children want three things: to return to school, to go back to Bubun and (with the exception of Fitri, who prefers volleyball, and Rahmat, who is a chess addict) to play football. Given the state of the infrastructure in this area, none of these wishes is going to be easy to fulfil. "We have no idea how many orphans and other children have come to Meulaboh since the tsunami," says Muhammed Zanussi, an official in the local government education office. "There's no data, so we don't know where to allocate the children.

This is probably going to take several weeks to organise." The data that is available makes frightening reading: 48 primary schools and a couple of dozen secondary schools have been destroyed in the district and at least 150 teachers are missing, presumed dead. Each day the latter figure leaps by at least 20.

Even if they attend the nearest school, the children will have a four-mile walk in each direction as they cannot afford to take public transport. A football is proving equally elusive. "There are no sports shops left," said Adi. "And we need to save our money for food. Life is all about survival at the moment. We have rice, noodles and some vegetables to eat. But no fish and meat, unlike before."

Meanwhile, moving back to Bubun is clearly not going to be possible for years, if at all: 90% of people in the community have been killed and the rice fields are inundated with salt water. But that doesn't stop the children wishing for it. "It's where we were born, it's where we grew up and have lived all our lives," says Orizal. "That's why I want to go back."

Shannon Strother, of Unicef, says that until a long-term solution is reached, the orphans are likely to stay in their new homes. "It's not an easy yes-no answer," says Strother. "It's going to take a long time to come up with the best short- and long-term alternatives. It's important to get children back to school because it gives them some normality; they're in a friendly environment which can help nurture them."

It is also clear that the children just want to talk: about their horrible experiences, about their loss, and about the future. "We need counselling," says Kasman. "But we have not got any help like that yet. I hope we get it soon."

The walking dead

Jakarta Post Editorial - January 15, 2005

In the first weeks of the aftermath of the tsunami of December 26, we were stunned by the severity of the destruction, and thankful for the many small miracles of survival told by enduring residents.

Rizal Shahputra and Ari Afrizal were among the latest survivors found after days at sea -- the latter adrift for two weeks -- surviving on only coconuts. With many of their loved ones probably gone forever, the two only had each other to share while being treated at a hospital near Kuala Lumpur.

Those who survived the giant waves and the injuries during their ordeal, have displayed the strongest imaginable will to live. They join hundreds of thousands of others who continue to strive for subsistence despite knowing full well there is nowhere and no one to go home to. Rizal, for one, has said that he wishes to remain in Malaysia after finding out that most of his family members had perished.

Being alone in the world is the future that scores of survivors now face -- and this makes the degree of any difficulty of "reconstruction and rehabilitation" pale in the face of the work of healing their trauma and sorrow.

Many, including victims in India and Sri Lanka have lost hope altogether, saying they wished they had not survived that fateful morning. Losing one's family, livelihood and home in the space of a few seconds is more than any human being should have to bear.

We hear stories and see news clips of residents walking in a complete daze in Aceh -- their logic shattered, their sense of direction lost.

A pedicab driver in Banda Aceh recounts his severe bouts of depression even whilst transporting passengers in his becak. The sudden remembrance of his wife and five children -- all lost on that fateful tsunami Sunday -- rendering him helpless. The understanding passengers usually look for another becak as they leave the despondent driver frozen still in the middle of the road.

Indonesians have rarely treated patients suffering from mental illness with proper respect. Rather than empathy, mockery is the unfortunate common reaction.

But the psychological burdens of survivors will be an important aspect to reconcile if this nation ever wants to comprehensively rebuild Aceh.

How far psychologists sent to Aceh will be able to help -- even with the help of medical personnel experienced in other crisis hit areas -- is far from clear, perhaps even questionable. Even seasoned aid workers from places like Chechnya and Maluku said the aftermath of the tsunami was nothing like they had ever witnessed before.

The early reports of signs of trauma and depression have only begun to surface.

The spontaneous activity of psychologists like Seto Mulyadi, the head of the National Commission for Children's Rights, and those from foreign and international bodies, along with counselors and therapists from various organizations, should not only be commended, but receive our long term support.

They have correctly raised an important aspect of healing, which most of us could not even conceive unless we ourselves fell prey to such a traumatic experience.

It is a thankless, and seemingly endless, task which gets little attention, yet requires complete sacrifice on the part of the carer.

Just look at one Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) volunteer who is reportedly giving company to a 15-year-old girl who survived the tsunami, but had to have her arm amputated.

Many more will need such companionship and it will consume more time than the ridiculous deadline of three months by which officials say the government will then begin to take over relief operations.

Experts in various fields would be needed -- the surviving fishermen from vanished coastal villages, for instance, must be assisted to start anew if indeed they want to see the ocean again.

This tragedy is unprecedented. Hence our desire to help should also elicit a non-conventional response. Dropping sacks of rice and building new homes is not enough.

A complete panacea -- for mind and body -- should be the top priority for our government instead of fussing about how long foreign aid workers should be allowed to remain in Aceh.

In the mire of Aceh

Hong Kong Standard Weekend - January 15-16, 2005

Vaudine England -- His long flowing hair and tight jeans mark him out as a young intellectual even before he starts talking.

"What are you doing here? Do you have a reason to be here?" asks Didiek Eko Yuana. He is part of a 41-strong team of volunteers from the mainstream Muslim organization Muhammadiyah. A student of international relations in Jogjakarta, the university town in central Java, he is into his second week of traveling in Aceh by bus bringing medical aid, food and friendship to earthquake and tsunami victims.

Didiek, 23, has seen all sorts of things on his first visit to Aceh, which is a very long way from Java. He has helped carry corpses, hundreds of them, bloated and distorted beyond recognition, and stinking horribly.

He has found his Acehnese compatriots, those who survived the earthquake and waves of December 26, huddled in steaming rain under scanty sheeting, scrabbling for food, shaking with trauma.

And he's now seeing a second tsunami -- the waves of foreigners pouring into one of the most sensitive, closed parts of Indonesia.

He approaches me because he's getting worried about all these foreigners. Apparently reassured that I am not an aid worker, nor seeking religious converts, he starts to share his concerns.

"I think it's OK to have these foreign groups. But I hear of problems because lots of organizations are coming and they all have their own interests. And there are so many of them," Didiek says. "It's OK that lots of people want to help the Indonesian people, but this area is still in conflict so it can be dangerous. There are so many competing interests here."

He's expressing a widespread and understandable feeling. In the past few days, the number of foreign aid groups in Aceh, a province with a pre-tsunami population of about four million, has rocketed into the hundreds.

Landing at the airport, on a United States military C130 Hercules cargo plane bringing, say the signs on its cargo, "USAID from the American people," it's clear that a system and control over the aid is virtually non-existent. It feels like landing in the middle of a movie set.

Choppers are constantly whirring overhead, US soldiers are charging around in forklifts, Australian and British chaps in uniform are shaking hands, French "WATSANS" -- water and sanitation experts -- are offloading their tubes. Mexicans, Yemenis, Malaysians, Japanese, Spanish, you name it, their representatives are here in the mud and noise.

Disaster chic is much in evidence. The gum-chewing blonde from Project Hope has found her camouflage khaki pants and beige T- shirt for her flight to Aceh, presumably to blend in better. The reporters from Anchorage, Alaska, here with the US troops flying this C-130, are almost indistinguishable from the soldiers they're covering.

Aid workers have matching outfits, logos to the fore and banners high, as if they were branding their good works. TV crews swish through trailing wires; reporters perched on the bonnets of cars stuck in the mud swear at satellite phones; crates of mystery equipment clutter the tarmac.

Back from the hubbub, around a small mosque with a pleasant sitting-out area, are the Indonesians. Some of the men are preparing to wash before midday prayers. Many are watching all the excitement with bemusement and a growing sense of dislocation. Occasionally, in among the foreign men, and women, a dapper Indonesian air force officer in neat blues can be found.

It's enough to make any nationalist heart beat stronger. And there are many nationalist hearts prone to feeling under threat in Indonesia: a lot of pride and dignity is at stake in the midst of this crisis. "If it feels odd to us, imagine how it feels to an Indonesian," notes a European aid worker.

Typical scenes are unfolding: fleets of white Landcruisers squeezing the poor man's bicycle or rickshaw into the mud; Indonesian soldiers trying to guard a United Nations office being ignored as crowds of aid workers and journalists pile past them into a meeting, the local drivers or translators shouted at by stressed-out foreigners on a deadline.

At this level, it's easy to see how a crisis could blow up anytime soon, when tempers flare between the rich, well-fed do- gooders of the West and the offended, under-funded representatives of the East.

That's why the smarter aid groups, such as Save the Children, which has worked in Aceh continuously for 30 years, or the International Committee of the Red Cross, have no problem with the so-called "new restrictions" handed out by the Indonesian authorities this week. The restrictions require aid groups and other foreigners to get permission from the military before leaving Aceh's major cities.

The government would like to know who is on their territory and what they are doing. Old pros in the aid business agree that the worst problems arise when cowboy outfits of inexperienced donors barge into a place they know nothing about and start disrupting delicate power balances on the ground.

A colonel from Indonesian military intelligence briefed aid groups on Monday and, said participants at the meeting, indicated that the free-for-all in the immediate crisis of the tsunami needed to be brought under control.

So the government requires lists of every foreigner in Aceh, with their passport details. It also wants to be informed of where foreigners are working, when they are taking trips outside the capital and to where.

"The regulations are aimed more at the new groups who the Indonesians -- and frankly some of us -- have never heard of. It's right the government finds out who they are," says an experienced international aid director, who asks not to be named.

At this level anyway, Indonesian wariness about these new visitors pouring into Aceh is only logical and wise. "The tolerance levels out here are usually pretty good, but considering the trauma, things could snap pretty fast. One of our staff has lost 21 relatives, his entire extended family. For sure there will be overreactions to some of the irresponsibility which is arising," says the aid director.

Cecile Sorra, a communications associate for Catholic Relief Services, concurs: "The government recommends it's best not to drive outside Banda Aceh at night, and we agree."

Her colleague Wayne Ulrich, CRS Emergency Coordinator, reckons it's likely that "there'll be incidents -- after all, three weeks ago here there was martial law. Whatever we do in this province, we have to be aware a conflict was under way."

He and other aid experts agree the priority must be to place most decision-making power in the hands of Indonesian staff, and to work in partnership with Indonesian organizations.

"We're notifying the Indonesian authorities of all our field operations, it's a matter of keeping them informed," says Martin Unternaehrer, communications coordinator for the International Committee of the Red Cross. "In a conflict situation we need to know where our teams are going, so these [requirements] don't hinder us. We are working with a system with which we can work."

But this is Indonesia, and a low-intensity conflict between the armed forces and separatist rebels here in Aceh has simmered for decades. As a result, there is another level of negotiation under way -- about who is in charge.

Contrary to most daily news reports, the real jockeying for power is not between foreigners and Indonesians. Foreigners are often mere tools in a competition for power and wealth which is always being played out within Indonesian society. Understanding this domestic power struggle will be key to survival of any foreign organization now working in Aceh, old hands agree.

Nor is this struggle necessarily a war between the armed forces and the separatists, although that will be the excuse used to control foreigners and behind which competition for local wealth-generating opportunities will continue.

Several aid workers with previous experience in Aceh joke that if we believe the figures given by official sources of how many rebels have been killed by soldiers in recent years, then the rebel forces would all have been killed off many times over.

There is simply no independent way to judge the long-running conflict between Jakarta and Aceh. Each side offers propaganda, claiming victories here, and abuses by the other side there. Two years ago, foreign-mediated attempts at a cease-fire and a negotiated settlement (under the auspices of the Henri Dunant Center, now renamed the Humanitarian Dialogue Center) were brought to a halt.

Since then, the only certainty is that a struggle over rich resources -- from oil and gas on the north coast to marijuana plantations in the hills -- has continued, with the Acehnese population ignored and abused in the middle. Battling over the aid largesse now at the disposal of Indonesian leaders -- civilian and military -- is intense and all-important.

And the likely brutality of these negotiations for power will catch some of the foreign aid groups off guard. "There was a large earthquake and then a tsunami here. But the Indonesian government is still the Indonesian government. The armed forces are still the armed forces," an aid worker says.

Veterans of the Indonesian millieu speak loosely of an East Timor scenario. This means that foreigners will be the football played by Indonesian competitors for influence. Security problems will occur -- and will be created -- in order to thin out out the field and gain advantage, and to discredit opponents within the domestic political arena.

In East Timor in 1999, local militias set up and funded by the Indonesian armed forces were used to create conflict, repress the local population and terrorize foreign reporters and aid workers. In Aceh in 2005, local thugs and imported "Islamists" sponsored by shadowy military figures (many of them the same individuals that were involved in Timor) are already present.

It's not hard to see what could emerge: a thwarted local population, a military still able to operate with impunity, an over-bearing foreign presence and a greedy political elite from Jakarta.

The violence in East Timor left thousands dead after the territory voted for independence in a UN-sponsored referendum. The aftermath was brutal.

Despite key differences between the two territories, experienced aid workers fear similar violence in Aceh. "I think it's inevitable actually," says the director of one large aid organization. "Lots of people don't understand the complexities here, of security, religion, culture and trauma -- it all adds up to a volatile mix."

Another international aid worker with a long track record in the country agrees: "Yes, this is the danger. The statements by the army about controlling foreigners here are intended to push civilian leaders back in Jakarta. And the civilian politicians will seek to use the foreigners to extend their own influence against the military. It's a negotiation process, and eventually a compromise will be reached. "But nasty things can happen in the course of those negotiations."

He and other seasoned observers are just waiting for the first "security incident" -- when an aid worker is shot or kidnapped, when a mysterious shoot-out happens close to a foreign office or home.

Controlling security is the army's prerogative and a destabilized environment gives it more room to wield power. That is what happened when the Timorese militias, allied with the military, attacked foreigners in 1999 -- the same military came in pledging to restore order and protect the foreigners.

But "security incidents" might also be created by civilian authorities, to make the army look bad, and to bring more of the goodies now available in Aceh under civilian control.

Deep schisms persist in Indonesian society, between the population center of Java and Aceh, between the military and the civilians, between new president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his hyperactive vice-president Yusuf Kalla. Negotiations across these divides will determine the future shape of Aceh's aid effort.

Looking further ahead, it will determine to what extent the Acehnese will want to feel part of the Indonesian nation.

Already the invective is flying. Radical Islamist groups -- such as Laskar Jihad, which terrorized Christians in the Maluku islands in recent years, or the Majelis Mujahidin, which wants Indonesia to be an Islamic state - are complaining that Acehnese seem to see foreigners as more friendly than their own compatriots.

Some of these radicals are being flown up to Aceh, this time in Indonesian military planes, and are feared as shock troops used by some generals when they want to destabilize a situation.

On previous trips to Aceh, these extremists were told to go away in no uncertain terms. The Acehnese have never needed to be told how to follow their own religion.

It is this pride which helps feed the separatist impulse. A sympathizer of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), at a village near Banda Aceh, says that the community around him is all in favor of GAM but too scared to talk about it. The last thing anyone wants is Javanese soldiers patrolling their homes, he says.

"Everybody here is very careful. People are traumatized and we don't want soldiers here," he says. He fully expects more exchanges of gunfire but assumes they will come from the armed forces. He says the GAM fighters he knows are staying in the hills.

"They will not create incidents because they know this is a national disaster and people are suffering. They also want to protect foreigners."

Analysts have long pointed out that GAM badly needs international support and is unlikely to be the source of attacks on foreigners.

"But there is always the false GAM, the soldiers dressed up as rebels, and they will create incidents until Aceh is destroyed," claims the GAM sympathizer, illustrating the circles within circles that often dominate politics here.

A pro-military friend in Jakarta complains about foreigners setting up "colonies" all over Aceh, blaming the president for letting them in so easily. He says the army is likely to either plan or bumble its way into a security crisis, which will have the effect of scaring foreigners out of Aceh.

Several UN and other aid workers expressed worry too about foreign activists who support the insurgency and are rumored to be using the current opening to visit friends in the separatist movement. "Frankly, that's the last thing we need, people likely to polarize the situation around ideology when we're still trying to reach and feed survivors," says a concerned aid worker.

Almost forgotten, as usual, in the midst of this jockeying for clout and cash, are the Acehnese themselves.

While competition for lucrative road rebuilding contracts ensues in Jakarta, no government work whatsoever is seen on a drive west of Banda Aceh, past the town of Lhok Nga. The road stops at a collapsed bridge, making land access to the impoverished south coast impossible. Mountains of debris are stacked along the same road where mountains of corpses were piled last week.

The dead are still being discovered, mass graves are still filled. Flooded wastelands stretch from sea to mountains with often only a mosque left standing.

A piece of sacking has become a sign pleading for information about loved ones. It is tied to a tree on a beach which once hosted late-night nipa huts good for a drink and a bit of fun.

Three soldiers draped in M16s are chatting with a man collecting scrap iron. A Malaysian team is dispensing medicine under a tent. The Justice Party from Jakarta, a growing Islamist organization, has jeeps here advertizing their widely appreciated emergency work.

But no one's fixing the bridge or the roads, not yet. Locals have thrown together a raft from battered oil drums and stray planks. Homeowners are moving one heap of rubbish at a time. Amid the blackened skeleton of a community, one porch boasts a pink table cloth on a rickety table, a lone statement of hope.

A war for all to see

Sydney Morning Herald - January 15, 2005

Matthew Moore reports -- It is more than 13 years since Max Stahl shot his famous footage of Indonesian troops massacring East Timorese at the Santa Cruz cemetery in Dili. Hiding behind gravestones, Stahl stayed calm as he filmed hundreds of Timorese fleeing a relentless spray of automatic fire, some reaching safety, many falling dead or wounded before his lens.

When Stahl managed to get his dramatic vision out, the brutality of the cold-blooded killings stunned the world and unleashed a flood of condemnation of Indonesia and sympathy for the Timorese.

Looking back over the 25 years Indonesia claimed East Timor, it is hard to think of any other event that did more to fuel international support for East Timor's independence campaign.

Aceh is not East Timor, but there are some striking similarities between the two places where Indonesia for decades fought brutal if low-level guerilla wars to crush independence movements.

Thanks in part to Stahl, Indonesia lost East Timor to the Fretilin fighters and it has long been determined no similar incident will see it lose Aceh to the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM). With thousands of foreign soldiers, aid workers and journalists now spreading out across Aceh, a fear is emerging among Indonesia's leadership that its iron grip there might be slipping.

Sound figures are hard to come by but most believe more than 14,000 people have died since the war began in the 1970s. The Indonesian military admits it has killed more than 2000 people in the past 20 months alone.

Mostly this war has been little reported but after the declaration of martial law in May 2003, journalists were allowed briefly into villages where the army claimed it had "clashed" with GAM.

What they found was compelling evidence of executions, scores of young men shot dead, sometimes with guns held so close they left marks on the skin from the muzzle flash. At the time, the army readily admitted these suspected GAM members were not armed, claiming they had been shot while trying to escape. Witnesses and the evidence told different stories, stories that were reported around the world.

Stung by these reports, Indonesia quickly imposed a ban on journalists visiting villages. In three decades of warfare, no one has filmed one of these clashes, but with so many foreigners now in Aceh, the chances are higher that they will.

This week evidence has emerged to suggest Indonesia is anxious to stop foreigners getting as close to this secret conflict as Stahl did in East Timor. In Jakarta the Vice-President, Jusuf Kalla, said soldiers from more than 30 countries should all have left Aceh by the end of March.

Perhaps three months will be enough time for the visiting militaries to complete their aid tasks and that deadline will not cause problems. But there is no evidence to suggest that's the case. No one has yet done a serious assessment of the size of the Aceh disaster, let alone of what needs to be done to overcome it.

Indeed, after touring Indonesia and other affected regions, the president of the World Bank, James Wolfensohn, said the disaster was so big it could take three months even to work out a reconstruction plan.

The Asian Development Bank estimates the tsunami has plunged a million Acehnese into poverty. About 400,000 are sheltering in schools, mosques and government buildings or hiding from the wet season torrents under plastic tarpaulins.

All down the isolated west coast tens of thousands of people are surviving thanks only to the US navy, whose helicopters are flat out ferrying supplies. Bridges are smashed, huge stretches of road have gone and in Banda Aceh thousands of bodies lie rotting in streets where no serious attempt has even been started to clean up.

But for many nationalists in Indonesia's parliament and the military, the distasteful reality of large number of foreign forces on their soil is still hard to accept. Control of these foreigners is fast becoming a more pressing issue than caring for the tsunami survivors.

The deadline is just one illustration of this. Others include a new requirement for aid workers and other foreigners to register before going outside the capital, Banda Aceh, and the main town on the west coast, Meulaboh.

When an Italian journalist, Bruno Bonamigo, tried this week to get permission to visit Sigli for a story on Medecins Sans Frontieres, he found the shutters were already down. He was refused permission to go to a town all journalists had been largely free to visit since martial law, the Jakarta Post reported.

At a briefing of foreign military leaders on Wednesday, Indonesia's chief of the armed forces, General Endriartono Sutarto, announced other limits on foreign forces that reveal Indonesia's desire for control.

Tourists usually get a 30-day visa on arrival in Indonesia, but the soldiers and sailors conducting aid work will be allowed to stay for only 14 days before having to seek a permit extension. Every plane and ship must have its own Indonesian military liaison officer.

The US carrier Abraham Lincoln was forced to leave Indonesian waters after it failed to get permission for its warplanes to use Indonesian airspace to fly the practice flights which navy rules say their crews must do every 14 days.

And US marines who were going to camp ashore while they carried out clean-up and engineering jobs have scaled back their plans and now spend much of their time on ships because of Indonesian sensitivity about their presence.

Despite these attempts to exert control, hiding a civil war won't be easy, especially with a military and police force that won't necessarily modify their behaviour just because of a tsunami or the arrival of thousands of foreigners. The army and the police are used to bullying the Acehnese, who are also targeted by the rebels.

Neither GAM nor the security forces have adequate sources of income, so both extort money from the villagers. So far there's little evidence the tsunami will make much difference to the way things have been for years.

Take the little town of Cot Leupueng, about 20 kilometres out of Banda Aceh, which has grown steadily poorer because farmers are often too scared to go to their fields in case GAM or the police want money or information from them.

About 5.30am on Wednesday, troops from the Brimob (paramilitary police) post walked through the town shooting their guns in the air for about half an hour. Their aim, they told the villagers, was to scare off six GAM members they believed were in town.

When the Herald visited a few hours later, several villagers who were too frightened to have their names used confirmed GAM members had come down from the hills to get food.

One man we spoke to had lost his only daughter when the tsunami hit Banda Aceh and had come home to his village to deal with his grief. It was not the first time he had woken to the bullets, but he was deeply upset.

"I cannot describe how we feel, we just have this big disaster and then we have this shooting. We are caught between the two sides. Some of the GAM are also our friends and family members but because of them we have this problem." The villagers wanted peace but they felt neither GAM nor the army offered any real prospect. 'The police should help people deal with the disaster, not just walk around and shoot."

On December 27, the day after the tsunami, GAM's exiled and aged leadership based in Sweden promised a ceasefire to allow everyone to deal with the tragedy. It was an effort to show the world the group's humanitarian face, but the tactic flopped when its spokesman on the ground, Sofyan Daud, threatened to resume attacks if the army did not stop pursuing his men.

Since then, General Sutarto has offered his own moratorium to GAM members, promising they won't be punished if they join the aid effort. But no one takes either of these offers too seriously.

It's hard to when The New York Times and The Guardian reported seven villagers were shot by soldiers in the village of Lampook, not far from Banda Aceh, nine days ago, one more sign that the tsunami hasn't stopped hostilities.

Still, some observers believe the presence of so many foreigners and the impending arrival of so much aid money will increase pressure on both sides to resume the peace talks that collapsed before martial law was declared. Some believe that if GAM makes a more substantial offer than a ceasefire, it will force the Government to respond.

Dr Ed Aspinal, from the University of Sydney, thinks the offer of a five-year moratorium on the military campaign would have to be taken seriously. Unless GAM comes up with some clever offer, he believes it risks fading into irrelevance as Aceh is rebuilt by a coalition of the military and foreign aid.

Dr Damien Kingsbury, from Deakin University, said GAM had made tentative overtures to Indonesia's new Government to resume the peace process last year but that the military had no interest in pursuing it and had ensured no progress had been made. "The Government seems to want to find a settlement," he said, "the TNI [military] does not."

In Aceh, Indonesia gets tough

International Herald Tribune - January 15, 2005

Michael Vatikiotism Meulaboh -- Indonesia Almost a month after the tsunami, the town of Meulaboh still reeks of death and misery. As I drove down the main street, named after the great Acehnese leader Teuku Umar, images of Dresden and Tokyo after the firebombings sprang to mind, even after some intensive cleanup. Relief workers are still digging out human remains here and there, and swarms of flies remind you of the presence of the dead.

But now there's a new threat to the poor people of Aceh Province as they pick over the ravaged remnants of their lives with the haunted look of trauma victims. Now that the relief operation is well under way, it's pretty clear that Indonesia, nervous about the thousands of foreign troops and aid workers on the ground, is moving fast to reassert its control over a province that until that fateful day in December was closed to foreigners and under martial law.

"I'm in charge here," said Major General Bambang Darmono, the clean-cut military officer who is the regional commander for Aceh, to a group of visiting Singaporean and Indonesian officials on Thursday. Outlining the late-March deadline for normalization -- and justifying a polite notice for the army of foreign troops to leave by that time -- Darmono said: "From today, we start to put in place a system. No one can go outside this system."

Darmono's three-month plan, counting from the date of the disaster, focuses on restoring infrastructure and managing the relocation of up to some 400,000 displaced people. "We plan to build 24 relocation camps; we will build temporary markets, schools and places of worship," he said. "Our objective is community development."

As good a plan as this sounds, it's hard to see how the Indonesian government, either its civilian or military institutions, can achieve these objectives without sustained outside help. But it was never realistic for the legion of foreign forces, now augmented by 900 troops from Japan, as well as sizable contingents from Australia, the United States and Singapore, to assume they would remain welcome for long.

It's a challenge most acutely felt by the Singaporean commander on the ground in Meulaboh, Colonel Tan Chuan Jin. Here in this most devastated part of Aceh, the Singapore military was the first to hit the ground, five days after the disaster. In an operation that has endeared Singapore to the local people, a combined military force of some 900 personnel brought two amphibious landing ships to the town's picturesque bay, forged a landing so that heavy equipment and supplies could be brought onshore, and used a special plant to distil fresh water from the murky brown soup the local people were wading around in.

"As far as I'm concerned, the Singaporeans can be considered as sons of the soil around here," said an elderly Acehnese man sipping coffee in a recently reopened market on the town's less- damaged outskirts.

But Colonel Tan, who until recently was Singapore's army attachi in Jakarta, has no illusions. "The Indonesian is in control here, so we don't make a move without conferring with them -- it's a very sensitive issue," he said watching a Singaporean medical team minister to Meulaboh's sick and needy, while in the next tent, an Indonesian military-run pharmacy looked poorly stocked and just as poorly attended.

On one level, it is understandable that Indonesia's poorly trained and poorly paid conscripts, many of whom lost family and friends in the disaster, are not the best tools for a rapid relief deployment. Even Meulaboh's pugnacious army commander, Colonel Geerhan Lantara, admits that it took a while before he could organize his men into a coherent and effective relief force -- though he insists that is now happening.

But local people see a stark contrast between the unarmed and businesslike foreign troops from friendly countries, and their heavily armed and poorly organized Indonesian counterparts. In Meulaboh, I saw Indonesian troops mostly patrolling in trucks, manning checkpoints and lolling around piles of automatic weaponry.

All the same, saving Aceh has to be an Indonesian achievement -- if only to elevate the country's badly damaged self-esteem. So as I watched the slick Power Point presentations that promised so many relocation camps and schools and hospitals by the end of the period General Darmono outlined, I was hoping that at least some of it can be achieved, and that foreign help will continue to be welcomed.

If not, as Geerhan implied, the army will have failed the people of Aceh -- and that only means that the tsunami's legacy will be more war, and not peace.

West Papua

Indonesian troops accused of raping children of Papua

Znet.com - January 21, 2005

Andre Vltchek -- Mr. Peter M Baki has been interviewed while attending UNESCO EFA (Education for all) Forum for the Pacific, held in the city of Nadi in Fiji. Interview was conducted on the 21st October 2004.

Indonesian government and military were accused for many years of gross human rights violations in West Papua (formerly known as West Irian). Accusations ranged from rape, torture, kidnapping, extra judiciary executions, murder, forced conversions to Islam, destruction of entire villages and forced resettlement of entire communities.

As was in case of East Timor, majority of Indonesian public remained blissfully ignorant, unaware and uninterested in the issue. Media refused to conduct any in-depth investigation and report on those occurrences.

Interview with Peter M Baki offers important view from the other side From Papua New Guinea, where pain of the victims from the other side of the Border is intensively felt.

Q: Peter M Baki, you often speak about rape, torture and abuse of Papuan children by Indonesian army.

A: Yes, and I am very saddened that I have to speak about it. You know that this is also extremely sensitive issue and I have to be careful when addressing it. Sensitive politically but also because we want to protect the girls; we can't reveal their identity.

Some girls are quite open about what happened to them. At one point, our inspectors discovered that five girls unexpectedly left the school at the border which they were regularly attending. They later returned, all of them pregnant, with marks of violence on their bodies.

Our inspectors who work with the children were repeatedly told this: Indonesian troops come regularly to remote villages. When they see girls they like, they detain them. Families are sent away and girls are held by the soldiers, until they all have forced sex with them. Then the girls are told to remain silent, otherwise the army would destroy the whole village where they come from. That simple: if the girls try to press charges and identify soldiers who raped them, relatives would be killed and entire village could be destroyed. The five girls I mentioned earlier are all in PNG now and we keep their whereabouts secret, in order not to jeopardize their families.

Q: When you talk about the girls who talk to your inspectors, do you have in mind those who commute to your schools across the border?

A: Exactly. Before, Papuan people were always moving freely between two sides of the border, although lately the movement had been restricted. There is no big road in the border area. Two governments were talking about building roads for ages. But until now, there are mainly just dirt tracks, so people can go back and forth.

There are two refugee camps near the border; one of them is called Awian. There are plenty of children there, who came from the other side. I regularly send officers from the Ministry of Education there; to see what can be done. We are encouraging children to go to attend Monfort School there.

Q: Why do the children come to your side? There are schools in West Papua, aren't there?

A: They do have schools, of course. But the people want to stay on our side -- in PNG. Indonesia made some progress without any doubt. They built a road to Jayapura, they built some schools. It's not about that; it's the behavior of the army that is despicable.

Q: How many refugees live there?

A: More than one thousand. But the number fluctuates.

Q: How many people escaped from West Irian to PNG in the last decades?

A: More than 10 thousand. Probably much more; but it's really hard to tell. People look the same at both sides of the border. Some just come and stay and become indistinguishable from the locals.

Q: You mentioned Indonesian soldiers raping girls and then threatening to destroy the villages if they talk about it or press charges. Has it actually ever happen?

A: Next to the border we know for sure about one village that was entirely destroyed. Twenty people were killed and then entire village was destroyed. Children gave horrific testimonies. They had no place to go back to -- finally we had to put them to the boarding school in PNG.

Q: How extensive is the problem? How many girls got raped in the border villages by Indonesian soldiers, as far as you are concerned?

A: We have many, many little children who are telling us: "our sister is not coming to school anymore, because the soldiers took her away." It's so sad and terrible to hear these words. Often they also take their mothers.

Children sometimes come and say: "my mother and sister are not at home, anymore -- last night they took both of them away. And our father had been terribly beaten up." When they are dragging away wives and daughters, men often make desperate attempts to defend them.

One boy told us that his father and brother were killed, because Indonesian soldiers were trying to take away boy's mother and the girlfriend of his older brother. Both men decided to fight, trying to save their beloved women. Both got killed. We checked the report.

Q: How young are the girls that are being "taken away"?

A: We are investigating mainly cases of primary school children. Victims are mostly between 11 and 15 years of age.

Q: Are girls also being tortured, as it was the case in East Timor?

A: Yes. There are burns, cuts and bruises on their inner-ties, on their breasts, everywhere; better not to say it.

Q: How scared are West Papuan women of Indonesian soldiers?

A: Very, very scared. They are petrified. If the bush or leaf moves, children start to run for their life. Adult women are terrified, too; even men.

Children in that area are very tense -- they have developed many mental disorders from what they had to witness or what they had gone through. Often they can't even answer simple questions.

Many of them went through psychological trauma or outright physical abuse. When my inspectors start asking questions, many children start shaking.

Then our teachers and inspectors say: "Don't worry; we just want to know what happened to you. We want to know what you went through, why you can't write properly?"

When our teachers ask the child: "What happened to your sister? Why didn't she come to school?" Children just shiver and often they just cry and cry -- They don't answer; they can't answer. Answers would too terrible to come from the child's mouth.

That's why when we'll go to the border together; you shouldn't ask them right away. Talk to them, play with them; make friends with them first. They have to trust you, especially those who were violated. It will take time before they'll open up, before they'll tell you their stories, before they will show bruises on their bodies.

Q: You may be one of the most distinguished educators in South Pacific. What comes to your mind Peter M Baki when you have to face this reality?

A: I think: I want to prevent it from happening. Sometimes I feel very angry; I want to scream at those Indonesian soldiers who kill and rape children: "if someone would do this to your child in Indonesia, how would you feel?" But then I regain control and say to myself: If they would kill two out of ten children, I still want to help those eight that are alive.

Q: I know that it's hard to estimate, but to your best judgment, what percentage of the girls in the border area gets raped by Indonesian army? A: It's really hard to estimate, but I would say around 10 percent.

Q: In terms of the population, PNG is a small country. Its neighbor -- Indonesia -- has a long history of violence, military rule and extreme brutality towards its own population and towards those who, if given free choice, would undeniably choose independence. Indonesia has 40 times more people than PNG. Do you see it as a danger? Do you fear it?

A: If I would be instinctive, I would say yes, I fear Indonesia. But I hope that even Indonesia will realize that it's a member of the world community; that it's impossible to live by the power of the gun.

The world is now becoming much more integrated and each country has to become more accountable. But it was not always so: when I really feared Indonesia was in the late 60's and 1970's.

Now the only way to solve the problems is to establish positive dialogue. I'm working on it, too; some Indonesians became my good friends.

Q: Is there a racist element in what is happening? It had been reported that Indonesian military doesn't treat local people in West Papua as equal human beings.

A: Those soldiers who come from Papua itself of course treat their people equally. They are from the same race. But from what we know, people from Java often do act in extremely racist manner -- they simply think they are higher race than locals.

Q: What percentage of people from the border region wants independence from Indonesia?

A: Great majority of them. People look at East Timor and they feel there may be some hope. They think there may be a referendum, after all, in West Papua. I work with several people from West Papua and they all want independence.

Almost everyone there is working hard to achieve that goal. Of course I can only speak about those people that I know. I work closely with five West Papuans. All of them want to have their own country. I often tease them: what about joining us -- PNG? No way; they want their own state. So I just laugh: "fair enough; why not?"

Q: But Jakarta doesn't seem to even consider referendum in West Papua. And to work for the independence is terribly risky, isn't it?

A: It is terribly risky and dangerous to strive for the independence there. Not even to work for it -- you have to be very careful whom you talk to. One of my friends who works in Lae town lost his sister -- she disappeared; was taken away. My other friend who lives in Madang can't find his brother and his sister. Maybe they spoke to a wrong person. And there are many, many stories like that.

I was told that Indonesian soldiers once shot three people dead just because they felt that they were not listening to them properly. They killed people just to warn others that this is what will happen if the military will not be obeyed.

I heard many terrible stories, and that's why I decided to get involved -- I decided to help children. That was in 1997-98. I wanted to protect lives of the children. Since then I am trying to do what I can.

I will go back, soon. I will go to the border, to the camps. I will talk to the people; I will talk to children. I keep sending my inspectors, I'm getting reports from teachers, but I haven't been there for a while. It's time to return and to see the reality with my own eyes, again. And if it all continues, I'll go to the Ambassador of Indonesia in Port Moresby, who is my good friend, and I'll express bitterly my feelings!

Q: Peter M Baki, thank you for sharing your thoughts.

A: No, I thank you. Thank you for taking interest in the fate of our children!

Labour issues

Airport workers cancel strike

Jakarta Post - January 20, 2005

Jakarta -- Airport workers in 13 cities, including Denpasar, Surabaya and Yogyakarta, have canceled their plan to strike over the government's attempt to take over the management of their pensions. Instead, they will hold a peaceful demonstration.

In a letter sent to The Jakarta Post, state airport operator PT Angkasa Pura I (AP I) labor union chairwoman Itje Yulinar said the employees would wear black ribbons from Tuesday to Thursday to express their concern over the plan.

"The act is not a strike, nor will airlines' safety services be jeopardized by it," said Itje. "During the act, employees will continue to work as usual." This newspaper reported on January 14 that the workers of the state-owned company had agreed to stage a massive protest three days prior to January 21, when they would go on strike.

At that time, Itje said they would abort the plan to strike if the government no longer intended to transfer the funds to a private insurance firm. Following the article's publication, several airlines and embassies have been calling in out of concern that the strike would disrupt activities and jeopardize safety.

In the letter, Itje said that the peaceful act would continue until an agreement with State Minister of State Enterprises Sugiharto had been issued.

Sugiharto, as reported by the media, has said that he would not approve the fund transfer and would summon AP I's board of directors.

Airports overseen by AP I are the international ones in Denpasar, Surabaya, Makassar in South Sulawesi, Balikpapan in East Kalimantan, Biak in Papua, Manado in North Sulawesi and Yogyakarta, and the domestic ones in Surakarta in Central Java, Banjarmasin in South Kalimantan, Semarang, Mataram in West Nusa Tenggara, Ambon in Maluku and Kupang in East Nusa Tenggara.

Workers demand governor's resignation

Jakarta Post - January 19, 2005

Batam, Riau Islands -- Some 5,000 workers on Batam staged another protest on Tuesday, demanding Riau Islands acting governor Ismeth Abdullah's resignation over his failure to improve workers' welfare.

The acting governor was condemned for not raising the minimum wage in Batam from Rp 635,000 (US$70.5) to Rp 728,000 a month, a hike that the workers had been demanding for the last few months.

The protest on Tuesday almost ended in violence when hundreds of security guards and police officers prevented the workers from entering the governor's office compound in downtown Batam.

Politics/political parties

Reformists challenge Mega's leadership

Jakarta Post - January 17, 2005

Kurniawan Hari, Jakarta -- Several weeks before the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) convenes a national congress in March, disgruntled party members are beginning to flex their muscles to block the reelection of PDI-P leader Megawati Soekarnoputri.

Calling themselves the "PDI-P Reform Movement", the politicians, led by businessman-cum-politician Arifin Panigoro, have proposed radical changes in the party's organizational structure.

"We need to bring reform to the PDI-P, otherwise the party will collapse in the next five years. The most important thing is that we have to control the party leader," the secretary of the movement, Didi Supriyanto, told The Jakarta Post here on Sunday.

He said his group would introduce its anti-Megawati political movement during a discussion at the Syahid Jaya Hotel in Jakarta on Monday.

Besides making changes to the organizational structure, Didi said the PDI-P needed to find the right person to replace Megawati, a former president.

The movement emerged after Megawati lost the presidential election in September to former security chief Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. Under her leadership, the PDI-P received the second most number of votes in the legislative election.

Megawati was elected to lead the party in 1993 when it was still known as the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI). Following intervention by the Soeharto government that led to an internal rift, she changed the party's name to PDI-P. She was elected to a second term as the party's leader in 1998.

At the party's extraordinary congress in 2000, Megawati maintained her hold over the party and was again elected its leader.

The PDI-P Reform Movement has named several possible replacements for Megawati, including her younger brother Guruh Soekarnoputra, Kwik Kian Gie, Laksamana Sukardi, Roy BB Janis, Sophan Sophiaan and Arifin.

The group does not want to kick Megawati completely out of the country's second largest party, proposing her as a possible member of the PDI-P Steering Council -- a new body designed to supervise the work of the party's executives.

The Arifin-led "PDI-P Reform Movement" resembles a recent attempt by Kwik Kian Gie, a former national development planning minister, to introduce change to the party.

Called the "Movement to Purify the PDI-P", Kwik's effort was driven by his anger over what he saw as high-ranking party officials taking advantage of their ties to Megawati for their personal benefit.

Kwik has frequently blamed these officials for Megawati's defeat in the presidential election and for the party's failure to win the legislative election. Didi acknowledged similarities between his group and Kwik's movement.

However, Meilono Suwondo, who has been campaigning for reform in the PDI-P for the past three years, was not optimistic the new movement could bring substantial change to the party.

"This idea for reform within the PDI-P has been initiated only two or three months before the congress. I doubt it will bear fruit," said Meilono, who added that he was invited to attend Monday's discussion.

Responding to the movement, PDI-P deputy secretary general Pramono Anung Wibowo said it was normal for a party to have internal factions.

"It is part of the political dynamism inside a party. The PDI-P cannot be led solely by one group," Pramono told the Post.

Speaking at an anniversary event for the party last week, Megawati urged her supporters to beware of money politics ahead of the congress, which will be held in Bali.

Government/civil service

Vice presidential office circular annoys House

Jakarta Post - January 19, 2005

Kurniawan Hari, Jakarta -- A vice presidential office circular criticizing recent hearings between the government and the House of Representatives has received a strong reaction from legislators, who said it could harm relations between the two state institutions.

The circular, which was signed by vice presidential office secretary Prijono Tjiptoherijanto and issued on December 27, said the hearings between the House and the government were often filled with disproportional statements aimed at discrediting the government. It was circulated among Cabinet members and heads of government agencies and institutions.

The circular also claimed that legislators often ignored the government's answers to questions they asked.

House Speaker Agung Laksono demanded that the government clarify the circular immediately to avoid creating tension between the executive and legislative bodies.

"The circular could disrupt relations between the government and the House. It needs immediate clarification from the government," he said after a three-hour meeting with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to discuss the planned reconstruction of tsunami-hit areas in Aceh and North Sumatra here on Tuesday.

Agung did not receive a copy of the circular but said he was shocked when Alvin Lie, a legislator of the National Mandate Party (PAN), raised the issue at a consultative meeting.

"I regret it [the circular]. The circular has belittled the House and could harm the relations between the government and the House. However, the President has promised to settle the issue immediately," Agung said.

Agung doubted that Vice President Jusuf Kalla was behind the circular's issuance, although according to Prijono the evaluation was based on a briefing by the Vice President.

Separately, legislator Alvin Lie said after the meeting that he felt uneasy about the circular, which he said humiliated the House and criticized its performance.

"The circular implies that all hearings at the House are not important and are a waste of time. We, as legislators, are irked by this circular," said Alvin.

Alvin said that although copies of the circular were supposed to be delivered to the President, the Vice President, the Cabinet secretary and ministers, not all had received one.

"The President knew nothing about the circular when I read it [to him] and the Cabinet secretary claimed he had not received a copy," he said.

Having received much criticism about its performance in the past, the legislative body is working hard to repair its tarnished image. For a start, it is instilling discipline among its members. The House's disciplinary committee is currently grilling 10 legislators for skipping three consecutive meetings, a violation of House rules.

Legislator Arifin Panigoro, one of the 10 legislators, recently announced his resignation from the House.

Corruption/collusion/nepotism

Local government corruption running rampant, says ICW

Jakarta Post - January 19, 2005

M. Taufiqurrahman, Jakarta -- Corruption is widespread throughout the country's 32 provinces, with the tsunami-devastated Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam province being among the worst offenders, an anticorruption watchdog has revealed.

Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW) said in its year-end report on Tuesday that the much-vaunted local autonomy program, which was designed to ensure a greater say for local government jurisdictions in running their own affairs, had been hijacked by local administration big-wigs to enable them to feather their own nests.

Between January and December last year, 432 corruption cases had been uncovered in the 32 provinces, which cost the state an estimated Rp 5.3 trillion (US$580 million), it said.

Four provinces in Java -- Jakarta, East Java, Central Java and West Java -- registered a total of 179 corruption cases.

Aceh, which was shattered by a December 26 undersea earthquake and a subsequent tidal wave, was ranked sixth with 21 cases of corruption, while South Sumatra was one place ahead of it on the roll of shame. A lack of legal certainty due to the imposition of martial law and the subsequent state of emergency there prior to the calamity had contributed to the increase in corruption.

Huge sums of money were poured into the province to finance a massive military operation against the Free Aceh Movement (GAM).

In the wake of the tsunami, further large amounts of money have being earmarked for the province by the international community and the Indonesian government for relief operations and subsequent reconstruction programs.

The newly-established province of Gorontalo registered only one case of graft.

"The figures, however, are merely the tip of an iceberg of increasing corruption, especially in provinces outside Java, where civil society and non-governmental organizations don't have enough resources to uncover corruption cases," the ICW report said.

The absence of a credible media also hindered the uncovering of corruption cases.

The ICW based its conclusions on media reports and information given by concerned citizens.

Berlin-based Transparency International (TI) said in its latest report that out of 146 countries surveyed, Indonesia was the fifth most corrupt nation after Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ivory Coast and Georgia.

The ICW's report found that members of local political elites -- be they governors, regents/mayors or councillors -- were the most culpable in stealing money from the public.

"Local councillors were found to be involved in 124 cases of corruption while local leaders were implicated in 83 cases of graft," it said.

ICW spokesman Adnan Topan Husodo said that unbridled corruption at the local level was the result of relaxed oversight by the central government since the introduction of the Local Autonomy Law in 2001.

"The central government has failed to keep corruption in check following the rolling out of local autonomy," he said.

Corruption culture in spotlight as aid billions pour in

Agence France Presse - January 16, 2005

When delegates at a tsunami aid world summit in Jakarta tucked into beef, lamb, chicken and swordfish even as Indonesians scavenged for food on demolished coastlines, it was perhaps a sign that not all funds raised for victims would reach those who needed it most.

Now with 10 billion dollars of aid on the table, at least half of which is earmarked for Indonesia, there are concerns that such a tasty cash windfall will be nibbled away as it passes through greedy bureaucratic hands.

Indonesia bore the brunt of the magnitude-9.0 quake and tsunami, losing huge tracts of coastline and entire towns. Reconstruction is expected to last for years and require most, if not all the aid that is offered.

But before the December 26 disaster that killed 110,000 of its citizens, Indonesia was already battling a tide of corruption that has long blighted the country's wheezing economy.

As help pours in from all directions with bookkeeping brushed aside by the urgency of the situation, many fear that the Southeast Asian country's toxic proclivity for syphoning off cash may already be taking effect.

"It's only a matter of time," Todung Mulya Lubis of corruption watchdog Transparency International Indonesia told AFP. "I haven't heard any example yet, but coordination is very weak so I won't be surprised when it happens."

Transparency International ranks Indonesia in its top 10 of worst offenders, with an ungovernable reputation for kickbacks, collusion and bribery that has scared away badly needed foreign investment.

Aceh's governor Abdullah Puteh is behind bars at the moment, accused in a helicopter purchase embezzlement scam worth 100,000 dollars -- a paltry sum compared to the 35 billion allegedly amassed by former dictator Suharto.

New President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who has described his country's lack of probity as the laughing stock of Asia, said after the disaster that the misappropriation of relief funds would not be tolerated.

"It's a very serious problem," according US ambassador to Jakarta B. Lynn Pascoe, who says Indonesia will receive a substantial part of 350 million dollars promised by the United States.

Despite the concerns, there are indications that the Indonesian government is taking steps to prevent corruption as it strives for credibility on an international stage upon which it is a relative newcomer.

William M. Frej, the official US Agency for International Development mission director for Indonesia, said that government officials had hired accounting firm Ernst and Young to monitor the grants it would receive.

"We have every reason to believe that all the finance that will be channeled to this country will be utilised in a very open, transparent way, that there will be a certain amount of governance involved with it," he said.

Welfare Minister Alwi Shihab said the government would also throw its books open to further inspection. "We welcome reputable public auditors to see, inspect and inform the government if there is any malpractice in the process," he said.

Others see the tsunami distribution as a test case that Indonesia cannot afford to lose if it wants to retain the help of the United Nations in overcoming the worst disaster in the country's history. "The pressure will be strong on Indonesia. If it does not stop embezzlement, the UN will bring its fist down on the table," said one western diplomat here.

Some Indonesian government officials, however, believe that it is perhaps the United Nations that requires scrutiny, particularly in the wake of a scandal over its tainted "oil-for-food" programme in Iraq. "As we know, even in the United Nations there is a lot of corruption, and we should be careful about this," commented Secretary of State Yusril Ihza Mahendra.

Transparency International's Lubis warned that unless Indonesia laid all its cards on the table, the country could lose the cash even before its corrupters get the chance to skim it off. "Donors want the money to go to the victims, and if there is no transparency and no accountability, it is conceivable that they will not be bringing aid into Indonesia."

New ruling pledges retribution in kind for corrupters

Jakarta Post - January 15, 2005

Kurniawan Hari, Jakarta -- High profile corruption suspects will surely have difficult times ahead as a new anti-graft ruling currently being drafted by the government will not only allow authorities to detain them from the start of probe, but also will allow the state to immediately confiscate their personal assets.

According to the draft of a government regulation in lieu of the Anticorruption Law, a copy of which was obtained by The Jakarta Post on Friday, the amount of wealth that can be confiscated by the state is equal to the size of financial losses suffered by the state.

Furthermore, a graft suspect will not be allowed to transfer his or her personal wealth to relatives immediately after he or she is suspected of a crime. The graft suspect or those linked to the corruption case could also be banned from traveling abroad.

For investigation purposes, investigators may seek information on the wealth condition of the suspects from banks or other financial institutions.

The government has been drafting the regulation as part of efforts to fight the rampant corruption in the country.

As previously reported, the ruling would only apply to high profile corruption case involving state losses of at least Rp 50 billion (US$5.3 million). Corruption suspects will be immediately detained by the authorities at the start of the investigation until a final verdict has been issued by the Supreme Court to prevent them from fleeing the country -- a regular occurrence with many suspected corrupters.

The government considers corruption an extraordinary crime, requiring extraordinary measures.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who promised a serious fight against corruption during the presidential campaign, is expected to meet with the House of Representatives leaders on Monday to discuss the draft.

According to Article 3 of the draft, anyone accused of corruption valued at Rp 50 billion or more, would face a maximum penalty of the death sentence and a minimum sentence of five years in jail.

The corruptor may also be fined, the amount equal to the amount of state loss or at least Rp 1 billion.

According to the regulation, any government official or institution that receives Rp 10 million or more from other people must prove that the money is not a bribe. If the gift is less than Rp 10 million, it will be the duty of the state prosecutor to prove that it is a bribe.

Investigations into alleged graft cases could be launched by a team of investigators and state prosecutors under coordination by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).

For investigation purposes, the team can launch a raid, confiscate property and tap phone conversations without a permit from a district court.

Within three days after any of the above actions, investigators must inform the head of the district court.

The detention of graft suspects can be made directly, without a permit from his/her superior.

Under the draft government regulation, the investigation, the prosecution and the trial of graft cases must have be finished within 90 days.

The investigation must be finished no later than 40 days, the prosecution must be made within 20 days, and the trial process must be no more than 30 days.

An appeal to the Supreme Court must be made no later than five days after the verdict is handed down. The Supreme Court will issue the final verdict no later than 30 days after that.

Human rights/law

Rights activists welcome Indonesia chairing UN rights body

Jakarta Post - January 19, 2005

Adianto P. Simamora, Jakarta -- Several human rights campaigners welcomed on Tuesday the appointment of Indonesia's Makarim Wibisono as a new chairman of the UN Human Rights Commission and asked the government to soon take action to improve the country's human rights record.

Coordinator for Indonesia's NGO Coalition for International Human Rights Advocacy Rafendi Djamin said that Makarim's appointment could be used as good momentum for Indonesia in advancing human rights.

"Being appointed to chair such a top position, the government needs to utilize this momentum to improve its human rights image on the international level," Rafendi told participants of a seminar on human rights issues.

He said that the new chairman had to explain Indonesia's position on several international issues.

At home, said Rafendi, the government had to show its commitment to resolving the "residual problems" on a number of alleged human rights violations, such as the Tanjung Priok affair and East Timor massacre and the death of prominent rights campaigner Munir.

Makarim, the Indonesian ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, was appointed on Monday as chairman of the UN Rights Commission. He succeeds Ambassador Mike Smith of Australia.

The job, which lasts for one year, traditionally rotates among ambassadors of the five geographical groupings in the United Nations.

Makarim had been proposed by the Asian group of UN members and was appointed by consensus among the 53 commission member nations, ranging from Argentina to Zimbabwe. Other current members include Brazil, Britain, China, France, India, Pakistan and the United States.

This year the annual session of the commission -- the top UN human rights watchdog -- will open on March 14.

Loubna Freih, spokeswoman for the advocacy group Human Rights Watch was quoted by the Associated Press as saying that she hoped Makarim would "be as fair a chairman as possible." Freih added that Indonesia's own record also need to be scrutinized.

Campaigners have long cited rights abuses by Indonesia's military in regions across the country, including the war against the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM) in Aceh. They also point to abuses by the military in West Papua and in East Timor.

Indonesian authorities have rejected claims of human rights violations, saying that the security forces were obliged to take action against separatists to protect the country's territorial integrity.

Meanwhile, Executive Director of the Institute for Policy Research and Advocacy Ifdhal Kasim expressed concern over the efforts of several member countries to terminate the monitoring function of the UN Human Rights Commission.

"One critical task for Pak Makarim is to reactivate the monitoring team of the Commission as many member countries want to terminate it," he said.

Indonesian ambassador appointed to chair UN Commission

Associated Press - January 17, 2005

Geneva -- The Indonesian ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Makarim Wibisono, Monday was elected chairman of the UN Human Rights Commission despite concerns by some campaigners that his country has done too little to tackle its own abuses.

The chairman can exercise considerable influence in scheduling of sensitive issues and debates during the six-week commission session each spring. Often the chairman has to work as a mediator to find common ground among member governments, who sometimes bitterly disagree on the most controversial issues.

Loubna Freih, spokeswoman for the advocacy group Human Rights Watch, said she hoped Wibisono would "be as fair a chairman as possible."

The job, which lasts for one year, traditionally rotates among ambassadors of the five geographical groupings in the United Nations. He succeeds Ambassador Mike Smith of Australia, a member of the Western Group.

Wibisono, a seasoned diplomat, had been proposed by the Asian group of UN members and was appointed by consensus among the 53 commission member nations, ranging from Argentina to Zimbabwe. Other current members include Brazil, Britain, China, France, India, Pakistan and the United States. This year the annual session of the commission, the top UN human rights watchdog, opens March 14.

It is expected to ponder the perennial questions of human rights in individual countries, including China, Cuba, Nepal and Sudan's conflict-ravaged Darfur region.

Freih said Indonesia's own record deserves scrutiny. Campaigners have long cited abuses by Indonesia's military in breakaway regions of the country, including Aceh, where the tsunami that struck last month compounded the impact of years of conflict. They also point to abuses by the military in West Papua and in East Timor in the decades before it won independence in a UN- supervised referendum in 1999.

Indonesian authorities have rejected claims of human rights violations, and said that the security forces are obliged to take action against separatists to safeguard the country's territorial integrity.

Focus on Jakarta

Thousands flee floods in Jakarta

Straits Times - January 20, 2005

Devi Asmarani -- Thousands of residents were forced to flee to safety while traffic flow in Jakarta was disrupted. Jakarta's main Ciliwung River overflowed after heavy rain flooded densely populated neighbourhoods in north, west and east Jakarta.

Media reports said the water was chest-high in some of these areas, forcing people to flee to higher ground. Thousands of residents sought refuge at public facilities such as schools and mosques.

Jakarta officials said they will provide more than 300 makeshift shelters to accommodate displaced residents.

At Jakarta's main flood gates, near the city centre, water reached 910cm yesterday afternoon compared to the normal depth of 500cm, Detik.com Internet news site reported.

In Lampung at the southern tip of Sumatra, three people died after floods hit three regencies in the province.

Open, green space continues to shrink

Jakarta Post - January 19, 2005

Jakarta -- Environmentalist Ahmad "Puput" Safrudin blasted the Jakarta administration's policy to allow aggressive conversion of open and green space in the city into building premises, citing that the disappearance of the space contributed to the worsening air quality in the city.

Puput said on Monday in a hearing with City Council Commission D for development affairs that the administration halved the required space for open and green areas to only 13.9 percent out of the city's total area of 650 square kilometers by 2010. In 1999 there was between 26.5 percent and 31.5 percent, as in line with obsolete Bylaw No. 5/1984.

Another environmentalist Ari Muhammad said ideally the city should be at least 25 percent green space to curb air pollution.

Fees raised to keep cars off the street

Jakarta Post - January 15, 2005

Jakarta -- The city administration plan to triple the price of on-street parking is aimed at encouraging motorists to keep their vehicles at home in order to ease traffic congestion in the city, an official says.

"We hope there will be less cars on the streets if we impose high parking prices, and people will use more public transportation," said deputy head of city parking operator BP Parkir Bambang Rahmanto after a meeting with the City Council's Commission C for financial affairs.

Executives of BP Parkir were summoned by the commission on Friday to shed light on the planned parking hikes.

Currently, the price of on-street parking is Rp 1,000 (US$0.1) per hour. The new price will be Rp 3,000 for the first hour and Rp 2,000 for each following hour.

Governor Sutiyoso also agreed to the plan on Friday, saying that the current price was way too low compared to other world cities. He claimed that New York had prices of US$10 per hour (about Rp 90,000) for such parking.

Deputy chairman of Commission C Pria Ramadhani said councillors had not made a decision on BP Parking's requests, saying that more meetings were needed to discuss various issues, including efficiency in operation of the company.

Currently, there are around 4.5 million vehicles in the city, mostly private cars. The administration blames the large number of private cars for the traffic congestion.

Bambang said the planned hike of on-street parking was part of an overall traffic master plan, which includes the three-in-one traffic policy imposed along the busway corridor from Blok M in South Jakarta to Kota.

"If we earn more revenue from the price increase, it will be good," he added.

According to Pria, city revenue from on-street parking should reach Rp 19 billion this year.

If the proposal is approved, the city may earn Rp 29 billion from on-street parking. Meanwhile, the city budget has allocated Rp 17 billion for BP Parkir.

News & issues

Flooding drives people out of homes in Kalimantan, Sumatra

Jakarta Post - January 17, 2005

Jakarta -- Flooding over the past week around the country drove people from their homes and damaged infrastructure and crops.

Hundreds of people in Palembang, South Sumatra, who live on the banks of the Musi River had to seek refuge after the river burst its banks and inundated their houses.

"It is very frustrating, the water just comes and go almost every day. We are tired of cleaning up the mud," one Palembang resident, Cek Inten, was quoted by Antara as saying on Sunday.

More severe flooding was reported in Muara Enim, Ogan Komering Ilir, Musi Banyuasin and Prabumulih regencies.

In South Barito, Central Kalimantan, residents living on the banks of the Barito River have been tested by over a week of flooding.

Floodwaters have submerged homes and the road connecting two neighborhoods in the capital of the province.

The local administration has distributed aid for residents affected by the flooding.

South Barito administration spokesman Jumadi said packages of rice, cooking oil and sugar were being distributed to families in seven villages.

In the neighboring regency of North Barito, flooding has submerged paddy fields.

Floodwaters also have damaged government buildings, school buildings and community health centers.

Faced with a possible harvest failure, rice growers in the area have demanded the local government write off their loans.

In Lampung, intense rain over the past several days has lead to flash flood, damaging a highway connecting the province with the neighboring province of South Sumatra.

Parts of Tulangbawang and Way Kanan regencies were still underwater on Sunday. Flooding in the regencies has killed at least two people.

Damage to eight kilometers of highway in Tulang Bawang regency has forced authorities to divert traffic. Motorists are being advised to take a detour through Way Kanan regency.

The heavy rain has caused concern about the possibility of landslides along the highway.

"In the past week, there have been eight reports of landslides," local official Taufiq Hidayat said as quoted by Antara news agency.

Sumatra and Kalimantan are among numerous islands in the country hit by flooding in the past several months.

NGOs up demand over Indonesian spies monitoring

Jakarta Post - January 17, 2005

Eva C. Komandjaja, Jakarta -- The need for the government to set up a special body to control and monitor the performance of the State Intelligence Agency (BIN) has become urgent, a police/intelligence ethics activist has said.

The call comes amid the arrests late last week of seven BIN agents on suspicions of producing counterfeit banknotes. Among the suspects is Brig. Gen. Zyaeri, a retired senior police officer and head of the BIN special division for counterfeit eradication.

Rashid Lubis, chairman of non-governmental organization Police Watch, told The Jakarta Post that intelligence agencies, including police intelligence, were untouchable because of the nature of their work and authority.

"[BIN agents] do everything in secret, so nobody can monitor exactly how they're doing their jobs," Rashid said over the weekend.

BIN, the highest intelligence agency in the country, is bound to secrecy for the sake of their agents and national security, and it is difficult to keep watch over its agents as to whether they are investigating or committing a crime. The intelligence field seems vulnerable to abuse, as was evident in the latest case. The police busted a counterfeit ring and found that it involved one of BIN's top officers.

"According to the draft Intelligence Law, members of the House of Representatives are assigned to monitor and control the movement of BIN officers. However, it seems that our friends at the House has not performed this function at all," Rashid said.

He urged the government to set up an intelligence commission, comprised of individuals knowledgeable about intelligence, to control and monitor the country's intelligence bodies.

"Just like the police, which is to have a police commission comprising police experts, we should do the same with intelligence agencies such as BIN," Rashid said.

Separately, National Police fraud squad chief Brig. Gen. Andi Chaeruddin told The Post on Saturday that they had no other suspects in the counterfeit case but the seven BIN agents.

"We have enough evidence to charge the seven suspects," Andi said. Andi still refused to reveal when the counterfeit operation was set up and the exact location of the operation, claiming that these aspects were still under investigation. It is rumored that the operation started four years ago in West Java.

Aid & development

Confusion prevails over debt moratorium from Paris Club

Jakarta Post - January 17, 2005

Urip Hudiono, Jakarta -- The public debate continues on how Indonesia should respond to the debt moratorium offer from the Paris Club creditor countries, as the offer itself is still vague in what it implies.

In its official statement last Thursday, the Paris Club announced an immediate debt repayment reprieve for countries devastated by the recent Asian tsunami disaster, to allow them to prioritize more resources for humanitarian and reconstruction needs.

The immediate debt moratorium will start until the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have made a full assessment of the countries' financial needs, after which each country can then ask for a further moratorium accordingly.

Debate, however, has continued as the scheme does not specify how long the assessment would take, which debts would be exempted during the assessment, and whether the terms and conditions for the possible moratorium beyond that period would still be seen as an exceptional case in relation to the disaster.

The government itself has decided to play it safe by considering the offer first and saying it would prefer grants over a debt moratorium, which could affect Indonesia's creditworthiness and put the country under another IMF program.

Several analysts, however, still insist that the government should seize the moment to push for a debt reduction, as well to help free the country from its current debt trap.

Economist Sri Adiningsih from the Yogyakarta-based Gadjah Mada University said the Paris Club's decision to be more specific about the debt moratorium only after an assessment shows that they would not give a package that exceeds the amount of damages suffered by the tsunami-stricken countries.

"It therefore depends on how the government can negotiate the debt moratorium's terms and conditions," she said.

Commenting on the fact that a moratorium would only mean shifting the repayment of debts to a later time, Adiningsih suggested the government should request that the payments be spread over a span of at least 10 years with a reduction in its interest, without ruling out the possibility of debt swap schemes.

Voicing a similar opinion, Bustanul Arifin from the Institute for the Development of Economics and Finance (Indef) said that a debt haircut would be more useful for Indonesia.

Bustanul, however, agreed with the government's decision to carefully consider the debt moratorium offer first before accepting it.

"The government must of course be prudent and really prepare their negotiations to get the most out of the debt moratorium offer," he said.

Economist Rizal Ramli meanwhile questioned the competence of the IMF in conducting the assessment.

"IMF's expertise is in planning fiscal and monetary policies, not in assessing damages," the former coordinating minister for the economy said. "Couldn't we do the assessment?" As the debates continues, the fact remains that Indonesia is in dire needs of debt relief -- be it in the form of a writeoff, haircut or even a moratorium. A study by the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas) shows that, if no relief is provided, it would take at least 10 years for Indonesia's foreign debt to reach a "safe level", which could be translated into a debt to gross domestic ratio (DTO) of 40 percent, and a debt to service ratio (DSR) of 25 percent.

Indonesia's foreign debt currently stands at US$78.25 billion, with a DTO of 55 percent and a DSR of 37.5 percent.

Health & education

Drug industries slammed over pricey products

Jakarta Post - January 20, 2005

Jakarta -- Despite a health ministry circular instructing pharmaceutical industries to "self-assess" the prices of their products in order to make them more affordable to the public, most drugs remain beyond the reach of the poor, according to the Indonesian Health Consumer's Empowerment Foundation (YPKKI).

The foundation said that the health ministry issued a decree last month, addressed to the directors of pharmaceutical companies, calling on them to "reappraise" their prices, following on public criticism about the high prices of medicines.

"But the manufacturers have not complied. They argue that prices should not be regulated. Instead, they have demanded that prices be determined by the market," said Marius Widjajarta, chairman of YPKKI.

Marius said that prices for medicines in Indonesia remained high, not because of high raw material costs, but rather due to other expenses such as marketing and promotion.

"The price of medicines in the market at present is double the cost of production," said Marius. "Around 300 percent [of total production costs] are spent on promotion, such as organizing conferences to introduce new products to doctors and placing advertisements in the media," said Marius, who is a member of the Team for Drugs Pricing Evaluation, which operates under the coordination of the health ministry.

He also said that supposedly cheaper generic medicines have not overcome the problem. "The price of generic drugs here is still higher than in other countries," Marius said.

Sutoto, the director of Fatmawati Hospital added that people are still reluctant to take generic medicines as many doubt their effectiveness. He said the number of consumers of generic medicines was higher in other ASEAN countries.

"In other countries the consumption of generic (medicines) could reach 30 to 40 percent, while in Indonesia, I think it's only 10 percent," said Sutoto, who said that 60 to 70 percent of medicines used in his own hospital are generic.

Marius also blamed the pharmaceutical industry for not supporting the use of generic drugs. He said that the industry had not complied with the ministry's regulation released in August last year, which stated that producers must attach the word "generic" to the labels of such drugs.

"According to the regulation, the word 'generic' should be capitalized and stand out above the name of the product. But the manufacturers have not complied with the regulation; they are afraid that their product will be considered cheap by the public," said Marius, referring to the fact that many people associate cheap products with lower quality.

Number of people with HIV/AIDS doubled 2004: NGO

Jakarta Post - January 20, 2005

Abdul Khalik, Jakarta -- The recorded number of people living with HIV/AIDS in the capital doubled from 12,000 in 2003 to 24,000 in 2004, the Greater Jakarta AIDS Care Forum says.

Medical doctor Adi Sasongko of the Kusuma Buana Foundation, one of the forum members, said the sharp increase was partly due to the government's lackluster campaign against HIV/AIDS and sex workers' weak position to force clients to use condoms.

"The figure released by the Ministry of Health also shows that the number of people living with HIV/AIDS increased from around 1,200 in 2003 to 2,500 in 2004," he announced at a press briefing in Kebon Baru, South Jakarta, on Tuesday.

While acknowledging that previous underreporting may have contributed to the sharp increase, Adi said the government appeared hesitant to apply prevailing regulations, such as strict policies on using condoms and syringes, which was partly to blame for the increase.

"Probably because prostitution is illegal, many houses of prostitution claim to be massage parlors and they don't want to admit that sex transactions take place on their premises, and hence, no condoms needed," he said.

Adi warned that if the government continued to pretend that everything was under control, the number of people living with HIV/AIDS would soar. He added that civil servants also pretend there is no AIDS problem in their areas.

According to data provided by the forum, at least 2.2 million people in Jakarta are at high risk of contracting HIV. Most of these people, including prostitutes and their clients, spouses and their children and drug users are active in the entertainment industry.

"Little promotion has been done [by the city administration], while many nurses do not understood how to treat people with HIV/AIDS. In many hospitals, nurses will immediately become antipathetic once they know that they are dealing with people with HIV/AIDS," he said.

Forum member Nita, who deals with brothels on a daily basis in West Jakarta, agreed with Adi, saying that around 360 brothels in the area recruited doctors who are not qualified to deal with AIDS. The doctors give antibiotics injections to sex workers. "They hire any doctor to boost their image as a healthy brothel to attract customers. We don't know whether the needles used are sterile or not," Nita said. Such doctors should have a permit from the government to treat sex workers, and should use new syringes to inject each patient.

Adi said the current practice was very dangerous because it gave the false impression that the women were medically clean. "They don't know if they have contracted HIV/AIDS because they don't check their health. Instead of having antibiotics injections, sex workers should check their health regularly," Adi said.

Military ties

Parliament continues to urge US Congress to lift arms embargo

Tempo Interactive - January 16, 2005

Mawar Kusuma, Jakarta -- The People's Representative Assembly (DPR) is to continue urging the US government to lift the arms embargo on Indonesia. This was revealed by the chairperson of the DPR's defense commission, Theo Sambuaga, to Tempo when contacted by telephone on Sunday afternoon, January 16.

Sambuaga revealed that the parliament strongly supports the government's efforts to have the embargo lifted. According to Sambuaga, the US's reluctance to lift the embargo is because the US Congress has an erroneous view of the Indonesian government. "They worry that the armaments purchased from America will be used for the wrong things", he said. In fact the aim of procuring weapons is in the interest of regional security, training and defense of Indonesia's territorial boarders.

The DPR will therefore, continue to urge and try to convince the government and the US Congress that this is an erroneous view. "At every opportunity we have lobbied and [tried to] convince the American government [of this]", said Sambuaga. But so far these efforts are yet to bear fruit.

According to Sambuaga, to date the majority of Indonesia's armaments have come from the US. Including F16 jets and Hercules transport planes. Because the embargo has gone on for so long, the government has already diversified its source of purchases, particularly over the last two years.

Sambuaga said that with the disaster in Aceh the US government should be able to see the deficiency of Indonesia's weapon systems. Particularly for carrying out maritime security, on its boarders as well as its air space. Moreover transport equipment and patrol boats are severely lacking.

[Translated by James Balowski.]

US ties and challenges to peace in Aceh

Asia Times - January 21, 2005

Abigail Abrash Walton and Bama Athreya -- Aceh, so long isolated from international view by the Indonesian government and military, is now -- tragically -- at the center of world attention.

Members of the US Congress and their staff, United Nations officials, journalists, and humanitarian aid workers have arrived on the scene after years of blocked access. These shifts offer the administration of US President George W Bush and other actors an unprecedented opportunity for peace-building and enhancement of human security and stability in a region dominated by violent conflict for decades.

This report analyzes three key factors in responding effectively to the challenges of emergency aid and reconstruction efforts as well as long-term sustainable development and conflict resolution: 1) the role of the Indonesian military (TNI) in aid delivery and in ending the ongoing conflict; 2) the differences between Aceh's indigenous insurgents (Free Aceh Movement or GAM) and newly arriving extremist Islamic militias; and 3) the role of ExxonMobil in the province.

Shortsighted US opportunism in the face of disaster?

In the aftermath of the massive earthquake and tsunami that devastated much of Aceh, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is pushing yet again the Bush administration's frustrated desire to strengthen ties with the Indonesian military over the well- grounded objections of the US Congress, as cemented in US law.

In his trademark Orwellian rhetoric, the secretary argues that such a move is essential to winning the "global war on terror". This myopic logic ignores the numerous reports documenting the Indonesian military as a de facto terrorist entity with a long track record of undermining human security in Aceh and other parts of Indonesia as well as near-daily news reports about the TNI's control-happy undermining of emergency relief efforts.

Indeed, the US State Department's 2003 Indonesia country report notes, "Security-force members murdered, tortured, raped, beat, and arbitrarily detained civilians ... Human-rights abuses were most apparent in Aceh ... however, no security-force members have been prosecuted for unlawful killings in Aceh ... Retired and active-duty military officers who were known to have committed serious human-rights violations occupy or have been promoted to senior positions in both the government and the TNI."

The TNI is also a massively corrupt institution, relying on its private business interests for an estimated two-thirds of its annual budget. The TNI's businesses include illegal logging, drug production and trafficking, and prostitution, as well as "security" payments, viewed by many as extortion, from Indonesian and US businesses. ExxonMobil reportedly pays the military about US$6 million per year for "security" at its Aceh natural-gas operations; Louisiana-based Freeport-McMoRan Copper and Gold Inc paid the Indonesian military and police at its West Papua mines $10.7 million during a recent two-year period. These relationships with the TNI have cost US multinationals and their shareholders both in terms of reputation and financial liabilities resulting from associated TNI human-rights abuses.

New legislation requires the TNI to abandon its economic activities within the next five years -- a crucial yet challenging undertaking that will require consistent backing by the international community to Indonesia's civilian reformers, not the business-as-usual stance proffered by normalization of military relations.

When will policymakers grasp the common-sense wisdom "With friends like these, who needs enemies?" Attempting to build working relationships with human-rights abusers with agendas and interests of their own is a long-failed policy that costs lives rather than saves them. US support and assistance -- financial and political -- are best channeled to civilian-led emergency aid, good governance, and development programs.

The political landscape and the threat to aid delivery

Because of its territorial command structure, which gives it bases of operation from the village level up, the TNI would in theory be the best-placed Indonesian institution to provide disaster relief. However, the TNI cannot play an effective leadership role in disaster relief and reconstruction for numerous reasons. Its brutal reputation, gained during years of unfettered human-rights atrocities against Aceh's civilians, has hindered the TNI's effectiveness by casting grave and well- founded suspicion on the military playing any sort of unsupervised or managerial aid role.

By severely restricting the movements of aid workers and unilaterally setting an arbitrary March 26 deadline for the departure of US and other foreign troops assisting with disaster relief, the TNI has further lost credibility as an institution capable of meeting the needs and challenges confronting disaster survivors. Instead, the TNI's overriding mission of destroying the estimated few thousand GAM fighters in the region -- and the TNI's interest in sustaining the conflict so as to continue to profit from the region's war economy -- constitute a conflict of interest that irreparably undermines aid work.

In recent days, the international press has reported that foreign aid workers to Indonesia will be restricted to two areas: Banda Aceh and Meulaboh.

The Indonesian military has claimed that it cannot guarantee the safety of foreigners in any other part of the province, alleging GAM might at any time attack foreigners in other parts of the province. The alleged GAM threat is a red herring, meant to prevent foreign aid workers, journalists, and other observers from witnessing the TNI's ongoing military offensive in Aceh's inner regions even since the disaster of December 26 or from hearing the stories of survivors of pre-disaster human-rights abuses.

GAM has issued statements declaring a unilateral ceasefire (though fighters in the field say they will return fire if the TNI strikes first) and also declaring its intent not to fire on civilian aid workers of any nationality. Adding to the credibility of these statements is the simple fact that GAM members believe that a foreign presence throughout Aceh ultimately benefits their cause.

While GAM has indeed engaged in violence against Indonesian forces and, on occasion, civilians in the past, the group has no record of aggression against foreigners. It is important for international audiences to understand that anti-foreign, violent Islamic elements do exist in Indonesia, but these forces are not GAM. There are a number of other extremist Islamic groups that operate in Indonesia, although historically these groups have had no presence in Aceh.

However, within the past several weeks, the Indonesian government and military have facilitated the movement of these extremist groups into Aceh. It is crucial for the international donor community to recognize the past role of the Indonesian military in aiding and abetting such groups, and the present interest the military may have in maintaining such groups' presence in Aceh as a proxy base for its military operations against GAM.

In fact, the TNI has a documented record of using proxy militia groups to engage in violence in East Timor and elsewhere. A 2002 study for the US Naval Postgraduate School notes that the Indonesian army has become "a major facilitator of terrorism" due to "radical Muslim militias they ... organized, trained, and financed". The study adds that the military gave one terrorist group an estimated $9.3 million "embezzled from its defense budget".

According to a Congressional Research Service report first released in 2002 and updated in 2004, "Radical groups such as Laskar Jihad and the Islamic Defenders Front ... received assistance from elements within the Indonesian military in organizing [and] securing arms and transport to locales throughout the Indonesian archipelago."

The Islamic Defenders Front -- known for its violent attacks on Jakarta nightclubs -- as well as Laskar Mujahidin, the security wing of the Majelis Mujahidin Indonesia (MMI), have established a presence in Aceh reportedly to support Islamic law and tradition in the region during aid relief efforts there. MMI once was headed by Jemaah Islamiah (JI) leader Abu Bakar Ba'asyir, who is currently on trial for his alleged role in the 2002 bombing of a Bali nightclub in which 202 people were killed and a 2003 blast that killed 12 people at the JW Marriott hotel in Jakarta. JI reportedly also is responsible for a 2004 bombing at the Australian Embassy in Jakarta.

In maintaining a coherent position in promoting peace in the region, governments and other institutions providing disaster aid should not shy away from protesting the entrance into Aceh of outfits with a documented history of violence.

Corporate good citizenship: ExxonMobil in Aceh

Multinational corporations based in Indonesia, including ExxonMobil, Newmont and Unocal, have given generously to assist relief efforts in the region. However, in view of the unparalleled and, in many ways, destabilizing role that ExxonMobil has played in Aceh over the years, it is incumbent on the corporation to do more.

ExxonMobil currently faces a multimillion-dollar lawsuit, filed by the Washington, DC-based International Labor Rights Fund (ILRF) on behalf of Acehnese villagers who were tortured and murdered by the TNI on ExxonMobil's premises.

Concerned about its investments, the city of New York has filed a shareholder resolution with the US Securities and Exchange Commission calling on ExxonMobil management to report on the details of the company's financial relationship with the TNI.

What did ExxonMobil do? The Arun gas field in North Sumatra is one of the world's largest sources of liquefied natural gas (LNG), and Exxon Mobil Corp (originally Mobil Oil Corp) has had a contract with the government of Indonesia since 1969 to process LNG from this site.

There have been credible reports that ExxonMobil Corp, along with its predecessor companies, hired TNI military units to provide "security" for the company's Arun project. The result has been TNI-perpetrated torture, murder, rape, and other acts of terror against the local population. In some cases, the TNI used ExxonMobil equipment or facilities to conduct the torture and to dispose of those killed. For example, one of the plaintiffs in the ILRF case was "disappeared" for a period of three months, during which time he was repeatedly beaten and tortured with electric shocks. He was then taken to an open pit where he was shown a large pile of human heads. He was told that he would be killed and his head would be added to the pile. He was eventually released, but soldiers burned down his home thereafter. Another plaintiff, who was several months pregnant, was raped and beaten by a soldier who forced his way into her home.

These examples are typical of the stories of dozens of innocent civilians living around the ExxonMobil area of operations.

The ExxonMobil facilities were not significantly damaged by the tsunami, thanks to concrete barriers that had been erected long ago to protect the site. The company's gas-extraction operations are ongoing, and ExxonMobil personnel reportedly are continuing to work in the area without problems.

However, despite the announcement of a $5 million donation to relief efforts, the company has been silent regarding its own role in facilitating relief operations in the Lhoksumawe area. The Indonesian military has denied access to Lhoksumawe to foreign relief workers, supposedly on the grounds that the TNI cannot protect foreigners' safety in that area, but no such restrictions have been placed on ExxonMobil employees. ExxonMobil owns its own airstrip at the site, but it is unclear whether the company has offered to make it available to facilitate aid delivery by humanitarian workers or whether ExxonMobil intends to provide meaningful assistance to reconstruction efforts.

The company owes far more to the people of Aceh than a mere $5 million donation. ExxonMobil reportedly has extracted some $40 billion from its Arun gas operations during the past decade alone, including earnings of an estimated $2 billion annually in recent years. ExxonMobil's role as a major player not only in Aceh, but also in terms of Indonesia's national economy and the other US-based multinationals operating there, makes the company a stakeholder with unmatched clout. (ExxonMobil executive Robert Haines serves as chairperson of the US-ASEAN Business Council's Indonesia subgroup and led a high-level delegation to Jakarta early last month to meet with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and other top-ranking government officials.)

The company should use its resources and influence to advocate that foreign aid workers be given access to the area, facilitate their transport and delivery of aid and, on a broader scale, encourage the Indonesian government to move toward a ceasefire and resumption of peace talks with GAM as an absolutely vital condition to aid delivery and long-term security throughout the province.

Conclusion and recommendations

To ensure that the response to the tsunami contributes to both short-term relief and long-term peace and security for the people of Aceh, the Bush administration must support Indonesian efforts at strengthening the country's civilian democratic governance and military reform. Above all else, this means ensuring that in the immediate and near term, the TNI plays a limited, non-managerial role in relief efforts. For example, Indonesian military personnel could usefully employ the TNI's logistical infrastructure to provide transport of aid under the direction of local civilian government and Indonesian and international humanitarian organizations.

The Bush administration should support efforts by the UN as well as international and local humanitarian organizations to provide long-term reconstruction assistance in Aceh. For recovery and reconstruction to be effective, fighting in the region must end. The task of building peace in Aceh is complex but, at a minimum, the US and other members of the international community must prioritize a ceasefire between the TNI and GAM, insist on demilitarization of the province, and once again vigorously support peace talks. Indeed, Germany has explicitly linked its massive aid pledge to President Yudhoyono's stated commitment to pursue a peaceful solution to the conflict in Aceh.

As the largest debtor among the countries hit by the tsunami, Indonesia puts roughly 25% of its annual revenues toward debt repayment to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and wealthy countries such as the United States and Japan. The Bush administration should support an immediate, interest- free debt moratorium and the convening of an International Debt Conference.

A moratorium will enable the Indonesian government to undertake emergency aid and reconstruction planning; a conference is needed to develop an effective and comprehensive approach to Indonesia's massive $132 billion external debt burden, much of it accrued during the corrupt, 32-year regime of ousted military dictator Suharto. Coordinated by an independent institution such as the UN Development Program, and based on independent research, the conference would assess the sustainability of current debt repayments with respect to immediate disaster relief as well as the country's overall poverty reduction and development goals. These measures should enable the Indonesian government to meet the new challenges of effective emergency aid and reconstruction without having to enter into more debt slavery or by escalating exploitation of Indonesia's unique and sensitive natural environment.

To combat terrorism effectively, the US arguably needs the friendship of Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation. Aceh's natural disaster offers an unprecedented opportunity for enhanced long-term human security. The way to achieve these goals is not by building ties with the very elements that engage in destructive violence there. It is by demonstrating that the United States is ready to contribute materially to peace- building, sustainable development and democratic reform.

[Abigail Abrash Walton is on the faculty at Antioch New England Graduate School and has monitored conditions in Indonesia since 1993. Bama Athreya is deputy director of the International Labor Rights Fund. Both are regular contributors to Foreign Policy In Focus.]

US debates new links to Indonesian military

Asia Times - January 19, 2005

Jim Lobe, Washington -- Aside from improving Washington's image in South and Southeast Asia, the administration of US President George W Bush is hoping to achieve something more concrete from its aid efforts in the aftermath of the December 26 tsunami that killed more than 175,000 people along the coasts of the Indian Ocean.

In particular, it is reviving its hope of normalizing military ties with Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, whose strategically located archipelago, critical sea lanes and historic distrust of China have long made it an ideal partner for containing Beijing.

Since early this month, US sailors have been working with the Indonesian armed forces (TNI), as well as national and international humanitarian groups, to rush relief supplies to the hundreds of thousands of people whose homes and livelihoods were destroyed in Aceh province. Another 100,000 are believed to have been killed by the tsunami.

The site of a long-running secession movement, Jakarta closed off Aceh to foreigners 18 months ago as part of a major counter- insurgency campaign. But the disaster is now seen as having created the possibility for a military rapprochement between the Indonesian and US militaries, whose ties were cut after the TNI and militias organized by it rampaged through East Timor in 1999.

Despite reports of serious human-rights abuses by the army in Aceh, the Bush administration would clearly like to renew those ties, beginning with training programs designed to restore the once-close personal and professional relations between the two militaries.

"Cutting off contact with Indonesian officers only makes the problem worse," said Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, who served as US ambassador to Jakarta in the 1980s, during a visit to Indonesia early this month. He stressed that the advent of Indonesia's first directly elected president, retired general Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who received extensive US military training himself, makes this a particularly opportune moment.

The feeling is clearly mutual, particularly within the Indonesian military. However, divisions also exist between reformists, who want to make the institution more professional, and more traditional elements, who see the military as a means to gain political power and amass wealth.

Wolfowitz and his allies at the Pentagon depict Yudhoyono and his civilian defense minister, Juwono Sudarsono, as reformists whose influence on the TNI could be enhanced by the full restoration of relations.

"I think if we're interested in military reform here, and certainly this Indonesian government is and our government is," Wolfowitz told reporters in Jakarta on Sunday, "I think we need to possibly reconsider a bit where we are at this point in history going forward."

But critics in the United States find the administration's new drive to restore ties both somewhat unseemly, in light of the tsunami disaster, and very premature.

In addition to reports that some TNI units have not only been lackadaisical about getting relief supplies to those who need them, but may also be selling some of the emergency food aid that has been rushed to the region, they point to renewed efforts over the past two weeks by senior officers to reassert control over foreigners in the province as evidence that the military cannot be reformed as presently constituted. Rights activists here have also charged that the TNI has withheld food and other relief from civilians suspected of supporting the secessionist insurgency, the Free Aceh Movement (GAM).

Indeed, the government announced last week that soldiers must accompany all international aid workers outside the capital, Banda Aceh, and Meulaboh, the hardest-hit coastal city, to protect them from the rebels. This despite the fact that GAM has guaranteed the security of all aid workers, including US and other foreign troops, working in areas where the insurgency was active.

"The TNI is reverting to its usual behavior, partially reinstating recently loosened restrictions on aid workers and journalists," said John Miller, spokesperson for the East Timor Action Network (ETAN), which has strongly opposed the restoration of military assistance to Indonesia for more than a decade.

He also charged that the military had facilitated the entry into Aceh of "Indonesian jihadists" -- whom Miller identified as the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) and Laskar Mujahadin -- under the guise of providing emergency relief, a charge that is certain to make an impression on a Congress that proved surprisingly resistant to Bush's efforts to get restrictions on US military cooperation with the TNI lifted during the his first term.

Last week's declaration that all foreign troops should leave Indonesia by March 26 was also seen as inspired by the more conservative and nationalistic forces in the TNI. Although the civilian government distanced itself from the deadline, the move was taken even by right-wingers in the US Congress as motivated by a still-powerful and resentful army that does not deserve renewed US military aid and cooperation.

The TNI's performance in Aceh to date, according to Dan Lev, an Indonesia expert at the University of Washington in Seattle, has been less than impressive and demonstrates that Yudhoyono, Sudarsono, and the new army chief, General Endriartono Sutarto, who is also seen as a professional, "have a lot of work to do in reconstructing both the Indonesian state and the TNI".

"On the ground," Lev said, "the US servicemen are doing what needs to be done," but Wolfowitz' and other US officials' public statements about renewing the relationship at this time have been largely counter-productive in terms of Indonesian public opinion.

"It signals to Indonesians that this was a political response as much as a humanitarian one, and shows them that the American government is simply opportunistic," Lev said. "Given the suspicion about American purposes, the Bush administration really ought to shut up for a while."

As for restoring links with the TNI, Lev said Congress is right to insist on the government first enacting thorough-going reforms, including drastically reducing the size of the army, shedding its economic interests, and ridding it of its territorial commands. Washington should also work harder for a political settlement in Aceh where "the military's efforts to resolve a political problem with military force just makes things worse", according to Lev.

There has been some evidence in recent weeks that the government has explored the possibility of resuming negotiations with GAM that were broken off in 2003, but the TNI is believed to oppose those efforts.

Congress first voted to restrict Indonesia from receiving International Military Education and Training (IMET), a State Department-administered program, in 1991, after a massacre of civilian demonstrators in East Timor by Indonesian troops. Ties were severed altogether in September 1999.

Despite lobbying by the administration, Congress extended a ban last November both on IMET and on certain kinds of military sales to Indonesia until a number of human-rights conditions were met. In the early stages of the humanitarian operations, the administration permitted the Indonesians to buy previously banned spare parts for C-130 transport planes provided they were used exclusively for humanitarian purposes.

Since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Bush administration has opened new avenues to provide aid to the Indonesian military, mainly through "anti-terrorist" assistance, joint naval exercises, and some military training programs not under the State Department's control.

But some critics in the US mainstream media are now urging caution in going any further than that.

"President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, a former general himself, needs to make sure his generals understand that they are accountable to him as the democratically elected leader and that the human needs of Aceh's people must be Indonesia's most compelling concern," the New York Times said in an editorial on Monday. "Until that change is internalized, there can be no dropping of America's limits on military ties with Indonesia." (Inter Press Service)

Defense minister says US arms ban 'punishes' society

Dow Jones News - January 18, 2005

Jakarta -- The official ban on US weapons and military equipment sales to Indonesia is unfair and "punishes" the country by hampering its military's tsunami relief and recovery efforts, Minister of Defense Juwono Sudarsono said Tuesday.

The embargo on the sale of spare parts by the US for military aircraft has effectively grounded the majority of the Indonesian military's 21 Hercules C130 cargo fleet needed for emergency relief operations in northwestern Aceh province following the December 26 tsunami, Juwono told reporters on the sidelines of a two-day infrastructure investment summit in Jakarta.

"The military is the only organization capable of addressing issues timely and effectively in times of disaster," he said.

"By not providing the minimum requirements of equipment needed to carry out effectively [the military's] main duties, then [the US] punishes the wrong institution in Indonesia," he said. Segments of Indonesia's military have suffered in terms of new equipment and technology upgrades due to the 1999 embargo on US arms sales. The US imposed the embargo after Indonesian troops and their proxy militias killed nearly 1,500 people in East Timor.

Indonesia could only mobilize four out of a total 21 Hercules military cargo aircraft for relief efforts immediately after the tsunami. US Secretary of State Colin Powell's decision to provide needed parts for the planes after his visit to Aceh earlier this month allowed Indonesia to get an additional four of the planes in the air.

The embargo has been a boon for non-US suppliers of military hardware, including Russia and units of South Korea's Daewoo International Corp., which have moved to fill the gap left by US firms.

Juwono will go to Washington in March to lobby the US Congress to consider lifting the embargo on military equipment supplies to Indonesia, but isn't optimistic that sales will resume in the short term.

Lawmakers and nongovernment organizations in the US remain deeply suspicious of "alleged human rights abuses by the military of the past" and remain reluctant to resume normal military equipment sales, Juwono said. "It's a very difficult psychological barrier because [anti-Indonesian military sentiments] are so ingrained in their nature," he said.

Rights group concerned US arms embargo may be lifted

Radio Australia - January 17, 2005

The United States has given its clearest signal yet that it may consider lifting the arms embargo imposed on Indonesia in 1999. A partial lifting of the embargo came soon after the tsunami struck the coast of Sumatra, with the US military offering spare parts for Indonesia's Hercules C-130 transport planes. Some human rights groups are worried about the possibility restrictions on arms will be lifted, in light of the Indonesian military's track record.

Presenter/Interviewer: Paul Allen

Speakers: Admiral Thomas Fargo, the Commander of the United States Navy's Pacific Command; Anselmo Lee, Executive Director, ForumAsia; Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy US Defence Secretary

Allen: It all seems sensible enough. The December 26 tsunami created a humanitarian emergency in the Indonesian province of Aceh, but thanks to the US arms embargo, fifteen of Indonesia's Hercules C-130 transport planes were stuck on the ground, needing maintenance.

The answer was the partial lifting of the embargo. Admiral Thomas Fargo, the Commander of the United States Navy's Pacific Command who is currently in Aceh, explains the logic.

Fargo: It's clear to us that if the TNI could fly more of those C-130s, had more of them operational, then they could make a greater contribution.

Allen: US and Indonesian aircraft engineers have been working together to get the planes flying again.

But the Bangkok-based human rights groups Forum Asia is concerned that this could be the thin end of the wedge. Executive Director, Anselmo Lee:

Lee: That should be limited to humanitarian effort, not military operation. they have to make it clear, but it's not very clear, whether it's for that type of military support of assistance is for what purpose.

Allen: So you're concerned that once repaired there's no guarantee the C-130s would be used for other purposes?

Lee: We're afraid not.

Allen: The United States and its military have made a significant contribution to the relief effort.

The aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln has been anchored off the coast of Aceh since the first of January, its helicopters have been crucial in getting supplies to the areas worst hit by the tsunami.

And in the background, the politics. Deputy US Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz has long been in favour of the United States Congress lifting its arms embargo on Indonesia, which was imposed in 1999 in response to the TNI's activities in East Timor.

Mr Wolfowitz is now using the context of the tsunami again to raise the matter of lifting the embargo.

Wolfowitz: Everybody loses a great deal when a long period of time goes by with severe limitations on the ability of our military, with deeply imbued democratic values, with a very strong sense of what it means to take orders from civilians. When you cut off their contact with a military, whether we did in Pakistan for much too long a time, or here as we've done to a lesser extent, it is not supportive of the very goals which these restrictions are meant to achieve.

Allen: Commander Thomas Fargo expresses similar sentiment.

Fargo: Certainly all of our relationships with Indonesia have been improving also. As the TNI have embarked on reform, and I think there has been some significant progress in that area. The TNI is no longer involved in the political apparatus, and I think General Sutarto is trying to move the TNI in the right direction in terms of civilian control of the military and respect for human rights.

Allen: But Human Rights group Forum Asia is unconvinced. It claims to have received reports of Indonesian soldiers selling food aid on the black market, and of tsunami victims being asked for identity cards to determine if they are involved with the separatist Free Aceh Movement. Forum Asia's Anselmo Lee doubts the TNI has changed its ways.

Lee: We see increasingly the militarisation of this humanitarian effort. We understand you know that this is an emergency situation and sometimes you have to mobilise the military, they have the resources, that's fine, but the question is whether that can contribute to the peace building or the escalation of the military tension. At the end of the day that is our concern you know.

US and Indonesia look to closer military ties

Reuters - January 16, 2005

Sue Pleming, Jakarta -- The United States and Indonesia are seeking closer military ties after years of limited contact because of concern over past human rights abuses by Indonesia's army, top defence officials from both nations said on Sunday.

US Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, on a visit to Indonesia after last month's devastating tsunami, said he would consult with his government and Congress over whether the time was right to increase contact and ease restrictions on the sale of military equipment.

Pressed on whether he believed there had been enough progress on the Indonesian military's human rights record for all sanctions to be lifted, Wolfowitz told reporters: "I will save my recommendations until I get home."

A US defence official travelling with Wolfowitz conceded it would be a tough fight to persuade Congress to budge on the issue but said the Bush administration felt the time was right to work more closely with Indonesia on defence issues.

Wolfowitz, who was ambassador to Indonesia in the late 1980s, said he recognised why restrictions were first imposed but he had been impressed by recent military reforms.

"You can't take a one dimensional approach on this issue," he said. "If we are interested in military reform, I think we need to reconsider a bit on where we are in history at this point."

Most US sales of military-related equipment have been on hold since Indonesian soldiers and the militia they backed in East Timor were accused of human rights violations. Any major change to this policy needs approval by the US Congress.

Waiver after tsunami

An exception was made after the tsunami when Washington granted a waiver and allowed the sale of spare parts for C-130 military aircraft being used to get humanitarian aid to victims.

The two countries now want to capitalise on goodwill built after the US military quickly responded and provided much-needed helicopters to ferry aid.

Wolfowitz said the tsunami, which killed more than 110,000 people in Indonesia and left many thousands homeless, had been "a calamity of indescribable proportions" and the United States would continue to help as long as needed.

On Saturday, Wolfowitz flew over parts of Aceh province on the tip of Sumatra island, where most victims died. "This is a whole community in a state of shock and when you fly over that devastation you can just barely conceive what it was like and what a terrible end it must have been for over 100,000 people," he said.

Indonesian Defence Minister Juwono Sudarsono told an earlier joint news conference he was working hard to reform the military despite having a limited annual budget of just $1.1 billion. "We look forward to improving our military-to-military relations in the next couple of years," said Sudarsono.

Sudarsono said it was hard to improve the public image of the military, adding he had been forced to take out a full-page advertisement in newspapers to thank the military for its efforts in helping victims in Aceh.

He stressed the Indonesian government did not wish to set a time limit on how long foreign troops were welcome to stay in Indonesia to help with relief efforts. Last week Vice President Jusuf Kalla set a March 26 deadline for them to leave.

"It is a benchmark for the Indonesian government to improve and accelerate relief efforts so that by March 26th the large part of the burden of the relief effort will be carried by the Indonesian government," said Sudarsono.

On Monday, Wolfowitz is set to visit Sri Lanka where more than 30,000 people died in the tsunami.

US, Indonesia eye improvement of military ties

Jakarta Post - January 17, 2005

Tiarma Siboro, Jakarta -- The governments of Indonesia and the United States see the possibility of improved military ties following the significant role of US troops in tsunami relief operations in Aceh.

This view was expressed by visiting US Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, a former ambassador to Indonesia, and Indonesian Minister of Defense Juwono Sudarsono on Sunday.

The US Congress cut military ties with Indonesia in 1999 over the violence in East Timor by militias backed by the Indonesian Military (TNI).

"We understand the restrictions proposed by Congress. It is not only the issue of past rights abuses, but we would also like to see how the TNI has endeavored to put itself under the control of civilian supremacy," Wolfowitz said.

The visiting deputy defense secretary toured Aceh on Saturday to view the damage caused by the tsunami.

The US Congress has lifted the military embargo on spare parts for Hercules planes now being used in relief operations.

"We need to think about how we can strengthen this newly elected democratic government, strengthen the civilian defense minister ... to help build the kind of defense institution that will ensure in the future that the Indonesian military, like our military, is a loyal function of a democratic government," Wolfowitz said.

"We need to work closely with the Congress," he said. "These are issues that the [US] people feel deeply about, but I hope they will perhaps see them in a new light, not only because of what we need to do in Aceh but equally importantly because of what is happening here on the political front."

In the wake of the December 26 tsunami, the US deployed over 14,000 personnel, warships, helicopters and other aircraft to Aceh. The province had been closed to foreigners because of conflict between the government and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM).

Juwono said he hoped for US assistance in military training and budget management, which was "probably more important than lethal and combat training and education". However, he implied the strained defense budget of about US$1 billion would not enable Indonesia to buy military equipment from the US even if the embargo was lifted.

Juwono said his job was to "reconfigure the Indonesian defense force, particularly the Army, so that they will be more accountable to a democratic government". Wolfowitz said cutting contacts with Indonesian military officers "only makes the problems much worse".

A lifting of the military embargo and improved military ties would "make it possible (for Indonesia) to respond much more quickly and effectively in a crisis like this one", he said.

Indonesian calls for easing of US restrictions

Washington Post - January 17, 2005

Josh White, Jakarta -- Indonesia's defense minister on Sunday called on the United States to ease its restrictions on military relations between the two nations and to help train Indonesian military leaders, reaching out during the period of cooperation that has emerged in the wake of the devastating tsunami last month.

Following a meeting with Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, Juwono Sudarsono said the two had discussed the strained military relations and ways to improve them. The United States has limited involvement with Indonesia's military because of concerns that soldiers have violated human rights in several areas, including the rebellious Aceh province, site of the most horrific tsunami destruction.

Wolfowitz said there could be significant benefits to improved military ties, suggesting as an example that Indonesian forces would be better prepared to deal with crises following natural disasters. He cited the success of cooperation with disaster relief in Thailand -- a longtime ally that has allowed the United States and other countries to set up a regional support base inside its borders -- as a reason for the US government to possibly rethink relations with Indonesia.

"I think if we're interested in military reform here, and certainly this Indonesian government is and our government is, I think we need to reconsider a bit where we are at this point in history going forward," Wolfowitz said, adding that good relations with the Thai military allowed for a quicker response to the tsunami, probably saving lives.

Sudarsono praised US forces for being "the backbone" of logistical operations providing assistance to ravaged areas and emphasized that what was initially described as an Indonesian deadline for foreign troop withdrawal -- set for March 26 -- was intended as a target date for the Indonesian government to take responsibility for the relief effort within its own borders.

"It is a benchmark for the Indonesian government to improve and accelerate its relief efforts so that by March 26 the large part of the burden of the relief effort will be carried by the Indonesian government and the Indonesian authorities on the ground," Sudarsono said at a midday news conference with Wolfowitz. "Foreign military assistance, foreign military operations providing relief and rehabilitation will be allowed to continue, albeit on a reduced scale."

Sudarsono later said that he wants to convince the US Congress that the Indonesian military is trying to reform and needs training assistance and funding.

Indonesia is working toward tighter civilian control over a traditionally powerful military but is struggling to adequately fund the effort. Sudarsono said the country needs more than the $1.1 billion allotted in its annual budget for its 350,000-member

military, and the lack of funding complicates work to reconfigure and centralize the force. He estimated it would take 10 years for junior officers to be properly trained in management skills.

"That's no excuse for some of their alleged human rights abuses that have been taking place for the past 25 years," Sudarsono said, "but it is a measure of our challenge, that part of the problem in developing and building a more accountable defense force is to improve its budget, to improve its training, to improve its ability to manage its budget in a more professional manner."

Currently, the United States provides noncombat training to Indonesian forces in a series of conferences each year that focus on democratic principles. Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the US military has also aided Indonesia in counterterrorism training.

A senior US military official said that Indonesian military officials have effectively been removed from government positions and that Gen. Endriartono Sutarto, the military chief, accepts that he is subordinate to elected civilian officials. Still, the official said, there has been a lack of accountability for past human rights abuses, and the military is fractured and accused of mistreating people in Aceh.

Wolfowitz said efforts are underway to work within the present embargo and legal framework to get Indonesia as much help as possible, adding that the US military has helped the country obtain spare parts for disabled Indonesian C-130 aircraft to help with the relief effort. Even that effort has been a point of tension between Indonesia and the United States because of concerns that the Indonesian military was using the planes for questionable and aggressive tactics against rebels.

Wolfowitz met Sunday with several Indonesian leaders, including the country's president. He said that, for now, it is more important to focus on the relief efforts than military relations.

"If we're successful in fulfilling our humanitarian obligations then we can think beyond it, but let's not mess things up because we're worried about other problems prematurely," Wolfowitz said.

He added that he wants US forces to withdraw from the area as soon as is responsibly possible, in part because of the strain already being put on the military by the conflict in Iraq and upcoming elections there, and in part so US personnel in South Asia can return home. The USS Abraham Lincoln, an aircraft carrier that was diverted to the region after the tsunami, had been on its way back to the United States from Hong Kong when it received its new mission.

Wolfowitz's trip to Indonesia is scheduled to end Monday morning. He plans to head to Sri Lanka to survey tsunami damage and US military relief efforts there before heading back to the Pentagon.

American victim of Indonesian violence speaks out

http://timshorrock.blogspot.com/ - January 17, 2005

Patsy Spier, Washington -- one of the survivors of a 2002 military-style ambush on a group of contract teachers in the Indonesian province of Papua, spoke out today about the attempts by the Bush administration to resume full military ties with Indonesia before the government in Jakarta accounts for military crimes in East Timor and fully cooperates with a US investigation into the Papua killings.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon and its allies in the Bush administration may try to circumvent US restrictions on Indonesian military aid by starting their own "parallel" training and arms supply operations using funds that would be outside of congressional control. That's what the administration has been telling House and Senate members concerned about the situation in Indonesia, according to human rights groups who stay in close touch with Congress about Indonesia.

"I wouldn't be surprised if the Pentagon does a parallel program," Spier told me in an exclusive interview. "But we can't allow the tsunami to cause us to forget what happened in Indonesia in the past."

Spier has been visiting Washington to speak with members of Congress and the Bush administration about Indonesia's handling of the Papua ambush, in which her husband Rick Spier was shot to death by assailants widely believed to be linked to the Indonesian military, better known as TNI.

Spier's one-woman campaign to bring justice to the Papua victims has made her a legendary figure on Capitol Hill, where she has convinced several leading Republicans to buck the administration on its Indonesia policy.

Spier was responding to reports in the New York Times and Washington Post concerning the visit to Indonesia last weekend by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. In a full-court press in the US and Indonesian media, Wolfowitz and senior US and Indonesian officials sought to use their recent cooperation in tsunami-devastated Aceh to press for a full resumption of bilateral military ties. Wolfowitz, reported the Times, argued during his visit that "congressional restrictions on American training and arms sales should be re-evaluated in light of what the Indonesian military is doing to refashion itself into a more professional an accountable force."

As he has many times before, Wolfowitz also offered up the shibbeloth that "cutting off contact with Indonesian officers only makes the problem" -- presumably he was talking about human rights violations -- "worse." That's an argument the Bush administration has been making since coming into office, and has been repeated by the Pentagon ad nauseum since 1991, when Indonesian troops opened fire on peaceful demonstrations in East Timor, killing scores of people and almost killing two of our best journalists, Amy Goodman and Allen Nairn.

"We had military-to-military relations up to the Santa Cruz massacre," said Spier. "It didn't change anything."

The massacre at the Santa Cruz cemetery in Dili was the impetus behind a congressional ban on US training of Indonesian officers under the State Department's International Military Education and Training (IMET) program.

The ban, which also includes restrictions on US arms sales to Jakarta, was extended in 2000 after militias trained by the TNI rampaged through East Timor on the eve of its historic independence vote, killing hundreds of people and wrecking the city. The Bush administration tried to lift the ban after the 9/11 attacks, citing Indonesia's cooperation in the war on terror, but Congress refused to go along. The ban is now contingent on full Indonesian cooperation in the FBI investigation into the Papua incident.

So far, that cooperation has been a joke. The shootings took place on a private road deep in the mountains of West Papua, where Freeport McMoran, the New Orleans mining giant, operates the world's largest copper and gold mine. The road and the surrounding property is guarded by the TNI and local police, who are paid some $10 million a year by Freeport, which has had a long and extremely close relationship with the Indonesian military since the late 1960s. Immediately after the incident, the Indonesian military blamed the attack on the separatist Free Papua Organization (OPM), which has been fighting for independence for decades. But the local police dismissed that claim, and pointed the finger at the army.

US intelligence officials were also skeptical of the TNI's story. A few weeks after the shooting, the Washington Post and the Sydney Morning Herald both filed extraordinary reports based on intelligence intercepts obtained by sources "close to the US Embassy in Jakarta." On these intercepts, the papers reported, General Endriantono Sutarto, the commander-in-chief of the TNI, was heard discussing with other generals a military operation against Freeport shortly before the ambush.

The Washington Post gets sued

The generals' conversations, the Post reported, made it clear that the attack was "aimed at discrediting" the OPM as a terrorist group. One American source even told the Morning Herald that the attack was the work of Kopassus, the Indonesian special forces well-known for their brutality.

(In a bizarre coda to this story, Sutarto threatened to sue the Post for printing the allegations, but withdrew after the Post placed an ad in a Jakarta paper apologizing for the story. According to sources I've spoken to, the Post couldn't corroborate the story about the intercepts because it didn't have a paper trail; all the paper had was a verbal report from its source. Still, by never printing a word in its own editions about Sutarto's actions and its apology, the Post participated in a cover-up of sorts).

After all of this, Attorney General John Ashcroft went before reporters last July to announce that, lo and behold, a "Papuan seperatist" (sic -- it was misspelled in the press release) had been indicted by a US grand jury in connection with the deadly attack in Papua province in August 2002.

"The US government is committed to tracking down and prosecuting terrorists who prey on innocent Americans in Indonesia and around the world," said Ashcroft. The suspect, Anthonious Wamang, was an "operational commander" of the military wing of the OPM, Ashcroft said. He cleared the Indonesian military of any involvement in the killing.

According to three prominent Papuan human rights groups, Wamang was a well-known sandlewood vendor with close ties with the Kopassus, which runs much of the timber industry in Papua. Ashcroft's statement, the groups said, "gives a green light to the (TNI) to go after Papuan dissidents (since the TNI classifies all opponents of their presence in Papua as "separatists"), in spite of the fact that suppressed evidence suggests that the military was behind the ambush. And indeed since the Ashcroft statement our three organizations in Papua have been subjected to a new round of threats and intimidation by the military."

Who ordered the killing?

Spier, who has been briefed on the case by FBI Director Robert Mueller, said she has "no doubt" that the FBI -- which collected its own forensic evidence in Indonesia -- had enough evidence on its own to bring the case to a US grand jury. Wamang might very well be one of the shooters. "But who ordered it, and who supplied the guns and the ammunition?" She noted that the Justice Department's press release on the indictment claims that US and Indonesian authorities "are attempting to identify additional participants in the murders."

Spier said she has been told the FBI has offered to return to Indonesia to help apprehend these "additional participants" and assist in issuing indictments. But "Indonesia hasn't responded." This case "should remind us why the training funds were held up in the first place," she added.

"They've got to be willing to bring to justice those people who committed crimes and are still in service," for crimes committed in Aceh, Papua and East Timor. "They must acknowledge what they did was wrong."

Spier is right. Even though Indonesian military officers no longer hold automatic seats in Parliament -- a fact that Adm. Fargo pointed out to the Times -- there has been no justice in Indonesia. In contrast to Serbia, where numerous war criminals have been brought before an international court, Indonesia has made a mockery of the concept of global justice.

As Human Right Watch pointed out in a recent letter to Secretary of State Colin Powell:

Indonesian military and police officers implicated in human rights violations have frequently been promoted rather than prosecuted. We urge you to review these promotions and to initiate transparent and credible prosecutions of officers with histories of human rights abuses. Cases meriting priority attention include: Retired General Hendropriyono, named National Intelligence Chief under President Megawati despite serious allegations that he was responsible for atrocities in Lampung in 1989 and played a role in funding militias responsible for killings of civilians in East Timor; Major-General Sjafrie Syamsoeddin, named to the key post of military spokesman in 2002 despite evidence that while serving as Jakarta military commander in May 1998, troops under his command committed serious abuses when up to a thousand people were killed in days of demonstrations and rioting; and Major-General Mahidin Simbolon, promoted in 2001 to Regional Commander for Papua despite a notorious record in East Timor of helping create and directing militias responsible for multiple attacks on civilians.

Business & investment

Government told to remedy legal uncertainties

Jakarta Post - January 19, 2005

Fabiola Desy Unidjaja and Rendi A. Witular, Jakarta -- Despite assurances from the President, Vice President and other top government officials that their money was safe here, some investors at the Infrastructure Summit on Tuesday remained concerned whether the reform commitments could be translated into action by the country's weak bureaucracy.

Meanwhile, AFP reported that the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and Japan have agreed to provide up to US$5 billion worth of loans as a catalyst for other investors to invest in Indonesia's power sector, roads and other infrastructure facilities.

The concerns of foreign investors are primarily centered on two long-running issues: legal uncertainty and rampant corruption.

"We have been operating here for more than eight years. Through that period we have learned that legal uncertainty has become the main problem for the business community," Philippe Louis-Dreyfus, president of French trading, property and shipping group Louis- Dreyfus Armateurs, said on Tuesday at the end of the two-day summit.

He said legal certainty was crucial to investors because investment in the infrastructure sector was a long-term investment involving a huge amount of money, and investors would need at least 10 years before they could start enjoying a return on their investment.

The chairman of Singapore Power, Ng Kee Choe, agreed. "We are afraid that investment in Indonesia may run aground as there is a huge possibility of legal disputes either with our local partner or with the government as a result of legal uncertainty." Japan Sumitomo Corporation chairman Kenji Miyahara said another area that had to be tackled by the government was the rampant corruption that contributed to the high cost of doing business in the country.

"Indonesia will remain uncompetitive compared to other countries unless it manages to reduce the rampant corruption," he said.

During the key investment forum, held to attract about US$120 billion worth of investment to develop the country's infrastructure over the next five years, the government promised it would move swiftly to fix the weak investment climate here and provide various incentives for investors through what it called a "new partnership".

In what may be part of the efforts to ease investor concerns, the government signed the Jakarta Declaration with representatives of companies from 20 participating countries in the summit. The declaration underscores the government's commitment to remove all bureaucratic hurdles to private sector investment.

The government promised to finalize all of the required policies to improve the investment climate, as well as revising any problematic regulations, within six-months. It also pledged to honor all contracts made with the private sector.

"We have to make this work otherwise that's it, we will never be able to do this again," said Vice President Jusuf Kalla at the summit's closing ceremony, underlining the government's commitment to the infrastructure projects.

Attended by more than 500 companies from 20 countries around the world, the government offered some 91 projects valued at US$22.5 billion during the summit. A second batch of projects valued at about $57.5 billion will be offered during a summit in November.

"Under the new government, legal certainty is here and will remain," said Minister of Justice and Human Rights Hamid Awaluddin.

"I am aware that my country's bureaucrats need to be improved and the regulations should be made more investor friendly," said Coordinating Minister for the Economy Aburizal Bakrie, adding that a number of investors from several countries had expressed interest in investing here.

But Deutsche Bank director for Singapore Paul Sempere said that despite the assurances, there remained questions about whether the government could realize its promises.

"The intention is always good at the top, but to translate these intentions into reality in the bureaucracy is another question," he said.

He said investors would wait until the government was able to fulfill its commitments on private investment.

"I think the way forward is to use some pilot projects ... a maximum of two or three pilot projects in each of these sectors, and push that," he said.

Jakarta Declaration

Indonesia's vision for infrastructure development

• Government will focus on non-commercially viable projects
• Government will focus on sectoral reforms to ensure sustainable private sector participation
• Government will enact program to support greater private sector involvement in infrastructure

Removing bureaucratic hurdles for private investment

• All contractual commitments will be honored
• Develop clearly articulated strategies and sectoral plans
• Invite investors to participate in upcoming fast-track infrastructure investments
• Issue an interim regulation that addresses the issue of private participation in infrastructure development
• Issue a regulation that will serve as the basis for private participation
• Committed to revise law No. 36/1999 on telecommunications
• Develop pragmatic and effective risk management strategies
• Develop local financial and capital markets for infrastructure financing
• Revise Presidential Decree No. 7 on private participation in infrastructure development
• Develop action plan for independent tariff setting mechanism
• Strengthen regulatory agencies by providing the necessary budget and staff

Traffic jams mean extra cost for businesses

Jakarta Post - January 17, 2005

Rendi A. Witular, Jakarta -- A chief executive officer of a state cement firm in East Java once said that the most devastating factor that could affect the firm's production cost lay not in fuel spending nor workers' wages, but on congested highways.

The CEO said a raise in utility costs could still be offset by increasing the prices of the products, or cost-cutting measures during production, but an executive could do nothing about congested highways.

"Highway congestion is beyond our control. If there is no improvement in highway capacity in the next two years, the roads will be too crowded, and our trucks will be put in fourth place after trucks that carry staple foods, fuel and fertilizer," said the CEO.

In such a situation, the company's distribution chain will often be interrupted, which would result in severe financial losses -- not only for the producer but also for customers, particularly companies that depend heavily on the availability of cement, such as the property and infrastructure sector.

The relatively distressed highway networks and capacity in the nation of 220 million people is already apparent, as evident in the everyday congestion on nearly every road linking one province to another in Java, the country's center of economic activities.

According to the Ministry of Public Works, from 1978 to date, the country has only managed to build 606 kilometers of new highway, or an average of 24 kilometers per year.

Meanwhile, new cars and trucks that hit the road reached 300,000 units on average annually in the same period.

Aside from lacking funds to finance the construction of new roads, especially toll roads, the lower-than-expected pace of expansion could also be attributed to an unclear mechanism in land acquisition, and in rate policy.

Investors are reluctant to take part in this sector, due to the absence of clear-cut rulings on the role of state-owned toll road operator PT Jasa Marga, which functions both as regulator and player.

"There are so many barriers that confront the private sector in trying to engage in the toll road business," said Hendrianto Notosoegondo, director general of regional infrastructure at the ministry.

"But all the barriers will eventually be eliminated with the introduction of the revised Highway Law, which will pave the way for the private sector's participation in the toll-road business," he said.

The House of Representatives endorsed in September a key bill on highway development, which was to help eliminate lingering barriers in the construction of toll roads.

It contains a clause that partly eliminates the public's right to protect land ownership, unless an agreement is made on the compensation awarded by the government for the land.

Some articles also allow land disputes to be resolved in courts, without halting the on-going construction project.

Currently, the government remains helpless in dealing with land disputes. Numerous infrastructure projects in the country have run aground due to problems related to land acquisition, with investors facing widespread protests and rejection from landowners, backed by regional administrations.

Until now for instance, it has not been able to settle a land acquisition dispute which has halted a toll road project in a segment of the Veteran-Ulujami stretch of the Outer Ring Road in South Jakarta.

The project was originally set for completion in May 2003.

These problems have dampened investors' appetites for investing in the business. Besides, there are several obstacles that have yet to be addressed by the law, one of which is the unclear role of Jasa Marga, which currently serves as both the regulator and player. At present, Jasa Marga is involved in all toll road projects, whether as a joint venture or as the sole constructor.

Another factor that should be taken into consideration is also a policy on rates, as well as the concession period for operating the road -- which is important so investors can calculate the feasibility of their business.

However, Hendrianto was upbeat the new law would eliminate those barriers. He pointed to a clause in the new law, which would stipulate the establishment of an independent body specifically tasked with regulating and supervising the toll road sector, as late as September this year.

Power, transportation are most important

Jakarta Post - January 17, 2005

Sumitomo Corporation Chairman Kenji Miyahara, who is also vice chairman of the powerful Nippon Keidanren (Japanese Economic Federation) talked to The Jakarta Post's Kornelius Purba on Sunday about Japanese investors' views and expectations about Indonesian investment prospects. He is in Jakarta to attend the two-day Infrastructure Summit on Monday and Tuesday.

Question: How do you see the quality of basic infrastructure in Indonesia, such as roads, power, seaports and telecommunications? Answer: Frankly, we cannot say that your infrastructure is good enough. Your government has to do many things in many areas, not just like in areas that you have pointed out. Electricity, transportation and ports are considered hard infrastructure.

Another important thing, however, is soft infrastructure, which includes the legal system, legal procedures, the government's administrative procedures and the educational system.

Concerning infrastructure, what do you think is the most urgent thing for Indonesia to overcome? First of all, I would like to express my deep condolences to the victims of the tsunami in Aceh and North Sumatra. Hopefully, with the cooperation of the international community, the people in the affected areas will be able to rebuild a new life.

Regarding Indonesia's current situation, it is most urgent to revitalize the economic activities.

From that point of view, especially since I am a businessman, electricity power and transportation systems are probably the most important.

Your government must have a priority because every country has limited sources, capacities, money and human resources.

As the Sumitomo chairman, what is the most urgent thing? We are now constructing the Tanjung Jati B power-generating project. And I really hope this project will contribute to Indonesia's economy. In the context of Japanese investors, what projects are the most interesting? To revitalize Indonesia's economy, the very important thing is to invite private sector investment, not only the Indonesian capital but also capital from overseas.

For example, Japan has cumulatively become the biggest investor among Asian countries. But now the investment is slowing down a little bit.

The reason is probably because Indonesia has been slightly left behind in competition among ASEAN countries. When private investors are going to put their money overseas, they always compare Indonesia with, for example, Thailand or Vietnam.

Compared to Vietnam or Thailand, what are the disadvantages of Indonesia? It depends upon the industries. But generally speaking, Vietnam has been very enthusiastic in inviting foreign investors.

Your government has also been expending quite a lot of effort, but when you look at this data (statistical data from the World Bank showing Indonesian quite low in many categories), for instance, the availability of electricity in Indonesia is 50 percent, making the country 11th out of 12 countries in the Asia-Australia region.

Investors have cited several problems like legal uncertainty and taxation issues as some of the biggest barriers hindering new investment here. In addition to these issues, what are the other main problems for investment here? First, competitiveness among neighboring countries.

Then, there is the legal system, which is not transparent. Whenever we invest here, the government wants to have a long projection.

You have to understand that the private sector's money is very timid. When they see something dangerous, they will run away very easily. Of course, Sumitomo invests here for the very long term, so we can't run away quickly.

To keep this kind of investment, the legal system and procedures and other administrative things have to be transparent, to give the investors some feeling of security.

How should the regulatory framework be for private investment infrastructure to be attractive? Your new government is holding an infrastructure summit to call global investors. It means your government realizes the importance of improving infrastructure. I really appreciate this.

Speaking about which part (of infrastructure) is more important or should be prioritized, it's politics. We have unlimited resources of money. I think your government will have to decide on its priorities.

In the case of private-to-private investment cooperation, do Japanese investors still require the Indonesian government's guarantee scheme, as they did before the 1997 economic crisis? This is a very important point. To attract private investors, you should have good infrastructure. In order to construct good infrastructure, the government's support and function are very, very important. And also there is the question of how much the government will be involved? It depends on the project and the nature of the infrastructure. By all means, the government realizes this point, and it has to support this. The government and private investors have to trust each other. To keep it solid, the legal system and transparency are very important -- everything is interconnected.

How about Sumitomo's own experience here? There have been a lot of problems here. But there are good prospects and that is why we commit big money and investment. As of now, Sumitomo has invested, including our commitment, around US$4 billion. Some of them are in manufacturing, including construction machinery, automobile parts, electrical appliances, steel and manufacturing of plastics.

In the service sector, we have a leasing business and on top we also invested in copper and energy and LNG projects. We are also operating an industrial park in Cikarang, West Java. There are 90 manufacturers operating there.

From the industrial park, their exports are about 4 percent of Indonesia's total exports. It is a very big contribution to the country's economy.

What is your projection in the future? We are still expanding power generation business on top of Tanjung Jati B project. And also in the area telecommunications, like the Internet and broadband. We would also like to promote infrastructure projects, particularly the mass rapid transportation (MRT) system in Jakarta.

Despite all the unresolved problems, what prospects do you think Indonesia still has in the short and mid term? I really appreciate what the government has done in the last six years. Now the situation in society is settled down. The new president was elected democratically.

I think your government is showing a very positive attitude to investment. It realizes what it has to do.

Opinion & analysis

The need to curb Indonesia's army

New York Times Editorial - January 17, 2005

The scale of the tsunami disaster and continuing health risks in Indonesia's Aceh province are almost beyond comprehension. Getting desperately needed emergency aid to the survivors, wherever they are, is now an overwhelmingly urgent humanitarian priority.

Unfortunately, Indonesia's politically powerful army is not used to putting humanitarianism first. Imbued with a reflexively nationalist ideology and obsessed with a counterinsurgency campaign against armed Aceh separatist groups, army leaders persuaded government officials to restrict foreign aid workers to the province's two main cities. They also pushed them to tell the foreign military forces now aiding relief operations to leave Indonesia no later than March 26. That deadline has been recast as a target date after complaints from Washington.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, a former general himself, needs to make sure his generals understand that they are accountable to him as the democratically elected leader and that the human needs of Aceh's people must be Indonesia's most compelling concern. Until that change is internalized, there can be no dropping of America's limits on military ties with Indonesia. Those limits were imposed because of past human rights violations by the Indonesian armed forces.

At least 100,000 people died in Indonesia from the December 26 tsunami. Aceh was the hardest-hit area. Cities were flattened and villages wiped from the map. Three weeks later, disease is a major concern and medical help is desperately needed.

For Indonesian military leaders, however, Aceh is not just the site of a natural calamity; it is also the scene of a long and bloody conflict with local separatist guerrillas. And instead of grasping this unexpected opportunity to create good will and foster national reconciliation in a common rebuilding effort, army leaders have seemed more intent on getting the foreigners out of the way so they can resume counterinsurgency efforts as quickly as possible.

Indonesia's generals have exercised political power behind the scenes for decades. They continued to do so even after the 32- year dictatorship of Gen. Suharto ended in 1998. Last September, Mr. Yudhoyono became the first Indonesian leader to be democratically elected by a direct popular vote, an event that many hailed as the start of a new era of more responsive and competent government. Those hopes now face a critical test. This is the moment for Mr. Yudhoyono to take full charge and insist that the needs of Aceh's people come first.