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Military offensive hinders aid to
Aceh
By Sonny Inbaraj
BANGKOK - While volunteers, relief workers
and families are busy collecting and searching for
bodies in Indonesia's tsunami-stricken Aceh
province, Indonesian soldiers are continuing their
offensive against separatist rebels, hindering the
delivery of badly needed humanitarian aid, critics
say.
As aid to survivors of the world's
worst natural disaster in 40 years continues to
hit new snags, international human-rights groups,
are also urging the Indonesian government not to
let politics override the emergency needs of the
Acehnese people.
Although some reports say
that a de facto ceasefire has been in place
between the military and separatist rebels since
the December 26 disaster, there are no signs yet
that the state of civil emergency, which was
imposed on the province in 2004 to quell the
separatist movement, will be lifted.
"Delays by the Indonesian government in
allowing international access to Aceh may have
needlessly cost precious lives. International and
Indonesian organizations must have unrestricted
access to Aceh," the United States-based
Non-Violence International said in a statement.
Nearly 400,000 people are now refugees and
more than 94,000 have been confirmed dead in the
Indonesian provinces of Aceh and elsewhere in
North Sumatra as a result of the earthquake and
tsunami that struck the region. The Indonesian
government initially kept the international
community at bay as it apparently debated whether
to open Aceh up to foreigners.
Aceh has
been almost entirely closed to any international
presence due to military operations there against
the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), which has been
fighting for independence since 1976. More than
10,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed
since that time.
The government put the
province under martial law on May 19, 2003, before
reducing this to a state of civil emergency one
year later.
"Under the civil emergency,
the Indonesian military continue to play a leading
role and there has been no cutback in the level of
military operations in most of the territory,"
said Paul Barber of the UK-based human-rights
group Tapol. "Lifting the civil emergency would
require the declaration of a presidential decree,
but Indonesia's president, Susilo Bambang
Yudhoyono, has shown no inclination to move in
this direction," Barber added.
On Sunday
Jan Egeland, the United Nation's emergency relief
coordinator, told reporters that relief efforts
after the Asian tsunami disaster were falling
behind in Indonesia. "We're able to reach out in
all of the affected countries except in
[Indonesia's] Sumatra and Aceh at the moment. That
is where we are behind," he said.
Aid is
beginning to filter in slowly. Sea Hawk
helicopters from the US aircraft carrier Abraham
Lincoln have been carrying emergency aid to some
of the worst-hit towns, and US and Australian
transport planes, along with other civilian and
military aircraft, are bringing bulk supplies and
medical equipment into the capital, Banda Aceh.
Distribution on the ground, however, is severely
hampered by a lack of coordination, washed-out
roads and a shortage of fuel and vehicles.
All eyes are on whether the government can
or will make use of the opportunity for
reconciliation provided by the December 26
disaster to open up Aceh to Indonesians and
outsiders. How its relief efforts continue will
play a key factor in this.
Many concede
that the military is the institution with the best
reach and logistics to help out in times of
disaster. At the same time, news reports from
Jakarta said hundreds of Indonesian military
troops, known by their Indonesian acronym TNI,
were raiding GAM hideouts across East and North
Aceh, which had been devastated by the tsunami.
At present, 15,000 extra troops are being
rushed to Aceh, in addition to the 40,000 already
there, to help with humanitarian activities.
However, Lieutenant Colonel D J Nachrowi told The
Jakarta Post on Thursday that the calamity should
not be seen as a way for the military to suspend
security operations against GAM.
"We are
now carrying out two duties: humanitarian work and
the security operation," he told the daily. "The
raids to quell the secessionist movement in Aceh
will continue unless the president issues a decree
to lift the civil emergency and assign us to
merely play a humanitarian role in Aceh."
These comments infuriated Nasruddin
Abubakar, president of the Aceh Referendum
Information Center (Sentral Informasi Referendum
Aceh, or SIRA). "The government is still
maintaining the civil emergency and continuing on
with military operations in Aceh despite the fact
that the death toll now is close to 100,000. Is
the government not yet satisfied with the
killing?" he asked in a phone interview with Inter
Press Service. "Are Acehnese not citizens of
Indonesia?"
Nasruddin said his group had
received news from volunteers working in the
province's devastated capital Banda Aceh that the
military was interrogating survivors making their
way to relief centers, suspecting them of being
GAM members. "We want to draw everyone's attention
to the need to save the Acehnese from death," he
pleaded.
The New York-based East Timor
Action Network (ETAN) urged aid organizations and
agencies to work as closely as possible with local
civil society groups and to resist Indonesian
government and military attempts to keep local
nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) out of the
process.
"The high level of corruption in
Indonesia, especially in Aceh, and the great
distrust of Aceh's [provincial] government make it
crucial that aid groups be allowed to distribute
urgently needed food, medical supplies, and other
assistance outside of government channels,
distributing aid directly and through local NGOs,"
said ETAN's Karen Orenstein.
Tapol's
Barber warned that the natural disaster that
struck Aceh more than a week ago will only serve
to reinforce the military's role under the cover
of becoming involved in humanitarian activities.
"Following the imposition of martial law
in May 2003, local NGOs fled from Aceh because of
intimidation and the threat of violence against
their activists," said Barber. "Even now, Acehnese
activists based in Jakarta and neighboring
Malaysia know that they would be taking great
risks if they return to their homeland to help
provide succor for the stricken population," he
added.
According to Stratfor Global
Intelligence, a security analysis website, the
tsunami disaster could prove to be a boon to
Jakarta in its campaign against GAM.
"Yudhoyono will send more troops into the
province to rebuild and clean up if GAM does not
agree to settle the problem peacefully. Yudhoyono
will have more troops on hand to clean them out,"
the Stratfor analysts said.
(Inter Press
Service) |
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