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TSUNAMI IMPACT: Narrow Minded Nationalism in Aceh Aid
Analysis - By Andreas Harsono
JAKARTA, Jan 11 (IPS) - It began quite mysteriously through mobile phone text messages just days after the Dec.
26 undersea quake and resultant killer waves flattened the province of Aceh in northern
Sumatra, killing over 100,000 people.
The messages were short and clear. They warned Indonesian Muslims that Christians were
adopting Acehnese orphans, presumably to be taken out of Aceh and then converted to
Christianity.
In the capital Banda Aceh, activists of the Muslim-based Prosperous and Justice Party later
put up posters in public spaces with this warning: ''Don't let Acehnese orphans be taken
away by Christians and their missionaries.'' The party also printed their telephone
numbers, encouraging the public to hand over orphans to Muslim child-care centers
instead.
The United Nations children's agency, UNICEF, puts the number of affected children,
including those who have been orphaned, injured or traumatised by the disaster - which
devastated coastline communities along the Indian Ocean - at close to 1.5 million across
south and south-east Asia.
In the worst hit Indonesian province of Aceh alone, close to the epicentre of the
earthquake, some 35,000 children are estimated to have been affected.
Hence, it is only natural for one to be moved by the plight of these destitute children.
Kristiani Herrawati, who visited Aceh with her husband, President Susilo Bambang
Yudhoyono, also took the initiative to show compassion and wanted to adopt a 13-year-
old Acehnese boy, Muhammad Dede Nirwanda.
In the second week after the disaster, Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla, who also
heads the national disaster center, announced that he would include the Indonesian
Council of Ulemas to help decide on the adoption of Acehnese orphans.
''We will help the children to keep their faith. No adoption could be done without the
ulemas' (Islamic clergymen's) supervision,'' he said.
The media of Palmerah, a Jakarta neighborhood where top newspapers and TV channels
are headquartered, played up Kalla's statement. But not a single media outlet could quite
explain what prompted the vice-president and Muslim activists to focus on religion when
the bulk of attention was on how to get emergency aid fast to the tsunami survivors.
In Kalla's statement, the innuendo was palpable: relief services had been motivated by
religious considerations. Perhaps such worries had been sparked because international
relief organisations - whose workers are mostly westerners and presumably Christians -
were among the first to rush to Aceh.
But it seems more a case of paranoia: there is nothing to suggest that international relief
workers are keen to take away Acehnese children and neither have Indonesian churches
demonstrated such altruism.
''Just report it to me if there are churches doing this,'' said Nathan Setiabudi of the
Communion of Churches in Indonesia.
Aceh has an immense symbolic importance for Muslims who constitute 88.3 per cent of
Indonesia's 201 million citizens, according to the 2000 census. It was the seat of the first
Islamic kingdom in the archipelago in the 13th century, when its neighbors were under
Hindu or Buddhist rulers.
But Aceh is also the home to a secessionist movement, though not one prompted by
religion. Still, with Muslims comprising 97.3 per cent of Aceh's 1.7 million citizens, the
adoption issue, however imaginary, worries many Islamic activists, including Jusuf Kalla -
himself a Muslim.
Since 1976, the Free Aceh Movement or GAM has battled the Jakarta government in a war
that has claimed more than 10,000 lives. The rebels contend that the Javanese, the
dominant ethnic group in Indonesia, annexed Aceh illegally when the Republic of
Indonesia was founded in 1945.
In 1979, the authoritarian Suharto regime began a military operation to crush the rebels.
General Suharto did not succeed in his move. In May 2003, the post-Suharto Indonesian
government again placed the province under strict military control and isolated the area in
an attempt to crush the rebels. Human rights groups and victims' families have charged
that Indonesian troops have singled out and killed civilians suspected of being rebel
supporters.
In a bid to pacify the rebels, Jakarta also granted Aceh partial autonomy that permits the
limited implementation of Islamic law. Although the separatists are devout Muslims they
have rejected autonomy saying that independence is more important to them than the rule
of the land in accordance with Islam's tenets.
Aceh is now an internationally recognised disaster area after world leaders like U.S. State
Secretary Colin Powell, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, World Bank President James
Wolfensohn and many others visited the area to get a first-hand account of the extent of
the destruction.
Besides the foreign dignitaries, Indonesians of various shades, too, have made their way
there - from Islamic militant groups to students and politicians.
As of such, it is inevitable that politics now rears its ugly head in the distribution of relief
aid.
The Indonesian military or TNI controls the distribution of emergency relief in Aceh, and
GAM rebels have accused them of using the disaster as a pretext to carry out more attacks
on the resistance. The TNI on the other hand claims that the rebels are stealing aid,
although relief agencies, which have been travelling freely outside the main towns, have
not reported any problems.
Bakhtiar Abdullah, a GAM spokesperson in their exile headquarters in Stockholm,
welcomed the arrival of international relief workers, but deplored the presence of
members of the ''thuggish so-called Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) and the terrorist
Indonesia Mujahidin Council (MMI)."
''The actions and words of both the FPI and MMI are against the teachings of the Holy
Quran and the Hadith and contradict the tolerance and faith of Achenese Muslims,'' said
Bakhtiar.
''Neither the FPI nor the MMI has any credentials or skills in disaster relief, and their
presence is clearly intended as a provocation to the people of Aceh,'' he added.
But the TNI has welcomed both groups, saying that they came to the province to help the
tsunami victims. The media of Palmerah, too, has distanced itself from reporting on the
GAM.
Meanwhile, the mainstream press is fanning suspicions that the U.S. troops helping out in
the relief efforts could be providing assistance to the GAM rebels instead. During the past
nine days, U.S. Navy helicopters have rushed food, water and medical supplies to areas
that are likely to remain inaccessible and in desperate need for weeks.
But President Yudhoyono is trying to put a stop to these claims.
''The presence of foreign servicemen here is apolitical; they are conducting a humanitarian
operation. After some time we will take over the operation, but for now we are grateful for
their presence,'' he said.
But the president's admission, as well as his deputy's remarks, shows very well that
sectarianism and narrow-minded nationalism are the hidden agendas in Aceh's relief
operation. (END)
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