Join Date: Dec 2004
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RE: Yankee go home
Meulaboh, Indonesia -- In an apparent effort to reassert control over a western province where federal troops have battled separatist rebels for decades, the Indonesian government demanded Wednesday that all foreign troops providing disaster relief leave the country by March 31.
Some 13,000 U.S. military personnel, most of them aboard ships in the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln's battle group, are taking part in the relief effort in Aceh province, where many of Indonesia's 106,000 tsunami victims lost their lives.
The new rules come when Indonesians are complaining that military restrictions are impeding international aid from reaching those most in need. In the flattened Aceh harbor city of Meulaboh, for example, volunteers have been cooling their heels for more than a week as they await permission from the Indonesian army to fan out to the local community.
Australia has more than 600 troops in Aceh, and expects to have about 300 more by week's end. ***an has sent two ships with 350 troops, and has promised to deploy about 1,000. Germany and Britain have a smaller presence, involving mostly medical teams. Singapore, Malaysia, China, and Spain are using military planes to bring relief supplies.
In response to Indonesian concerns, U.S. military officials agreed that some 2,000 Marines would not carry guns on Indonesian soil and that the vast majority of U.S. forces working in relief projects would return to ships stationed off the coast after each day's operations. U.S. officials also scaled back their plans to send hundreds of Marines ashore to build roads and clear rubble.
"We'll seek further clarification from Indonesia about what this means," said Scott McClellan, President Bush's spokesman. "We hope that the government of Indonesia and the military in Indonesia will continue the strong support they have provided to the international relief efforts so far."
The Abraham Lincoln sailed out of Indonesian waters Wednesday, after the Indonesian government refused to allow fighter jets from the carrier to continue training flights, which are necessary for pilots to stay certified. U. S. officials said the increased distance would not affect the relief flights being made each day by helicopters aboard the carrier.
Travel plans
Also Wednesday, the Indonesian military ordered all aid workers to declare travel plans or face expulsion from Aceh, again saying it was for their safety.
Military officials cite the threat of insurgents from the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), which has been fighting for an independent homeland in Aceh since 1976, to justify their decision. After the tsunami, the rebels announced a ceasefire with Jakarta.
"We want to help, but we are under the orders of the army, and they will not let us go into the villages to help,'' said Wei Kok Chandra, an insurance agent from Jakarta. He said his group of more than 200 volunteers, including people native to the tsunami-hit areas, arrived in Meulaboh aboard a navy ship eight days ago.
In New York, Margareta Wahlstrom, the U.N. coordinator for aid to tsunami victims, met with Indonesian authorities Wednesday. "We're concerned that any requirements that would create any additional bottlenecks or delays or otherwise adversely reflect our operations need to be reviewed very carefully, " Kennedy said.
Budi Atmaji, head of the national disaster relief team, said Indonesia's security forces support the humanitarian effort, but aid groups must realize that "we're still under a state of civil emergency here. It is important to note that the government would be placed in a very difficult position if any foreigner who came to Aceh to assist in the aid effort was harmed through acts of an irresponsible party," a reference to GAM guerrillas.
In addition to the international military effort, almost 30 domestic and international aid organizations have sent teams to Meulaboh, where the Indonesian army says 28,018 people died when the 25-foot-high wall of water hit the coast. In Langka, south of Meulaboh, Umi Slama, 47, sat on a stack of wooden planks by the side of the road and stared blankly into space. Two weeks after the disaster that killed her husband, Nga Lim, and pulverized her house, she is paralyzed by the experience.
"No help has arrived yet," she said. "I'm getting two packets of dried noodles a day from the army logistics, and I don't think that it's enough."
Not far away, where the popular local beach town Naga Pasi once stood, 60- year-old Emnor Kha pointed to a body caught in the fronds of a fallen palm tree. The flesh was so decomposed that the skull sits atop a bloated torso still clad in a purple checked shirt.
"I haven't bothered to tell anyone about it or to get it, nor has anyone else," Emnor said. "People are too traumatized and busy with their own affairs to worry. There are bodies everywhere, but there is no point in telling anyone, because nothing is being done. It rains often here, and it would be difficult to get them out."
The Indonesian army arrived in Meulaboh on Dec. 28 and set to work collecting thousands of bodies that have been interred in a shallow, sandy mass grave outside the city. More corpses arrive each day, and the grave must be regularly dug over.
Col. Gerhan, who is leading the relief coordination, concedes that the Indonesian army is ill-equipped to deal with a catastrophe of such magnitude. In central Meulaboh last weekend, Indonesian soldiers were using planks of wood to clear mud from roads because they had no shovels.
"We have never had to deal with something like this before, and we have done a lot already," said Gerhan who, like many Indonesians, goes by one name. "Every day we are making some progress."
Lack of body bags
Hospitals in the area appear to have enough drugs, but they lack other essentials, such as body bags. Louise Camm, a nurse with the South African aid group Global Relief, says medical care is frequently below standard, and some wounds are simply redressed, causing secondary infection.
The shortages continue, despite an apparent surfeit of medical assistance provided by an array of organizations -- Red Cross, Mercy Corps, Peace Winds, Doctors Without Borders -- from numerous countries.
Global Relief's Burd Cordier said his 15-strong paramedic team is one of the few agencies to venture to Meulaboh. His workers were shadowed by armed soldiers wherever they went, he said.
"We're the only ones out there, and we go 70 kilometers north where there is nothing and people are dying now as their injuries become infected," he said.
Chandra, the insurance agent who arrived with 200 volunteers, says he is frustrated by military controls.
"Many of us have done this work before, and many of us are from here, so we know what we're doing, where to go and what to do when we get there, but we can't,'' he said.
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