INDONESIA: Local politics came between tsunami survivors and aid yesterday, Lynne O'Donnell reports from Medan, Indonesia.
International relief flights to remote parts of Indonesia have been suspended because the Jakarta government has objected to what it regards as interference in an area that has been a theatre of rebellion for decades.
A US military source said yesterday that a helicopter drop to a rebel-held region of Aceh province on Wednesday, aimed at providing basic food and water needs for communities swamped by the tsunami, had angered the Indonesian administration.
"The government got angry about it and said we can't deliver supplies over there any more," the military source said.
"They've been hit hard over there and need whatever they can get, but they're not going to get it for a while now," he said on condition of anonymity. "We thought it was OK because the people needed it, and they got the wrong idea because it's where the rebellion has been going on," he said. "It'll be sorted out but it's a pity for those people."
Little detail is known of the extent of devastation on some parts of Aceh's coastline south of aid hubs such as Banda Aceh, the provincial capital, and Meulaboh.
Aceh province has been the scene of a violent separatist campaign by the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) since 1976, with an estimated 10,000 people, most of them civilians, losing their lives. After ceasefire negotiations broke down in May 2003, Jakarta imposed martial law for a year.
Access to the region remains restricted and international aid organisations, banned from the province, are starting their operations from scratch.
The local population is overwhelmingly Muslim and has been permitted to live according to strict Islamic law.
Despite this concession, and apologies for human rights abuses that were made after Suharto fell from power in 1998, GAM has continued with its low-level insurgency and the Indonesian military presence in the region remains intense.
Despite claims that the catastrophe had brought the peace of necessity to the troubled province, political sensitivities appear to have been inflamed.
US helicopters flying from carrier ship groups redeployed to the Sumatran coast began flying aid missions to some of the most remote areas of Indonesia early this week, dropping desperately- needed food and water supplies.
Relief workers have estimated that 10,000 people in the area around Meulaboh are in need. The US source said there was no clear idea of how many people in the area had been killed, let alone remained in serious need of supplies and medical help.
Indonesia was the worst hit of 12 countries pounded by the St Stephen's Day tidal wave, with an estimated 80,000 dead and up to one million homeless.
Aid organisations have complained about the lack of access to remote coastal towns, but much of their frustration has been caused by the destruction of roads and communications.
Efforts to bring food, water and medical help appear to be in full swing in Medan, where aid has been flowing in from across the world for the past week.
Bottlenecks appear to be clearing but delay in establishing the infrastructure of aid is likely to have exacerbated health problems, said Lieut-Col Walter-Hubert Schmidt of the German Medical Corp.
"We are expecting that we will have to deal with a wide array of water-borne disease, like malaria, cholera, typhoid and dysentery," he said soon after arriving in Medan with a forward group of 52, who will be joined by another 62 specialist medical military personnel next week.
He said the corp would deploy in Banda Aceh to provide immediate medical care as needed, set up a field hospital and begin restoring one of the city's three hospitals destroyed by the wave.
The Berlin medical ship will also be redeployed from exercises in Oman, he said, to provide surgical and intensive care facilities and a 45-bed hospital.