Aid workers in Aceh braced for expulsion as Indonesia gets tough

FOREIGN aid workers in the tsunami-stricken province of Aceh have been threatened with expulsion by Indonesian police once the emergency phase of relief operations is over. The government has set a deadline of March 26 for the withdrawal of foreign troops, but until now has insisted that foreign aid groups are welcome in Aceh.

British and American troops and other foreign forces that were deployed to deliver aid and vital emergency services have already left Aceh. Only a few detachments of foreign soldiers remain, and Japan’s contingent is due to pull out this week.

Aid workers say this reflects the reality on the ground, with a marked shift from providing immediate relief to tsunami survivors to longer-term reconstruction efforts. Indonesia estimates that these efforts will cost at least 2.5bn over five years, much of the money coming from foreign donors and private charities.

More than 800 foreign aid workers are registered with local authorities, many of them specialists who rushed to Aceh soon after the Boxing Day earthquake and subsequent tsunami that left at least 235,000 dead or missing in the area. This influx caused anger in Aceh, which has been under civil or military emergency rule for the last three years, with severe restrictions on foreign visitors.

The rules on foreigners were waived in the aftermath of the tragedy but appear to be back on the radar screen, particularly among hawkish Indonesian police and military officials. In recent weeks, police in Aceh have issued international aid workers with identity cards that will expire on March 26 and cannot be extended.

Aid workers are now bracing for a possible crackdown after this deadline. "We don’t know how long we can stay, it’s really unclear at the moment. The rumours change from day to day," said a staff member at an American aid organisation. Other aid workers said they were on short-term contracts because of the uncertainty, even though their organisations want to assist in the long-term recovery process.

A senior police general said that two United Nations agencies would no longer be welcome there and signalled that other organisations would also be under watch. He said the government could deal with the estimated 400,000 people left homeless in Aceh by the tsunami and questioned the need for so many foreign groups.

Brig Gen T Ashkin singled out the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Organisation for Migration as among the relief agencies that should leave Aceh. "We will review the presence of IOM and UNHCR here because it’s the government that must deal with [displaced people]," he said.

A foreign ministry spokesman in Jakarta said the government was reviewing the work of groups in Aceh and also named UNHCR as one that might be "rationalised" after March 26. Observers say UNHCR has a prickly working relationship with Indonesia’s powerful army dating back to the 1999 East Timor refugee crisis.

Aceh has hosted an armed separatist movement since 1976 and more than 40,000 Indonesian soldiers are deployed there. Many locals resent their presence and point to alleged human rights abuses by Indonesian troops, as well as brutalities by the separatist rebels. The devastating tsunami has not halted fighting: the army said yesterday it had killed 30 rebels in clashes during the last week alone.

Some Indonesian generals and hawkish politicians are fearful that an international presence in Aceh could lead to the separatists gaining foreign support that could put pressure on Indonesia to grant concessions. The government has held peace talks with exiled rebel leaders in Finland but there is no ceasefire on the ground and fighting has disrupted some deliveries of aid to tsunami-stricken areas.

In many coastal areas, tsunami survivors are moving from refugee camps into new wooden barracks designed as temporary homes. The government plans to house at least 50,000 vulnerable people in them but local campaigners have complained of mark-ups in the prices paid to contractors.

In a sprawling camp outside Banda Aceh, some refugees are resisting moving to barracks that are located far from their former homes. Wahyu Ningsiti, 23, an engineering student, said her family wanted to replace their house that was swept away by the killer waves. "We would prefer to build our own house, but we don’t have any money, so I don’t know how long we will have to live in temporary housing," she said.