Aceh's pain in exchange for trust<\/p>\n
\"How can we trust you with our donations?\" said a woman in Boston
\nCommon Park on New Year's Eve. Such a question put us, Indonesian
\nstudents who were distributing the flyers about the disaster in
\nAceh on that night, into short silence.<\/p>\n
We were pondering what we had done wrong. We didn't do that
\ncorruption and neither did the nearly one hundred thousand
\nvictims who died in that catastrophe. This is really a tragic
\nirony. I read on the news that many countries offered debt relief
\nto Indonesia. Deja vu, once again the Acehnese people help us
\nwith their blood and tears just like when they bought us our
\nfirst airplane that flew us to our independence.<\/p>\n
To understand what we are facing up front, try the following.
\nTry Google to look for these keywords; \"tectonic map\", \"volcanic
\nmap\", and \"epicenters map\". The epicenters map from NASA
\ndescribes that almost 80 percent of the Indonesian Archipelago is
\ncovered by dots of epicenters. This map is a compilation of
\nepicenter data from 1963 to 1998. Another map shows, this is no
\nsecret for many Indonesians who have gone through nine years of
\ncompulsory early education, that Indonesia is surrounded by many
\ntectonic cracks and sits on the area where three volcanic strains
\nmeet.<\/p>\n
Surprise, surprise, we don't have any strong center for the
\nstudy of earthquakes. Try Google on that one too, if you don't
\nbuy my words. I am not trying to blame it on our ignorance. My
\npoint is, no matter how prepared we are, this thing may happen
\nagain because we are sitting on a natural time bomb. If we betray
\nthe trust of the international community today, the tears of two
\nhundred and fifty million people in Indonesia will not be able to
\nbring back the betrayed trust.<\/p>\n
I believe that many people expect the that Indonesian
\ngovernment will take this opportunity to clear its name by being
\ntransparent and accountable. President Susilo can set the new
\nstandard of good governance for a better Indonesia by publishing
\nthe audited spending of all donations.<\/p>\n
The Indonesian government must provide a link in its
\nembassies' websites to report such fraud, publish the audited
\nreport of donation usage and provide online donation access. If
\nIndonesia fails to gain international trust, no one will want to
\nconduct any business with Indonesia, help or support us. We will
\nbe a country in exile.<\/p>\n
Last but not least, we must not forget about the trust from
\nthe people in Aceh. Our history is written with their blood and
\ntears too. Many of us care about Aceh. Helping them to recover is
\nactually helping us to welcome our brothers and sisters home. We
\nneed to bury all the pain that has set us apart and build bridges
\nbetween us to once again be a Bhineka Tunggal Ika, diverse but
\nunited nation.<\/p>\n
Indonesians abroad are gathering to lend a hand. We tried to
\nbe good ambassadors for our country. May the recent Tsunami
\nSummit in Jakarta be the place for us to regain trust from the
\ninternational community.<\/p>\n
JAHA NABABAN, Boston, USA<\/p>", "url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/acehs-pain-in-exchange-for-trust-1447893297", "image": "" }, "sponsor": "Okusi Associates", "sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com" }