U.S. starts military withdrawal from Aceh<\/p>\n
Ian Timberlake, Agence France-Presse\/Banda Aceh<\/p>\n
The United States is pulling out the warship at the center of its
\naid mission to tsunami-hit Indonesia, in the clearest signal yet
\nthat emergency efforts to help survivors are winding down.<\/p>\n
The USS Abraham Lincoln, an aircraft carrier which was the
\nfirst military vessel to arrive off the coast of Aceh province
\nafter the Dec. 26 disaster, was expected to depart on Friday,
\nofficials said on Thursday.<\/p>\n
A "mission accomplished" ceremony attended by Indonesian and
\nU.S. officials was held on board the vessel, whose helicopters
\nproved crucial to bringing food and medical supplies to isolated
\nstretches of Aceh's coast.<\/p>\n
"The time has come to move on to the next stage of rebuilding
\nand reconstruction and to pass the torch on to other
\norganizations," U.S. ambassador to Indonesia B. Lynn Pascoe told
\n1,000 crewmen gathered on the Lincoln's deck.<\/p>\n
The disaster left almost 240,000 people dead or missing in
\nIndonesia. It wiped out many coastal villages and severed road
\naccess to the surviving communities. Some 400,000 people have
\nbeen left homeless.<\/p>\n
"I am pleased that the government of Indonesia no longer needs
\nthe full complement of forces that were originally deployed,"
\nIndonesia's Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare Alwi
\nShihab told the Lincoln's crew.<\/p>\n
Abraham Lincoln's air wing, Capt. Larry Burt, earlier told AFP
\nthe navy was reducing its "footprint" in Indonesia, however the
\nmarine-carrying USS Essex would remain alongside the newly
\narrived USNS Mercy hospital ship.<\/p>\n
The USNS Mercy, which is as long as three football fields and
\ncarries 1,000 beds, will have a huge impact on reviving the
\ndamaged local health system, a senior United Nations official
\nsaid.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Australia's Prime Minister John Howard said, a day
\nafter visiting Aceh, that up to 1,000 of his troops operating in
\nthe province would wrap up relief efforts "fairly soon", giving a
\ntime scale of "weeks not months".<\/p>\n
The United Nations has said it was confident the gap left by
\nthe withdrawal could be filled, with a newly-arrived Japanese
\nairborne contingent filling the gap in the short-term and the
\nUN's own helicopters and boats moving in.<\/p>\n
The presence of foreign troops in Aceh has been a prickly
\nissue in fiercely nationalist Indonesia, particularly while it
\ncontinues to clamp down on an armed separatist struggle in the
\nregion.<\/p>\n
Vice President Jusuf Kalla last month caused friction when he
\nsaid foreign troops working in Aceh should leave the region the
\n"sooner the better", setting a three month deadline for their
\ndeparture.<\/p>\n
The government later backtracked, saying troops should scale
\ndown their operations as the emergency phase of the relief
\nefforts came to an end. U.S. authorities said they would abide by
\nIndonesia's wishes.<\/p>\n
The United Nations, meanwhile, used the easing up of relief
\noperations as a chance to review its performance in the five
\nweeks since the disaster, offering its harshest assessment yet of
\npoor coordination and slow responses.<\/p>\n
David Nabarro, the World Health Organization's director of
\nhealth action in crises, said the UN needed to examine ways to
\nimprove in future emergencies.<\/p>\n
"Obviously we would like to see better coordination in this
\nkind of relief effort, particularly in the early stages when
\nyou've got so many international groups trying to provide help,"
\nhe said.<\/p>\n
"The chaos that some people have referred (to) occurring after
\nthree weeks perhaps could be addressed if we had stronger
\ncoordination capacity in day zero or day one, and that's the
\nquestion I'm gonna look at," Nabarro said. More stories on Pages
\n11,19<\/p>",
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