Aceh governor pleads for more aid

Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Aceh Governor Abdullah Puteh appealed on Wednesday to Acehnese and others living in Jakarta to provide humanitarian aid for their brothers currently suffering the brunt of military operations in the war-torn province.

Assistance was urgently needed particularly to rebuild hundreds of schools that were burned down during the raging war, he said.

Speaking to journalists in Jakarta, Puteh said the burning of the school buildings had disrupted studies for hundreds of thousands of students in Aceh.

"The immediate rebuilding of those burned schools is a priority to enable the students to return to school as soon as possible," he said.

Puteh was in Jakarta to attend a one-day meeting of the governors' association currently headed by Jakarta Governor Sutiyoso. Humanitarian aid for the Acehnese people was one of the topics discussed by the provincial leaders.

Separately on Wednesday, around 200 Acehnese in Greater Jakarta donated blood in an event sponsored by the Taman Iskandar Muda organization, an Acehnese community group, in cooperation with the Indonesian Red Cross (PMI).

The event was held at the PMI headquarters on Jl. Gatot Subroto, South Jakarta.

Jakarta's Taman Iskandar Muda chairman Tengku Syafi'i Didoh said his group hopes this movement will continue so that there would be enough blood donations for the war victims in Aceh.

Puteh said various kinds of humanitarian assistance were needed for more than 30,000 refugees who fled the violence, poor people, widows, orphans and other neglected children.

"Because Acehnese are part of the great family of Indonesia, we call on all the communities here to give them aid," he urged.

Speaking on the sidelines of the Wednesday meeting, Governor Sutiyoso promised that the governors' association would extend aid for Acehnese victims, but could not give details on the assistance as it was still under discussion.

He made the promise after Puteh pleaded with the governors for "moral and material support" for the Acehnese people.

"During the meeting, I was asked to explain what was needed by the people in Aceh. About the aid, it depends on the capability of each province. The most important thing is moral support, the understanding that Aceh is part of Indonesia," he said.

Puteh also announced that at least seven civil servants in his province were being interrogated by the martial law authorities for their alleged involvement in the rebel Free Aceh Movement (GAM).

The investigation followed the move to reregister civil servants in Aceh.

Puteh refused to call the reregistration program a repressive measure, known as penelitian khusus or litsus, which was used by former strongman Soeharto's authoritarian regime to identify members of the now-defunct Indonesian Communist Party (PKI).

However, the governor admitted that several questions posed for Acehnese civil servants during their interviews may reveal information on GAM's network and the possibility of their role in the rebel group.

The central government plans to reregister other civil servants nationwide to test their loyalty to the unitary state of Indonesia, a move that has drawn fire from prodemocracy and human rights activists.