Acehnese refugees brace to start all over again

SIGLI, Aceh (JP): Among the student volunteers at a refugee shelter here is a tall thin young man majoring in engineering at a private institution in the capital, Banda Aceh.

It was a shock for his friends when they found out one day in July that Hasnandaputra, their fellow activist, was among the refugees himself -- with his entire family, including five of his siblings.

His mother, Rosmawar, was sharing a long narrow space under a longhouse structure on stilts with several families. They said they could not stand the heat and the smoke from the public kitchen behind the wooden structure.

Holding her youngest son, Rosmawar, a teacher, demanded: "When can we go home?"

The third grader had not even taken the semester tests when villagers of the entire Tangse district decided to move out at first signs of the arrival of security personnel.

"It is quite painful," said Hasnandaputra, commenting on his position as a refugee and a member of the student volunteer post at the center in Rambayan district here.

There are other centers with much worse conditions, but Hasnandaputra and nine other students who have also been displaced, see their lives crumbling.

"This could be the end of my studies," Hasnandaputra said. He was hoping a scholarship could help provide the way out to pay for semester tuition fees of Rp 230,000 and perhaps part of his living costs.

"My siblings may stop going to school too."

While a few shelters are near schools where the children can take afternoon classes, Rambayan only provides, like most of the other shelters, regular Koran reading classes for the children.

Those parents whose children can go to nearby schools -- though with hardly any books -- "have one burden less", said the Salman Ishak from the regional office in charge of education. Parents here put a high priority on schooling, he added.

The children were seen wearing neatly pressed uniforms in the squalor of the refugee camps.

Salman said the exodus, together with last month's burning of 24 elementary schools, four junior high schools and four secondary high schools, has left 6,000 elementary students and 2,500 secondary level students without schools.

Families, like those supporting Hasnandaputra, have suddenly become penniless. Before the violence escalated, most of the refugees had crops to rely on, or else, as in the case of Hasnandaputra's parents, a regular job.

"The average loss per family is Rp 10 million," a village chief says in the same shelter, referring to income derived from crops.

In Sigli, Pidie's capital, the eyes of a communications center employee redden as he reveals that his family is also among the refugees. Tarmizi and his colleagues at the PT Telkom outlet in Tangse district have been forced to vacate the premises. His family was also expecting to harvest their crops when they decided to join the exodus. To add to their grief "the house was broken into", he said.

His 70-year old grandmother was one of his family members who had taken refuge. He has taken a room near the Telkom center, but his family would not, or could not, leave the shelter.

Controversy

While some refugees told The Jakarta Post that they would not want to leave even if they had relatives elsewhere, police and other Pidie residents say volunteers and refugee center organizers, including students, infiltrated by the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), do not allow refugees to leave the sites.

Some of the students have considered leaving the centers. Security suspicions of their activities led to the arrest of four student volunteers earlier this month when they hitched a ride on an ambulance. They argued they could not find public transport.

But other students point to the inadequate assistance for the refugees: a few hundred volunteers for some 60,000 refugees in Pidie alone.

The above issue is just one aspect of the controversy surrounding the refugee problem. Journalists here say some refugees have said they were told by the Free Aceh Movement to leave their villages, while other refugees have said they feared being assaulted by security personnel.

A district office employee said people willingly left their villages if asked to by the separatist rebels because of increasing support for the movement.

Because of the escalating violence, blamed by increasing numbers of people on security personnel, mainly the military, he said the support for GAM had risen to "60 percent" compared to the earlier apathy toward the movement.

One activist said withdrawal of the much feared combined military and police Crack Riot Troops (PPRM) was the only way to ensure an end to the exodus. But the police here, which the PPRM answers to, say such a perception is the result of political propaganda either by the Free Aceh Movement or other armed groups.

This point of contention is suspected of holding up urgently needed help. The International Commission of the Red Cross (ICRC), avoiding perceptions of favoring either side, has said it is being very cautious because of the sensitivity of the issues.

However, an ICRC representative, Armin Gruber, denied that its caution has led to reluctance in providing urgently needed accommodation for refugees sleeping in the open, including youngsters and the elderly. Such conditions are particularly evident at the center in Beureuneun, which is housing some 18,000 people, some of whom are sheltering in the school building near the mosque.

Gruber said ICRC was focusing on water and sanitation needs, with tents the responsibility of other offices.

"We are ready to assist when the situation gets out of hand," he said from Lhokseumawe.

Continuing media exposure is helping with aid efforts, although volunteers say the assistance is now only trickling in. This week the Serambi Indonesia daily opened an account for readers to send in contributions. Letters to the editor of that paper slam the apparent obliviousness of authorities and legislators.

Volunteers complain of the red tape involved in requesting and channeling aid.

And with more refugee centers springing up, "bringing Rp 10,000 on the road is no longer enough", a frequent passerby said, fishing out yet another Rp 1,000 bill to people juggling buckets and cardboard boxes near one of some 13 shelters on the highway in Pidie.

Contributions from motorists and other passersby are a crucial source of income to buy additional needs such as planks to make two-square meter huts for families -- a relative luxury here.

A volunteer said at the beginning of the exodus approximately Rp 1 million could be collected in one day at the shelter where he is posted. Daily contributions have dwindled to less than Rp 50,000.

"We're in the middle, and people have been giving money along the way from both ends" of the highway linking Pidie to North Aceh, Imawan said.

A social worker said part of the refugees' rice provision was bought at the market price of about Rp 2,300, instead of Rp 1,000 per kilogram provided under the social safety net funds. For some reason the cheaper rice was only to be found last week. Authorities at the regional logistics office were not available for comment on the delay.

Food shortage

The impact of the refugee problem and the uncertain security situation is hurting Pidie's economy, which depends on agricultural products.

Economist Raja Masbar of the leading Syiah Kuala University told Serambi Indonesia daily in Banda Aceh on Monday that continued neglect of rice fields by frightened farmers would lead to the possibility of the collapse of the food sector in the province.

A planned strike for Aug. 4 and Aug. 5 by several groups, including the association of public transport owners, Organda, to protest alleged harassment by the military, may worsen the situation, mainly because Aceh depends on supplies from the North Sumatra capital of Medan, he said.

In Sigli, Pidie's capital, Nuryasin Siregar, an official at the agricultural agency said: "The price of onions has fallen because there are no trucks willing to carry them out of the area."

In Banda Aceh, onions were Rp 2,000 per kilogram, compared to the previous price of at least Rp 6,000, a resident in the provincial capital said. A farmer at one refugee camp said he had earlier invested Rp 6 million to plant onions.

Nuryasin, the secretary of the Bimas information section assisting farmers, said Pidie is Aceh's rice production center.

In addition to rice, soybeans and peanuts are crops which residents said they left behind when they fled their homes.

But Nuryasin said while the targeted 18,410 hectares of paddy was only at 30 percent capacity during the current planting season since April, there was still time until September. Compounding the problem are fears of an extended drought. "We would only be relying on rainwater," he said.

Asked how villagers would start over, as they had reported losses of not only ducks and cows but also valuables from their homes, Nuryasin said one way out may be the farming credits (KUT) which require no collateral. For each planting season, the credit is, for instance, Rp 1.6 million per hectare for paddy and Rp 12 million per hectare for onions.

"The rules are that farmers cannot request more credit if they have not paid back at least 50 percent of the previous loan," he said. "But considering the refugees' situation there's a possibility that the authorities might bend the rules."

While many farmers own their plots, most till others' plots, earning up to two-thirds of harvest results.

Losses

Unlike other areas which have cash crops such as in North and East Aceh, in the low lands of Pidie, residents' single source of livelihood are their rice fields. When not planting rice, everything else is grown there. Extra food on the table comes from, for instance, duck eggs.

Lists of lost items reported to volunteer posts reflect how residents will have to start over in rebuilding even a fraction of what they had.

Individual losses included 10 ducks, 50 chickens, seven goats and four cows. A harvest lost by one resident was recorded at 200 coconuts, while another, Fakhri Muhammad, reported the loss of all his cultivation tools and material, including four rolls of barbed wire and 400 kilograms of fertilizer.

Another family lost all their furniture, only saving cash, jewelry and documents. Cherished heirlooms, the traditional rencong or sword, were also reported missing by other refugees.

There are no witnesses to the ransacked villages, but people here say thieves would not dare enter villages guarded by security personnel. However soldiers reportedly said they only guard posts outside villages.

"Who would I ask for compensation?" a refugee here demanded.

An activist going back and forth channeling aid, Nony of the Care Human Rights Forum (FP-HAM), said conditions here are not unlike those in Kosovo and other sites of cross-border exodus.

"We have everything they have," she said, listing the violations as: arbitrary detentions and killings, the threat of violence, stolen belongings, physical abuse and torture. She said all the factors contributed to the massive exodus.

International help may be on the way, as the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) had plans to check the shelters after consulting authorities in Banda Aceh.

However "national pride" might stand in the way of acquiring help from outside. One high-ranking official here said "as long as we can solve our own internal matters", international help is not necessary.

Meanwhile, the death toll among displaced people recorded since July reached 20 by Monday. Most of them have been elderly, but a few children are also included in the number. The sick are brought to the nearest health posts and then brought back to the same conditions which contributed to their ailments.

At least 15 babies have been born in the camps, enjoying only a few hours at the community health centers. Newborns and their mothers are provided with a sheltered corner for barely a month.

They must then make way for others, and share the lot of the sea of humans, thousands of them under tattered tents in the searing heat and the cold night winds. (anr)