Acehnese struggle for normalcy three months after tsunami

Acehnese struggle for normalcy three months after tsunami

Achmad Sukarsono, Reuters/Banda Aceh

Near the seafood market where he worked until killer waves
smashed it to bits three months ago, Alimuddin is selling fish
again in the provincial capital of Aceh.

A massive Indian Ocean earthquake on Dec. 26 sent a tsunami
crashing into coasts around the region. Aceh was hardest hit.
Almost a quarter of a million Acehnese were killed or are
missing, and more than 500,000 survivors lost their homes.

Alimuddin's wife died, his house was leveled and his workplace
was wrecked when the waves hit Banda Aceh.

But after mourning for months as the city was cleared of
rubble and bodies, he went back to work.

"I feel things are getting back to normal. It is really the
time for us to move on," said the mustachioed Alimuddin while
chopping a fish for an aged Banda Aceh resident who had returned
after fleeing to a nearby province.

Alimuddin and his customer are living proof the worst fears
about the tsunami's after-effects haven't been realized.

Just after the disaster experts worried of many more deaths
from hunger and disease, and thought it could be several months
before the economy showed sparks of life.

Those concerns proved largely unfounded as governments,
private aid groups and militaries rushed in food and medicine and
set up shelters.

And the Acehnese showed a toughness many have praised.

Erskine Bowles, deputy United Nations special envoy for
tsunami recovery, told reporters on Friday he had witnessed their
resilience.

"When you're on the ground and you see the devastation, it's
hard to even comprehend. But then the good part happens. Then you
meet the Acehnese people and they are the strongest people I have
ever met in my life."

Bowles was White House chief of staff when Bill Clinton was
U.S. president. Clinton is now an UN tsunami special envoy and he
and Bowles are encouraging donors to dig deep into their pockets
to help tsunami-affected nations.

"Now, we've finished the sprint. We're now on to the
marathon," said Bowles.

Part of the challenge is to get more victims like Alimuddin
back on the job.

"I want to work again. I need a barrow and shovel to go back
to my job but who will help me?" said Muhammad Saleh, a villager
from Aceh's flattened west coast region of Leupung who once mined
sand used in construction work.

Aid agencies say providing jobs is a top priority.

Mohamed Saleheen, head of the UN's World Food Program office
in Indonesia, told Reuters: "I hope and I'm sure that there will
be avenues targeted on their livelihood under the blueprint,"
referring to a long-awaited plan of action for recovery and
reconstruction Indonesia has promised.

Vice President Jusuf Kalla is scheduled to discuss the plan
with Acehnese leaders on Saturday, but Alwi Shihab,
Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare put in charge of Aceh
after the disaster, has said it would be several days before it
was final.

Many ready to commit aid or undertake projects have been told
to wait until the plan is announced before going ahead.

It may also shed light on the presence of international
agencies after weeks of confusion over their future.

Their high visibility -- more than 150 non-government agencies
alone are in Aceh -- has ruffled nationalistic feathers and
raised security issues in the province, where the government has
been fighting pro-independence rebels for decades.

Staff of the United Nations' refugee agency left Aceh on
Thursday after Jakarta decided their presence was unnecessary. A
UNHCR (United Nations High Commission for Refugees) housing
project was shifted to another U.N. agency.

The UNHCR base in Banda Aceh was deserted on Friday. Written
on a whiteboard was: "Remember what MacArthur said", an apparent
reference to U.S. General Douglas MacArthur's "I shall return"
pledge when he left the Philippines during World War Two.