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.