Aceh's pain in exchange for trust

Aceh's pain in exchange for trust

"How can we trust you with our donations?" said a woman in Boston
Common Park on New Year's Eve. Such a question put us, Indonesian
students who were distributing the flyers about the disaster in
Aceh on that night, into short silence.

We were pondering what we had done wrong. We didn't do that
corruption and neither did the nearly one hundred thousand
victims who died in that catastrophe. This is really a tragic
irony. I read on the news that many countries offered debt relief
to Indonesia. Deja vu, once again the Acehnese people help us
with their blood and tears just like when they bought us our
first airplane that flew us to our independence.

To understand what we are facing up front, try the following.
Try Google to look for these keywords; "tectonic map", "volcanic
map", and "epicenters map". The epicenters map from NASA
describes that almost 80 percent of the Indonesian Archipelago is
covered by dots of epicenters. This map is a compilation of
epicenter data from 1963 to 1998. Another map shows, this is no
secret for many Indonesians who have gone through nine years of
compulsory early education, that Indonesia is surrounded by many
tectonic cracks and sits on the area where three volcanic strains
meet.

Surprise, surprise, we don't have any strong center for the
study of earthquakes. Try Google on that one too, if you don't
buy my words. I am not trying to blame it on our ignorance. My
point is, no matter how prepared we are, this thing may happen
again because we are sitting on a natural time bomb. If we betray
the trust of the international community today, the tears of two
hundred and fifty million people in Indonesia will not be able to
bring back the betrayed trust.

I believe that many people expect the that Indonesian
government will take this opportunity to clear its name by being
transparent and accountable. President Susilo can set the new
standard of good governance for a better Indonesia by publishing
the audited spending of all donations.

The Indonesian government must provide a link in its
embassies' websites to report such fraud, publish the audited
report of donation usage and provide online donation access. If
Indonesia fails to gain international trust, no one will want to
conduct any business with Indonesia, help or support us. We will
be a country in exile.

Last but not least, we must not forget about the trust from
the people in Aceh. Our history is written with their blood and
tears too. Many of us care about Aceh. Helping them to recover is
actually helping us to welcome our brothers and sisters home. We
need to bury all the pain that has set us apart and build bridges
between us to once again be a Bhineka Tunggal Ika, diverse but
united nation.

Indonesians abroad are gathering to lend a hand. We tried to
be good ambassadors for our country. May the recent Tsunami
Summit in Jakarta be the place for us to regain trust from the
international community.

JAHA NABABAN, Boston, USA