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