Empathy, restrictions get under the skin

Empathy, restrictions get under the skin

Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, The Jakarta Post

As a follow-up to the 100th-day anniversary of the tsunami
commemorated on April 9, The Jakarta Post reporters give their
accounts of what it was like to be on assignment in Aceh.

Eight hours on a plane departing Jakarta, plus 12 hours of
waiting at three different airports, delay after delay -- this
was just the warm-up to landing in Banda Aceh.

For many reporters -- Indonesian and foreign media alike,
maiden visit or no -- entering this province, which had been
under limited media access since the 2003 enforcement of martial
law, was success in itself.

But no member of the media, trained to maintain a distance
from their news subjects, could have been prepared for ground
zero in Aceh and how deeply the millennium's greatest tragedy
would affect them.

Groups of journalists from many parts of the country had come
within the first weeks after the Dec. 26 disaster, lending their
hand in evacuating survivors, recovering bodies and erecting
makeshift shelters -- where they slept along with the displaced
Acehnese.

Banda Aceh correspondents continuously filed reports to head
offices elsewhere -- although they were survivors also, sharing
the same grief with other brokenhearted Acehnese still searching
for family at refugee camps, hospitals and among the bodies
buried under the rubble of their former neighborhoods.

Leaving no stone unturned in their coverage, most reporters
ran on very little sleep and food -- and at sky-high
transportation costs.

Of course, those from big-name media could rent an abandoned
house downtown and a car -- at a not-so-unexpected "tsunami
price" -- and get food from the nearest town of Medan, North
Sumatra.

It was not the lack of hotels and massage parlors that made
the reporters unwilling -- or unable -- to stay longer than it
took to file their stories. Frequently, many ended up calling
their editors and asking for a replacement.

Besides the plight faced by the people of Aceh and the sight
and putrid smell of the town, nothing frustrated reporters more
than how difficult it was to get accurate information on aid
distribution, especially to areas outside Banda Aceh -- and the
government and the Indonesian Military (TNI) cringed at the
presence of hundreds of reporters roaming around a once
restricted province.

The third week after the disaster, the national disaster
mitigation task force restricted foreign reporters from entering
areas aside from Banda Aceh, Sabang and Meulaboh -- where the
military have a strong foothold.

"There are reports on a disturbance allegedly caused by
members of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) against an Indonesian
medical team visiting rural areas ... We cannot guarantee that
they won't harm reporters," task force head Alwi Shihab had said.

However, these reports were not verified independently, and
the medical team said they had only heard an exchange of gunfire.
They had seen no one.

Even during a time when the entire world was in mourning with
the country, reports emerged on firefights between the TNI and
GAM -- who came out of hiding after the 9.0-magnitude earthquake
-- and more casualties joined the over 220,000 people who had
been swallowed up by the tsunami.

While no lens could be wide enough and no newspaper long
enough to capture the extent of the destruction and horror in
post-tsunami Aceh, the great volume of coverage that came out of
Aceh was still done under restricted access -- perhaps a true
measure of the devastation nature had wreaked.