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.