The Aceh Tsunami catastrophe one year after

The Aceh Tsunami catastrophe one year after

Andrew Steele, Jakarta

The wagons are already circling. In just over one month,
swarms of journalists and humanitarian icons spanning from U2's
Bono to former U.S. President Bill Clinton will descend on Aceh
to take stock of the recovery and reconstruction efforts that
have occurred in the wake of last December's tsunami. Field vests
will be dusted off and parachuting pundits will arrive prepared
to pass judgment on a situation with which they have had only
fleeting familiarity and no direct observations since their
immediate post-tsunami visit.

Given the unprecedented US$4 billion in donations and the more
than 200 non-governmental organizations working in Aceh now, the
international community is expecting results. In Jakarta, aid
workers who have been central to the process from the outset are
preparing for a negative assessment of the relief work to date.
That stems mainly, they say, from the rosy estimations laid down
last year regarding where the rebuilding of Aceh would be after
one year.

"No one in January would have thought the people in tents then
would still be in tents 10 months later," admits one World Bank
official in Jakarta. But to cite that as a failure on the part of
relief workers, including the Indonesian government's own
Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Agency (BRR) for Aceh and Nias,
is unfair at best.

The unrealistic expectations and overly optimistic projections
that pervaded the dialogue last year should not be used as a
benchmark for judging the reconstruction efforts. Those that have
not witnessed the efforts day in and day out should tread lightly
and consider the unforeseen obstacles that have impeded efforts
before they denigrate the process.

There certainly have been speed bumps that could have been
avoided; for example, to date there is still no formalized
monitoring of the rebuilding of homes by international aid
groups. That has allowed for occasional shoddy construction and
has led to jealousy among villagers regarding the differences
among homes being built. Some villages have actually rejected
newly built homes. Also, relief groups have at times competed
with one another where coordination would have been more
appropriate.

For sure, the Indonesian bureaucracy is a problem, too. The
red tape is often exhausting, aid workers say. And the government
at times seems to lack a sense of urgency. It also has no system
to disperse emergency funds efficiently.

Let us not forget what the reconstruction entailed, however.
The death count, according to the UN, sits at 131,000 with
another 37,000 unaccounted for, and tsunami costs are estimated
at US$5.1 billion. Furthermore, there are few roads to bring
supplies in and there is no working port. The cost of sending
supply ships into Aceh is inflated, as they have no cargo to pick
up to finance the return voyage.

The decades-long insurgency in Aceh that the tsunami
interrupted leads to the only appropriate analogy that comes
close to capturing the magnitude of the resuscitation of Aceh:
that of a post-war reconstruction. Under these circumstances, the
Indonesian government, the BRR, and aid agencies like the World
Food Programme deserve serious accolades.

There have been major successes in the relief efforts to date.
The Indonesian government managed the initial stages very well
and buried the bodies in a timely manner, staving off a second
crisis that could have resulted from disease. There also have not
been issues of starvation to date. Houses are now being built at
a faster pace than at any time to date, and the health care and
education services might even be better now than they were before
the tsunami.

That said, the reconstruction efforts are hardly out of the
woods. This has aid agencies worried that donor fatigue may set
in with Aceh. Given the other disasters that have occurred since
last year, including Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and the
earthquake in Pakistan that killed some 70,000 people, available
funds are going to be increasingly scarce.

It will be easy for the press corps to look around and see
that a vibrant and prosperous city has not sprung up in the last
year. The devastation in Aceh, however, is unprecedented in the
modern era; appraisals of the recovery effort have no analogous
historical precedents. The work done thus far in rebuilding Aceh
must be judged as a unique response to a unique disaster. Let the
news accounts of Aceh's condition after one year reflect the
enormity of the task at hand rather than the unrealistic goals
offered in the immediate post-tsunami period.

The writer is the Managing Editor of the Van Zorge Report. He
can be reached at asteele@vzh.co.id.