UNHCR to leave Aceh three months earlier

Agencies, Jakarta

The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) has ceased operations in tsunami-ravaged Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam after getting no response from the government to its proposal to participate in the reconstruction process there.

UNHCR regional representative Robert Ashe said in Jakarta that the agency decided to withdraw their staff from the province because the Indonesian government did not respond to their request for a longer stay.

He said the agency, which had planned to stay for six months, had drawn up plans to help reconstruct Aceh, including building 1,000 homes in the village of Kruengsabe, near the devastated fishing town of Calang.

"But we did not receive a request from government for help, and our internal guidelines say that in a situation like this, we work only with the request of the government," Ashe said on Thursday as quoted by AP.

Ashe said the refugee agency had spent a total of US$7 million so far out of the $40 million it had collected for the tsunami operation. The remaining funds, he said, would either be returned to donors or diverted to other relief agencies.

The Indonesian government previously set a March 26 deadline for all foreign agencies operating relief efforts in Aceh, exactly three months after the disaster struck and claimed over 200,000 lives and left half a million others homeless.

However, it relented early this week and extended the period by 30 to 60 days in order to give the government a chance to scrutinize which foreign aid organizations would be allowed to continue their work in Aceh based on their credentials.

It is feared that the government's policy is simply to seal off the province again from foreigners due to concerns that the presence of foreigners is giving greater international exposure to the separatist movement in the province and highlighting human rights abuses by the country's military.

Laura Worsley-Brown, a spokeswoman for relief effort chief Alwi Shihab, said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not feel that an agency dedicated to assisting foreign refugees should have anything to do with a domestic relief operation.

Other U.N. agencies were welcome to stay, however, she said.

Along with other relief agencies, the UNHCR, said Ashe, distributed tents, plastic sheets, and blankets to nearly 100,000 survivors there.

He said the UNHCR normally did not get involved in natural disasters because its mandate was limited to protecting people fleeing violence and persecution.

But the tsunami disaster was so enormous that the UNHCR was asked to join other agencies as part of the overall U.N. emergency response effort, Ashe explained.

"But clearly it's their country, it's their people, and they have the right to decide, although I think for (our staff) it is a personal disappointment because they feel there is still more work to be done," he quickly added.

Despite the pull out, the agency said it would be more than happy to return if invited by the government.

"UNHCR understands the government's desire to review and rationalize the huge humanitarian efforts in Aceh as it now prepares for the next important stage -- long-term reconstruction," a UNHCR statement said.

"The UNHCR remains ready to provide support in that stage if requested to do so by the government."

Ahmad Humam Hamid of Aceh Recovery International, one of the local non-government groups that will take over some of the UNHCR's work, said the apparent move to seal off the region to certain groups was irresponsible.

"There should be no abrupt end to assistance. The problems and challenges in Aceh remain huge and I am only afraid that we as a nation do not have the capacity to cope with them.

"It should not be a matter of national dignity but the fate of thousands of internally displaced people who have only known suffering since the disaster," he told AFP.