Who to give the

Who to give the
money to in Aceh?

I've just spent about ten days up in Aceh in one of the
Lhoknga camps in an attempt to come up with some projects that
will get a few people up and running into a new livelihood. They
have all lost everything -- family, house, community and
livelihood.

We have about Rp 100 million that was raised by hashers who
supported a run in Medan at the end of January 2005 and this
money must be spent on something. Since then the mainly Chinese
committee, who must decide how to spend this money, has dithered
and dallied about what to do.

They didn't like my projects that were clearly directed toward
helping individuals because their culture and their belief in
corruption, collusion and nepotism (KKN) dominated their
thinking. How shallow and misguided can people be, who because of
past experience cannot understand that there are so many people
who have now lost everything in their lives and only ask and want
a new beginning no matter how small that is.

People here are perhaps understandably brainwashed into
thinking that anything that means giving something to someone for
nothing is a really bad idea, and this also does very little for
the image (face) -- which of course is important -- or is it?.
The basically Chinese committee wants to believe that if this
money is given to a recognized aid organization that the cash
will automatically go toward helping the needy -- it will also
(in their thinking) off-load the responsibility of having to make
a decision as to what to do.

How naive is this culture! What people need in Aceh is a
helping hand, and although a small organization like an
Indonesian hash cannot help everyone, it can in fact help a few
individuals who have lost everything in their lives. How sad it
is when people here in Indonesia cannot respond in a humanitarian
way when outsiders (foreigners) do it as a matter of course.

Look at how much money has been spent by foreigners in Aceh so
far, and then also look at who was first in Nias, and then
consider what the Chinese have done?

Culture -- this has nothing at all to do with humanitarian
needs, and the sooner people bury the past and start thinking
sensibly -- the better. I was totally embarrassed to be at that
meeting.

DAVID WALLIS
Medan, North Sumatra