Quake, tsunami just latest blows

Two weeks ago, Aceh was a place few could properly pronounce, let alone pick out on the map. Today, the westernmost province in the sprawling Indonesian archipelago has become a household name, "ground zero" for one of the deadliest natural disasters in modern history.

More than 104,000 Acehnese are believed to have died in the Dec. 26 earthquake and tsunami. More than 400,000 homeless are expected to need shelter in refugee camps, and 1,550 villages have been wiped out. The Indonesian government predicts it will take up to a decade for Aceh to recover.

But the troubles facing this remote region are not the work of Mother Nature alone. Aceh was awash in violence, poverty and tragedy long before the tsunami swept over its shores.

The province has been engulfed in what is often described as one of Southeast Asia's longest-running and most-brutal conflicts. At least 15,000 people have died and thousands more have disappeared in a string of military campaigns since 1989. Most of the victims are civilians, caught in the cross-fire between Indonesian troops and separatist rebels of the Free Aceh Movement, known as GAM.

The latest chapter in this conflict began in May 2003, when the government abandoned a peace accord and imposed martial law. More than 40,000 troops were dispatched to Aceh to crush GAM. At the onset, Indonesia's generals predicted the anti-insurgency campaign would wipe out an estimated 5,000 rebels in five months. But 19 months later, combat operations drag on.

"Aceh has been in a state of misery for years and years and years," said Daniel Lev, University of Washington political-science professor emeritus and Southeast Asian expert.

The world, though, knew little about the conflict in Aceh. When the Indonesian government declared martial law, it also imposed a virtual media blackout and ousted international relief groups providing aid to refugees displaced by the violence.

"Before the disaster hit, Aceh was the most closed and inaccessible part of Indonesia," says Sidney Jones, director of the Southeast Asia Project for the International Crisis Group.

"Aceh has already suffered so much," said Hendra Budiansyah, 24, who fled political persecution in Aceh in 2001 to find asylum in the United States.

His mother, a well-known pro-independence activist imprisoned for her political activities, is among the countless who have perished. "She was locked in her cell when the earthquake struck," Budiansyah said. A dark, churning wall of water followed, flattening the prison completely and entombing it in mud.

Budiansyah hopes his mother's body might be found for a proper burial. Meanwhile, he is trying to track down surviving family and friends.

Some aid workers worry that relief efforts will be hampered by a legacy of government neglect and corruption, and a dismal infrastructure.

The road network is limited, the electric grid fragile and unreliable, and clean-water supplies are scarce.

"No one bothered to prepare for this kind of disaster," said Lev. "The people of Aceh are paying the price for that."

Aceh is home to 4.2 million people. In a country that is home to the world's largest Muslim population, Aceh, known as the "Porch of Mecca," is considered among the most devoutly Muslim areas. The once-prosperous sultanate was the historic departure point for pilgrims heading to Mecca.

While the Dutch easily colonized the rest of Indonesia beginning in the 17th century, the Acehnese fiercely resisted, losing up to a fifth of their population. During World War II, Aceh joined the rest of Indonesia's struggle for independence from the Japanese Imperial Army and later the Dutch. Aceh was incorporated into the new Indonesian republic born in 1949.

Ten years later, Indonesia granted the province a "special territory" status that included autonomy in some matters.

The province is strategically perched along shipping lanes of the Straits of Malacca. Most importantly, Jakarta relies heavily on Aceh's considerable resources: natural gas, oil and timber. In 1998, the Arun gas field alone produced $200 billion in liquefied natural gas (LNG).

"Aceh can live without Indonesia, but Indonesia cannot live without Aceh," Dewi Fortuna Anwar, an adviser to former President B.J. Habibie, once told reporters.

"Aceh is rich, but the people are poor," a common grievance heard there, is at the core of Aceh's differences with Jakarta. Many Acehnese have long complained that the central government has drained away the province's riches without investing in local development.

GAM, whose leadership is now based in Sweden, launched its struggle for independence in 1976. In 1989, then-dictator Suharto placed Aceh under complete military control in an intensive counter-insurgency campaign.

When student protests brought Suharto's tenure to an end in 1998, the Acehnese were finally free to speak out against a decade of atrocities: institutionalized "torture houses," mass graves, disappearances and extra-judicial executions of suspected rebels and sympathizers.

And Aceh's demands for independence grew louder. To quell calls for freedom, the government negotiated its first cease-fire with GAM rebels in 2000 and offered Aceh "special autonomy," granting the province a greater share of revenue from local resources.

While the government apologized for human-rights abuses under Suharto, it never held military leaders accountable.

Despite peace talks, the violence has continued. In recent years, activists have disappeared, students have been beaten and detained, and humanitarian workers were intimidated as they delivered aid. Villages suspected of harboring rebels were torched.

GAM also stepped up its campaign, recruiting fighters and extorting villagers and businesses to fund its operations. In 2003, rebels kidnapped and detained a pair of journalists. One was killed in a cross-fire between troops and rebels, while the other was released 11 months after his abduction.

The Indonesian government has portrayed GAM as Islamic extremists.

But Jones said the separatist movement has no fundamentalist agenda. "There was no act of terrorism in Aceh; this was not an insurgency that had any links to the jihadist movement," she said.

Now that the fury of Mother Nature has heaved Aceh back into the international spotlight, there are both hopes for peace and fears that violence will escalate.

Jones worries that the Indonesian army will continue to pursue its own interests in the region and that GAM may also use the disaster as an opportunity to recruit supporters.

On the other hand, she sees some positive developments. The disaster-relief effort also ushered in the first U.S.-Indonesian military cooperation in years, after a military embargo against Indonesia for atrocities in East Timor. She believes pressure from donors operating in Aceh might prompt the military leadership to scale back operations.

However, graft remains a primary concern, since she and other experts say Aceh has one of the most corrupt administrations in Indonesia.

"Donors have to demand very, very strict auditing so that the money goes where it was intended to go," Jones said.

Jacqueline Koch is a Whidbey Island freelance photographer and writer. She has spent considerable time in Indonesia and has made four reporting trips to Aceh since 2000. Statistics on the dead and homeless were provided by The Associated Press.