Singapore – Peace talks with separatist rebels in Indonesia's Aceh province will continue if the guerrillas stick to the agenda of special autonomy, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said here on Tuesday.

Andreas Harsono, Lamno – Muhammad Ali finished a plate of fried noodles, sipped a glass of cold tea and lamented about his misfortune in a coffee shop at the market in small town Lamno, about 200 kilometers south of the Acehnese capital Banda Aceh.

Tim Johnston, Jakarta – Seven weeks after December's tsunami devastated Indonesia's Aceh province, the immediate crisis is under control. The authorities are now looking to medium-term coping strategies for the hundreds of thousands of people who lost their homes and livelihoods.

Banda Aceh – As many as 10,000 children in Indonesia's tsunami-devastated Aceh province may be seeking lost parents, the United Nations and other agencies said on Tuesday.

That figure represents about 2.5 percent of the 400,000 people displaced on the northern end of Sumatra island by the giant waves, triggered by an earthquake on December 26.

For the second time since the tsunami destroyed his house, Kamaruzaman slogged his way up the steep hill on the broken road to Ligan, still searching for somewhere to live and something to eat.

Fears of a post-tsunami disease explosion in Indonesia prompted the influx of huge medical resources, but with no sign of epidemic, a surfeit of foreign doctors is now struggling to find patients as hospital beds lie empty.

Tim O'Connor – Recently returned from Aceh, academic Ed Aspinall has been traveling regularly to Aceh for several years and written extensively on this area. He talks to Tim O'Connor about experiences during his 3 weeks assisting in the emergency efforts and and of the vital and unheralded work the local civil society groups were doing in the immediate aftermath.

Christopher Bodeen, Banda Aceh – In this tsunami-ravaged Indonesian city, the streets couldn't seem safer. Rifle-toting Indonesian soldiers patrol while children head off to school. Shoppers cram makeshift markets, and unarmed troops from foreign powers deliver aid.

Gordon G Benton – It is more than likely that there will be an unholy battle over the desolation in Aceh and North Sumatra on who is going to rebuild the infrastructure, towns and villages.

Among the donors to tsunami survivors in Indonesia's Aceh, Turkey stands out. Not for bringing money, shelter or food, but for flying their flag – an emblem that bears an uncanny likeness to the outlawed insignia of separatist rebels.

Teams collecting corpses in the Indonesian province of Aceh have estimated it will take at least another six months to find all the tsunami victims, the Red Cross said. Volunteers have been pulling scores of bodies from the rubble daily since the December 26 disaster, a grim task complicated by rapid decomposition in tropical temperatures.

Indonesia has urged the global community to heighten vigilance to ensure rampant corruption does not swallow billions of dollars of tsunami aid as it promises a March deadline to begin large-scale reconstruction in ravaged Aceh province.

Zely Ariane has been the secretary-general of the Peoples Democratic Party (PRD) since 2003. Indonesia's only openly operating socialist party, It played a central role in the movement to overthrow Suharto between 1994 and 1998 and has been at the forefront of attempts to unite the fragmented opposition to the neoliberal economic policies of the post-Suharto governments.

Thousands of Indonesians left homeless by the tsunami will be able to move into newly-finished barracks next week, but despite the promise of shelter, food and water, many instead want to return to the windswept piles of rubble they once called home.

[The following open letter was sent by the UK base human rights organisation Tapol to British Foreign Office Minister, Douglas Alexander, on 9 February 2005.]

Douglas Alexander
Minister of State
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
London SW1A 2AH

Dear Mr Alexander,

Human Rights Abuses in Aceh

Geneva – Donor countries are failing to provide enough funds for temporary housing and job creation for survivors of December's Indian Ocean tsunami, a senior United Nations official said on Monday.

Margareta Wahlstrom, the UN's special tsunami relief envoy, also urged governments to convert their aid pledges into cash as quickly as possible.

Jay Solomon,Medan – Textile trader Shie Hok Lai lost everything when the tsunami destroyed his shop and home in Indonesia's Aceh province December 26., but the ethnic Chinese businessman is getting ready to start over again – in the same place.

Indonesian soldiers prevented an Associated Press journalist from traveling in tsunami-wracked Aceh, a war-torn region that was off limits to foreigners before the disaster.

Banda Aceh – The United Nations on Tuesday pronounced the often chaotic relief effort to aid Indonesian tsunami victims a success but warned that the toughest part of the operation was still to come.

New York – The Indonesian government's plan in Aceh to register and relocate more than 100,000 people displaced by the tsunami to semi-permanent camps threatens their right to return home, Human Rights Watch and Human Rights First said today. The Indonesian government needs to ensure that any relocation program in the province fully respects the rights of the displaced people.

Jakarta – President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono explained to UN General Secretary Kofi Annan last night, Friday February 4, that the Indonesian government will not be internationalising the handling of the conflict with the Free Aceh Movement (GAM).

The Indonesian government's plan in Aceh to register and relocate more than 100,000 people displaced by the tsunami to semi-permanent camps threatens their right to return home, Human Rights Watch and Human Rights First said today. The Indonesian government needs to ensure that any relocation program in the province fully respects the rights of the displaced people.

Achmad Sukarsono, Banda Aceh – Aid groups, foreign armies and Indonesian officials have prevented disease and starvation from engulfing tsunami-hit Aceh province, but closer cooperation is needed to rebuild shattered livelihoods, government and aid officials said.

Tensions are rising between militant Islamic groups working in tsunami-struck Aceh and local residents as the outsiders seek to force hardline views on the traumatised local community.

The number of people believed killed in December's tsunami disaster rose to nearly 295,000, six weeks after the catastrophe, as Indonesia again increased its number of dead.

Indonesia was hardest-hit by the December 26 quake and tsunamis, with a total of 241,687 people listed as dead or missing, the health ministry said in its latest figures.

Matthew Moore, Lamno (Aceh) – Almost everyone is on a hopeless search, but one family breaks the circle of doom.

Tears of grief are still falling across Aceh's tsunami-devastated west coast, but Cutchairiah is one of the few people here with reason to cry tears of joy.

Rendi A. Witular and Eva C. Komandjaja, Jakarta – The government has decided to drop its plan to set up a special authority for Aceh since the tsunami-stricken areas in the province already had functioning local governments, according to Vice President Jusuf Kalla.

Nani Afrida, Banda Aceh – A group of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) has condemned the central government for its failure to involve the public in drafting a master plan to rebuild Banda Aceh.

Chris Brummitt, Banda Aceh – With the birth of her first child just one month away, Wadiana Wahab worries about the world her baby will enter.

Irwan Firdaus, Banda Aceh – An Indonesian anti-corruption activist detained on allegations of stealing aid in the tsunami-ravaged province of Aceh was hospitalized Friday after complaining of injuries sustained while in police custody.

Jakarta – The Indonesian Military (TNI) Army headquarters (HQ) is to deploy 40 company units, amounting to around 6,000 personnel, in Aceh in order to carry out the program of "TNI Building Villages."

Their assignment there is to open areas that are difficult to reach," said Army chief of staff General Ryamizard Ryacudu

Jakarta – A prominent human rights group in Aceh on Friday criticized Finnish mediator Martti Ahtisaari for allegedly backing the Indonesian government's side and its proposal to resolve the decades-long independence struggle.

Katherine Arie – Just weeks after the December 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami left over 230,000 people dead or missing in Indonesia's Aceh province, a decades-old conflict between government forces and Acehnese separatists flared up once again.

Letta Tayler, Bukit Barisan mountain range – The armed rebels huddled in the drizzle in their remote mountain hideout, a cluster of bamboo platforms and tattered tarps in a mosquito-infested jungle.

Under a makeshift canopy, two fighters who had been ambushed by the Indonesian army a few days earlier fretted that they had no fresh bandages for their gunshot wounds.

Urip Hudiono and Fadli, Banda Aceh – With the emergency relief stage in Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam officially declared to have ended, the government will now commence with rehabilitation and reconstruction efforts in the tsunami-stricken province, which includes the establishment of relocation barracks for refugees.

Indonesia's vice president said he believed the current talks with Aceh separatist leaders will bring an end to decades of armed conflict in Indonesia's tsunami-hit province, a report said.

Andreas Harsono, Banda Aceh – The Indonesian Red Crescent – claiming there is an oversupply of "do-gooders" who "do not speak the language" – has said it wants all foreign doctors helping the Indian Ocean tsunami survivors in Aceh to leave and hand over their emergency medical functions to local doctors instead.

Muninggar Sri Saraswati, Jakarta – The government should offer a power-sharing arrangement to the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) in governing oil and gas-rich Aceh as part of an effort to end the decades-long conflict in the province, a number of experts have said.

Mark Forbes, Banda Aceh – There are growing concerns that the Indonesian Government's plans to hastily relocate about 60,000 tsunami victims into 36 supervised barracks could spark outbreaks of disease.

Most Americans know little about the Indonesian province of Aceh. In fact, before the earth's crust shook and the sea turned homicidal-killing somewhere between 166,000 and 220,000 in Aceh alone-it is fair to guess many Americans had never even heard of Aceh. But they should have.

Max Lane – "The death toll in Aceh from the tsunami is closer to 300,000 people", Thamrin Ananda, chairperson of the Aceh People's Democratic Struggle Front (FPDRA), told Green Left Weekly by phone from Jakarta on January 27.

Nani Afrida and Apriadi Gunawan, Banda Aceh/Medan – Prominent Aceh figures and scholars appeared lukewarm on Tuesday about the recent peace talks between the Indonesian government and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) in Helsinki, saying that the talks were "elitist".

Jakarta – Army chief Ryamrizard Ryacudu says that the TNI (armed forces) will continue to take a defensive position with regard to the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) in spite of the fact that negotiations between GAM and the Indonesian government in Helsinki Finland have failed to produce an agreement.

Jakarta – Indonesia on Tuesday rejected an offer by Acehnese rebels to put their independence claims on hold in return for an eventual referendum on the issue, but mediators were optimistic that coming peace talks could be fruitful.

Tiarma Siboro and Muninggar Sri Saraswati, Jakarta – Plans to hold further peace talks between the government and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) look likely to stalemate as both parties cannot agree on the final goal of the dialog.

Jakarta – Tsunami-stricken areas in Indonesia were in need of more medical supplies rather than additional medical workers due to the declining number of patients and the already excessive number of medical workers, a senior aid official said on Monday.

Muninggar Sri Saraswati, Jakarta – While other regions across the country are gearing up to hold the first direct regional elections in June, five regencies in Aceh will have to postpone the event following the tsunami disaster.

Fedhly Averouss Bey, Jakarta – Army chief General Ryamizard Ryacudu says that a resolution to the conflict between the Republic of Indonesia and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) doesn't really need to be achieved through negotiations or a cease-fire. The only way that the conflict will end is if GAM surrenders to the TNI (armed forces).

Jakarta – Negotiators from the Indonesian government and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) wound up two days of talks in Helsinki on Saturday without a concrete result on how to end the decades-long war in Aceh, but pledged to meet again soon to seek a peace deal.

Acehnese rebels have said they are willing to put their demand for secession on hold if Indonesia accepts a "face-saving" formula that would allow the tsunami-hit province to hold an independence referendum within five to 10 years.