For Lesley McCulloch, the story of Aceh is a forgotten tragedy. The British academic is one of the world's leading authorities on the remote Indonesian province, blighted for decades by a bloody civil conflict. Thousands have died since fighting erupted in the 1970s when separatist rebels launched a campaign for independence and the military responded with a brutal crackdown. Beyond Indonesia's troubled hinterlands, however, Aceh has made few headlines.
McCulloch, 40, a lecturer in the faculty of Asian languages and studies at the University of Tasmania in Hobart, often travelled to Aceh, on the northwestern tip of Sumatra, for research, cataloguing alleged human rights abuses. She has written extensively on the subject and has spoken before the UN on the plight of the Acehenese people.
She was so passionate about the place that when she had time off between jobs this autumn she chose to visit the province and spend time with friends. She had just turned down a job at the Pentagon to concentrate on her post as principal researcher on the Internal Conflicts in Asia Project being conducted by the East-West Centre for international relations in Honolulu.
She packed the summer dresses her mother had bought her for her 40th birthday and talked of travelling around and doing nothing much. But days after she arrived, on September 10, McCulloch and her companion, Joy Lee Sadler, a 57-year-old American nurse, were hauled off a bus by an Indonesian army patrol in south Aceh and thrown into jail. The authorities say the women had violated their tourist visa regulations by contacting rebels during the trip, an offence punishable by up to five years in jail. The proof, they said, was documents and a video relating to the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) which were allegedly found in McCulloch's bag. The women vehemently deny the accusations.
In the first few days after their arrest they were allegedly denied proper access to diplomats, lawyers or even a phone, and were assaulted, threatened, sexually harassed and deprived of sleep. In snatched conversations and messages relayed to family and journalists, McCulloch accused the authorities of a catalogue of abuses and a "slanderous attack" on her integrity and character by claiming she had covered up previous involvement in the region when seeking her entry visa. McCulloch has insisted she was in possession of a research visa but had not used it for her trip because she was on holiday and not working.
"Held seven nights, denied right of contact with embassy, abused by army, knife held at my throat by army, not allowed to make report re two points above, sleep deprivation, denied medical assistance, intimidation, sexual harassment by police, they tried to force us to sign false statements, lack of translator," she wrote in one smuggled note.
The women were eventually moved to an unlocked cell in a police facility in the provincial capital of Banda Aceh, where they will go on trial today, on the visa violation charge. In Australia, McCulloch's arrest has been raised in the senate and a fundraising campaign launched to pay for legal fees. In the UK, her plight has been virtually ignored.
At her home in Dunoon, in Argyll, Mattie McCulloch only learned of her daughter's arrest when an Australian friend phoned. "It was all over the news there, on the hour, every hour," Mattie says. "We contacted the Foreign Office and they said they were aware of the situation and were monitoring it. But no one told us. I remember I lay awake all night. I thought, no one is going to do anything.
"She had come to see us in Scotland just before she went and we had a lovely time. I had bought her all these bits and pieces for her birthday, the little slip dresses the young people like, she said they were ideal because she was going to have at least 10 days on a beach." The McCullochs say they have felt abandoned by the UK government. They say the Indonesian guards have made fun of their daughter because she has so few visits from British officials while Joy Sadler has been lavished with attention by US diplomatic personnel. "The soldiers taunt her because the American girl is being better looked after. 'When are the British coming?' they laugh at her," says Mattie. The Foreign Office says the honorary consul in Medan is in weekly contact with McCulloch and that her case has been raised by senior UK and European officials, including Lord Chancellor's office minister Baroness Scotland, foreign office minister Baroness Amos and the EU commissioner, Chris Patten. An official from the British Embassy in Jakarta will be with McCulloch for the trial.
"We are fully aware of Lesley's situation and we take it very seriously," says a Foreign Office spokeswoman. "We can't interfere with the legal process of another country. We are there to ensure that she has full legal assistance and she is being treated in a fair way." The McCullochs, meanwhile, fear Lesley's previous work on Aceh is being used by the authorities to make her a scapegoat. Friends and colleagues say she has witnessed much during her trips there and her outspokenness has made her an obvious target. Some have said they fear for her life.
"What they have been trying to do, the police, the army, they are trying to get more information on her," says Mattie. "They wanted a charge of espionage. They have not found anything. The lawyer said the police file on her is growing bigger by the minute. She has written a lot about conditions there. She is so passionate about her work. She loves that country and the people." Her worst "crime", the family says, may have been helping Joy Lee Sadler hand out first-aid supplies to villagers near where they were picked up. There had been fighting in the area and they had come across some people who were injured.
McCulloch has a badly slipped disc and is said to be in terrible pain. "A missionary visited and was so appalled at the conditions they were in that she went straight to the commandant and protested," says Mattie. "They suffered after she went." The McCullochs' first reaction had been to travel to Indonesia to try and see her daughter but they were advised against it, particularly following the Bali bomb blast. Mattie believes she can do more here, keeping up the pressure on the government. News that the trial is going ahead has brought some relief from the uncertainty.
It is hoped the women will simply be reprimanded or fined and told to leave the country if they are found guilty by the court. But a jail sentence cannot be ruled out. "We don't know what the outcome will be," says Mattie.