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.

Tim O'Connor (TOC): You left for Indonesia the week following the earthquake and tsunami struck off the coast of Aceh. Can you tell us what your impressions were in arriving back in Aceh a place you had been many times?

Ed Aspinall (EA): I arrived in Aceh from Jakarta on the 6th of January, I went overland from Medan as all flights were booked out due to the influx of aid. The traffic along the roads from Medan was incredible. Huge buses and trucks laden with all types of goods were flowing in by this stage. I was traveling with members of the Legal Aid Institute (YLBHI) from Jakarta. The main purpose of their visit was to check on the welfare of their staff in Aceh, but they were visiting their families and friends, checking their welfare and the impacts of the earthquake and tsunami and to mourn the dead. The head of YLBH, Syarifah was killed in the disaster.

The Southern part of Aceh was not greatly affected but from Lhokseumawe onwards the effects were visible. Refugee camps dotted the road and most of these in these areas contained a very obvious military presence, unlike Banda Aceh. In addition to the destruction, it was very strange seeing so many foreigners there as the area had been closed to all outsiders since May of 2003 when the military emergency was initiated by the Indonesian Government.

Arriving in the capital Banda Aceh after dark, the impact was overwhelming. Where there had been residential areas teeming with people previously, now there was just debris. It was completely overwhelming although something that everyone had to get over very quickly as there was so much to do. Through some friends, I was able to assist with interpreting at hospitals.

At this stage some international agencies had arrived and were working but many more were still arriving in absolute droves. Meanwhile many local activists and NGOs had recovered very quickly and were operating from as soon as the day after the disaster occurred.

These locals had a good idea about the real needs of the people and were doing very important work; needs assessment, logistical and financial coordination and the thankless task of collecting the bodies.

TOC: Can you give us an indication as to what and who the local groups are that had been operating prior to the tsunami and an insight into the activities of local civil society.

EA: Leading up the tsunami there had been a lively NGO scene in Aceh. Of course the state of military emergency had significant impacts on what these groups could work on and like all civil society groups anywhere it was a very diverse group. After martial law the ones that were hit hardest were the ones who had been advocating a referendum for Aceh, or had touched on the question of independence. The second hardest hit were the human rights groups. Many of these groups had been forced to refocus their work on areas away from human rights abuses to focus on accountability and corruption in the local government. Since May 2003 the civil society scene was certainly not as vibrant or healthy – the political situation was responsible for that, but a variegated system still operated.

An indication is the various coalitions that were still active. The Aceh NGO Forum for instance had, I think, 78 member organisations. The Human Rights NGO Coalition had 26 constituent members. Geographically the civil society scene is mostly based in Banda Acheh but in the regional towns and other areas there is also a presence. Half of the Human Rights NGO Coalition's members, for instance, are from outside Banda Aceh.

TOC: How badly affected was Achehnese civil society post tsunami?

EA: Like everyone else, they were very badly affected, the YLBH offices were destroyed and they lost their Director, Syarifah, as I mentioned, WALHI, the main Indonesian environmental network had their offices ruined, Kontras (The Commision for Disappearances and Victims of Violence) had their main offices in Aceh destroyed. Many, many groups had lost members and their premises.

Apart from the loss of human life, the greatest loss was the loss of documents and information on computers or in hard copy that can never be recovered.

TOC: Was there evidence that these groups were re-activating?

EA: Almost immediately after the tsunami hit members of these groups became active. The Tsunami hit on the Sunday morning and on the Monday, after the immediate matters of family welfare had been attended to, activists put up a banner at the Aceh NGO Forum to illustrate that they were okay and active. They were among the first organisations to begin the relief efforts in this area.

Very quickly members of these groups became active in assessing the needs of people and ensuring that the most immediate ones were met. Obviously this is a big shift from their normal duties but the exceptional circumstances demanded it. The first 2 or 3 days were spent collecting data on who amongst the civil society groups was missing or had been killed.

Aceh NGO Forum (Forum LSM Aceh) was responsible for running 3 different teams. One was responsible for collecting data about displaced people, mostly from around Banda Aceh, Aceh Besar and further afield. The second was responsible for coordinating logistics, organising assistance and actually distributing to people who needed it and the third had the job of collecting bodies from the wreckage.

The important role these groups played cannot be emphasized strongly enough. Many people were understandably traumatized and in shock. Local Government, everything, was devastated. People talked about there being a lot of chaos in those first few days.

Many ordinary people were saying that it was terrible that no one came to help them – the government, the military etc, but in my opinion the scale of the disaster meant that there was just pandemonium. Everyone was just trying to establish if their own family and friends were okay, and I think that is pretty understandable.

Also, it wasn't just the local Acehnese groups who were involved, NGOs from all over Indonesia were active on the ground in the days following the disaster. Interestingly, in the days after the tsunami, some unlikely alliances developed. The team based at the Human Rights NGO Coalition that were collecting corpses I mentioned earlier, were being supported by TNI soldiers and this was ongoing until I departed – this level of cooperation would have been unthinkable in the past. They said the TNI were indispensable to this job. Again this was symptomatic of the scale of the disaster but also that people, especially at first, thought it was deemed important to put aside long held differences to work for the common good.

TOC: What were the immediate effects of the influx of aid and aid agencies into what had been virtually a closed society for the last 18 months?

EA: The obvious things were the increases in rent. Office space and accommodation had increased in price by 10 times in the space of a week and were still rising. This meant people were renting out their houses as they needed the money to buy food and begin to rebuild – also at inflated prices.

Other things were the recruitment of local staff into the larger international agencies. This was causing obvious tensions and had the capacity to cause a hollowing out of some of the civil society groups in Aceh. In the longer term I imagine over funding of local organisations without the capacity to utilize it will also be a major problem.

TOC: What was the level of coordination between the local and international NGOs and the donor agencies?

EA: My general impression is that there was little substantial coordination between the locals and any international bodies. Occasionally the donors would come and talk to the local groups but often these were little more than information seeking exercises for the internationals who once they had what they wanted would then take off and there was no benefit to the local groups. Some of the local groups were pretty angry about this.

The UN coordination meetings were like stepping into a different universe. These meetings were attended entirely by international agencies and while locals were not excluded they certainly were not engaging and many had stopped going after a very short time. The reports I was getting was that locals were feeling marginalized within the meetings and were not being consulted about what they thought the needs were – when in reality there was no organisation better placed to direct the aid effectively.

Iv'e got to admit, though, that this was early days, and when I was getting ready to leave it did seem that some of the international groups were making more efforts to get connected to locals.

TOC: What about the level of coordination between the international groups?

EA: It was a mixed picture. They were obviously speaking at the meetings but again the feeling you got was that the agencies were working to their own agendas. They had done this sort of emergency work before, they were bringing in a model that had worked elsewhere and they needed to get active as quickly as possible so they could report results back to their donors, their head offices and the people at home. I was hearing reports that Achehnese were feeling excluded from this whole 'club' of people that had done disaster relief elsewhere and were sure they knew what was best.

Generally the groups doing the most effective work were those that had long standing relationships with groups or communities and had substantial experience of working in Aceh, or at least in Indonesia. Many of the groups who were there for the first time didn't understand the complex relationship between the people, the military, the history, GAM (Free Aceh Movement) etc This will likely mean their work is less effective. But for a lot of the really short-term stuff, like the water purification plants set up by the Australian troops, this kind of detailed knowledge wasn't that important. This kind of immediate stuff was also very positive. But for the longer-term work, international groups will need to develop a closer working relationship with local groups.

TOC: The right wing think tank the IPA (Institute for Public Affairs) has been critical of OXFAM and their partner group WALHI in their work in the emergency phase of the tsunami, did you have any comments on this?

EA: In regard to OXFAM, I had nothing to do with them whilst I was in Aceh this time so I can't comment, though I do know that they have been one of the longer established international NGOs working there and have supported some valuable projects in the past. WALHI on the other hand seemed to be doing very effective work. As I mentioned earlier, the local branch of WALHI lost their offices and also lost staff. Whilst the local office was not functioning to any large extent, the Jakarta office and its members from around Indonesia were playing a crucial role in providing back up care and support. They were collecting and disbursing foodstuffs, medicines, funds and generally playing a significant role in the coordination of medical teams and in other organizing and logistics capacities. Also they were involved in collecting corpses from the field.

WALHI is one of Indonesia's longest established and most respected NGOs, though more precisely it's an environmental coalition. As an environmental group, of course, it is not surprising that it from time to time takes up issues that are considered 'political', understandably, considering Indonesia's political past. During the Soeharto years, the wife of the Secretary of Golkar, Erna Witoelar was head of WALHI. This indicated its respectability in those days and today it continues to have support from a broad spectrum of opinion makers and people in Indonesia. It's a pretty mainstream, highly-regarded part of Indonesia's civil society.

TOC: Considering your experience in your time in Aceh post the tsunami and also your experience and knowledge of the people and country beforehand, what is the most effective way for people to assist in appropriate emergency and reconstruction efforts?

EA: Give aid to a group or organisation with good contacts with Acehnese people or linked to Acehnese civil society. These groups are best able to assess what is really needed. Ask the organisation you are donating to what is their level of cooperation with local groups. Ask about the costs of international staff and the costs they incur. In many ways local groups are going to be more efficient

TOC: Finally what about the joint commission established between Australia and Indonesia to distribute the Billion Australia has pledged in loans and grants?

EA: As ever the devil is in the detail. What it will come down to is who is doing the work on the ground, who is getting the contracts and these practical things. For instance the World Bank has been burnt many times in dealings like this. Everything looks good at the managerial level but the further you dig down the murkier and grubbier such things can become.