Jane Perlez, Lamlhom – In the shade of a stand of coconut trees, Basri Ahmad buried his 19-year-old son on Friday, a victim not of earthquake or ocean waves but of the civil conflict that sowed death in Aceh long before the recent devastation.
"This is a misunderstanding," Mr. Basri said of the death of his son, Andriansyah, one of seven men killed Thursday by soldiers. "I plan to ask the army for clarification."
But while the military commander of Aceh Province, Brig. Gen. Endang Suwarya, said he would investigate, he also had a ready answer for the killings. Despite the devastation, he said, "Aceh is still in conflict."
Such killings have been the hallmark of the long civil conflict in Aceh, but they have gone virtually unreported over the past two years as the military sealed the province and pressed its drive to put down the rebel movement, which is seeking independence for the region.
Now, in the aftermath of the disaster, there are increasing concerns that fresh clashes will disrupt the aid effort, and that fighting may intensify as the military takes advantage of the disaster to cement its control here.
If nothing more, the deaths demonstrate that the Indonesian military continues to patrol on a hair-trigger in a province where some 10,000 people have died in more than 25 years of strife.
While his father and mother maintained that Mr. Andriansyah was not part of the rebel movement, the tensions that have riven Aceh are evident even in the aftermath of a disaster that observers had hoped might bring all sides together.
"The Indonesian Army shoots people easily," said Mr. Andriansyah's mother, Mariana, who like many Indonesians uses only one name. "They are supposed to ask whether people are rebels or not."
Though the presence of some 40,000 government troops in Aceh helped in rescue efforts immediately after the tsunami on December 26, the army clearly remained unpopular in much of this village, 25 miles southwest of the provincial capital at Banda Aceh. Lamlhom was spared the worst destruction and had become a gathering point for refugees.
Before the tsunami hit, the government had declared Aceh effectively off limits to outside human rights groups, United Nations agencies, journalists and foreigners. But nature reversed in just days what years of fighting could not.
In recent years, the army has badly weakened the rebels, chasing fighters into the mountains and shattering their intelligence network. Many rebel leaders were imprisoned when martial law was imposed two years ago.
Last May, the government downgraded martial law to a "state of civil emergency," which officially put the police in charge rather than the military. But in fact, Acehnese say, the military continued to be the most important authority.
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell announced this week that the United States would relax restrictions on aid to Indonesia's military, which has a spotty human rights record, and provide spare parts for cargo planes that can be used to bring aid to Aceh. While American officials say they were assured that the planes would be used for relief purposes only, in the chaos that prevails in Aceh, it may be hard to tell.
Some are hopeful that the disaster could change the dynamic in Aceh, an area that is rich in natural gas but remains one on Indonesia's poorest regions.
"If well handled, the relief effort could improve the government image and ease Acehnese resentment toward Jakarta, paving the way for a more serious discussion of grievances, including justice for past abuses," Sidney Jones, an expert on Indonesia, wrote Friday in The Asian Wall Street Journal.
But earlier this week, General Suwarya, the regional commander, left no doubt that the military intended to keep a tight grip on the province when he announced that soldiers would kill anybody looting goods from the ruins left by the tsunami.
In a sign that the army's role would be pervasive – even in the long run of this aid effort – the officer in charge of relief, Maj. Gen. Bambang Darmono, said soldiers would guard the large refugee camps where the United Nations plans to set up more permanent shelter to replace the ragged tents that protect many survivors now.
This week the head of the army, Gen. Ryamizard Ryacudu, ordered soldiers in Aceh to be on alert to secure all transport routes to prevent rebel activities. Aid officials said they hoped that the general's orders were not a prelude to military escorts for aid.
An official of Catholic Relief Services, Wayne Ulrich, said Friday that he was concerned that fighting between the rebels and the military could disrupt the relief effort. "I hope it doesn't put fear into the humanitarian community to the point that we can't get our job done," he said. So far, he said, the Indonesians have been generous in allowing aid trucks to go where they wanted, but it was far from clear how long this would last.
Several relatives of the men killed near here gave similar accounts of what happened. Ms. Mariana, Mr. Andriansyah's mother, said he had left their home at about 9 a.m. Thursday, explaining that he was going with friends to retrieve a motorcycle that had been buried in the muddy debris.
About 1 p.m., some villagers came to the house with news that soldiers were reporting her son had been shot, she said. They demanded that a relative go to identify and collect the body, she said.
She sent her son's uncle, Fadli, and he returned a little after sunset with the body. Her son had been shot in the crown of his head and below the right knee, she said.
"There was gunfire at Lampuuk between the army and GAM," General Suwarya explained, using the acronym for the Free Aceh Movement. "We got two weapons from them."
At a small all-male refugee camp not far from the house, one man, Zainun, told how he had been asked by the village leader to go to the site where the men were killed. His brother Basir had left the camp that morning saying he was going back to his village to salvage what he could from the ruins of their house.
Mr. Zainun lost his home, his wife and one child in the tsunami, and the loss of his brother in the shooting seemed too much. He wept as he told of being asked by the village headman, Ali, to go and identify his brother's body. "They were face up in a field of rice," he said of the dead men. "They were naked except for their underpants."
Mr. Zainun and another man from the refugee camp whose cousin was also shot said they buried the men in a makeshift grave.
But the village leader of Lamlhom, Mr. Ali, had a different version of what the dead men from the village had been up to. He basically accused them of being couriers. "They went to take some supplies, including cigarettes, to other rebels," he said. He was sure, he said, that Mr. Andriansyah was a member of the movement.