Shawn Donnan in Jakarta and David Ibison in Banda Aceh – The government of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono threw open the doors to Aceh, the scene of a long-running separatist insurgency, in the days following the December 26 tsunamis that left more than 100,000 dead in the province, ending a de-facto ban on foreign aid groups working there.
Alwi Shihab, the minister in charge of aid efforts in Aceh said on Monday that open access would continue and played down any threat to security from rebels from the Free Aceh Movement, or GAM.
He said the government had begun "behind the scenes" negotiations with GAM using religious scholars as intermediaries. "The world is behind Aceh," he said, "and there is a momentum to reconcile and leave arms." However, a military spokesman, Colonel Ahmad Yani Basuki, on Monday accused GAM, which declared a ceasefire following the disaster, of "taking advantage of the situation" and disrupting aid efforts, and said the Indonesian military, or TNI, "must react".
"Starting from now, the TNI is increasing security to protect the humanitarian mission [and] smooth the aftermath of the disaster," Colonel Basuki said. "Without security there is not going to be any humanitarian mission." Some Indonesian officials have proposed restricting the movement of foreign aid workers to either Banda Aceh, the provincial capital, or Meulaboh, the west coast city nearest the epicentre of the 9.0 magnitude earthquake. International aid groups have also been told they will not be allowed to open offices outside those two cities, aid workers say.
The differences between the military and civilian government have escalated in recent days and present what could become a major obstacle to the delivery of aid in the province.
A December 2002 peace agreement in Aceh broke down after six months in large part because of efforts by hardliners within the Indonesian military to undermine it. Since then the province has been under what rights groups charge is an often brutal military control.
The fear among diplomats in Jakarta is that divisions between the TNI and the civilian government could lead to a similar scenario, whereby the TNI would seek to undermine aid efforts and retain its grip on the province.
"It's something we're watching very, very carefully. It's going to be a major issue in the coming months," said one diplomat. Moreover, the diplomat said, the risk of an attack on aid workers by GAM, which has never targeted foreigners in the past, remained small and "paranoia and further restrictions" were likely to "impede the humanitarian effort more than any potential violence".
An attack on aid workers "would be something you'd think the GAM commanders there would be trying to prevent," the diplomat said. "They want international attention and sympathy for their cause." Although there have been sporadic skirmishes between GAM and security forces in the past two weeks, the level of violence in Aceh has fallen significantly since the December 26 disaster.
Questions have also been raised about who is responsible for those incidents that have occurred.
Security forces blamed GAM for a weekend attack on a senior police official in Banda Aceh, the provincial capital. But according to UN and Indonesian officials the incident was actually the result of a stressed soldier opening fire.
"To the best of our understanding this was a one-sided incident and there's no indication that it was directed in any way at the UN or the international aid community," said Daniel Ziv, a UN staffer in Banda Aceh.
A GAM spokesman, Sofyan Daud, insisted on Monday that rebels continued to abide by a ceasefire and accused the Indonesian military of "slander".
"They are worried about the presence of many foreign troops and international aid workers and are trying to worsen the situation in terms of the conflict and security," he told the Financial Times. The military, he said, "hope that all foreigners will get out as soon as possible".
[Additional reporting by Taufan Hidayat in Jakarta and Jake Lloyd-Smith in Banda Aceh.]