Stealing Crumbs

The media of Palmerah—a Jakarta neighbourhood where top newspapers and TV channels are headquartered—billed Kalla’s statement prominently. But no one could quite explain what prompted Kalla to focus on religion in these tragic days. Some said several Jakarta-based Muslims groups had visited Aceh, and had come back worried about the possibility of non-Muslim families adopting Acehnese children, who are predominantly Muslim. Aceh has also been home to a secessionist movement, though not one prompted by religion.

In Kalla’s statement, the innuendo was palpable: relief services had been motivated by religious considerations. Perhaps such worries had been sparked because international relief organisations—whose workers are mostly westerners and presumably Christians—were among the first to rush to Aceh, where the 9.0 Richter temblor and the ensuing tsunami waves killed nearly a lakh people. But it seems more a case of paranoia: there’s nothing to suggest foreign relief workers are keen to take away Acehnese children; nor have Indonesian churches demonstrated such altruism.

Aceh has an immense symbolic importance for Muslims who constitute 88.3 per cent of Indonesia’s 201 million citizens. This province was the seat of the first Islamic kingdom in the archipelago, at a time when its neighbours were under Hindu or Buddhist rulers. Still, with Muslims comprising 97.3 per cent of Aceh’s 1.7 million population, the adoption issue, however imaginary, shouldn’t have worried Kalla, himself a Muslim.

As bloated bodies continue to surface on the shores of Aceh, and Kalla’s remark is relegated to the inside pages, Indonesians are worried about the rampant corruption in the country. Even the 26 world leaders who gathered for the tsunami summit in Jakarta on January 6 privately mulled over Indonesia’s ability to ensure aid money isn’t salted away. Others, though, thought UN secretary-general Kofi Annan should have refrained from declaring in Jakarta that rebuilding efforts could take 10 years. It’s feared that an inordinately long period of rehabilitation could deter people from contributing to the recovery effort.

However, Michael Elmquist, head of UN relief efforts in Aceh, thinks otherwise. "I think we’re more concerned that the image of it (corruption) would hold back people from sending money because they fear the money would end up in the wrong pockets," he said. About $2 billion has been pledged to help victims rebuild from the earthquake and tsunami. Indonesia is slated to get the biggest chunk of it.

The fears are not unwarranted. Indonesia’s record of providing corruption-free governance is dismal to say the least. The Berlin-based Transparency International regularly ranks the country as one of the most corrupt in the world. Former president Abdurrahman Wahid had once sacked Kalla on corruption charges; Aceh’s governor, Abdullah Puteh, is currently on trial in Jakarta for siphoning off money meant for local villages and padding up the purchase price of a helicopter. Again, local relief officials in Ambon, a city in the eastern Maluku province, where Christians and Muslims have fought sectarian wars for years, are on trial for exaggerating refugee figures to pocket additional state funds.

"Jusuf Kalla is not wise. Just three days after the tsunami, when corpses were still seen on the streets, he talked about an investment of 1 trillion rupiah to reconstruct Aceh," said Ronald Dachlan, a Malay activist in Sambas in western Kalimantan, where ‘ethnic cleansing’ took place against the minority Madurese in 1999. Dachlan feels Aceh will not be different from his experience in Sambas, where Malays who sparked the ’99 rioting made money out of the rehabilitation projects.

Activists fear that more than 30 per cent of the $1 billion projected to be spent on Aceh could be stolen—about the average that disappears every year from Indonesia’s national budget. "Based on our experience, corruption in disaster recovery programmes in Indonesia is rampant," said Luky Djani of Indonesian Corruption Watch. "We expect corruption in Aceh since there’s so much aid coming in."

Problem is, emergency response agencies lack auditing mechanisms to prevent theft. Conditions are worse in Aceh where an armed struggle since the late 1970s has left local authority essentially in the hands of the Indonesian military, often called corrupt. The London-based Tapol human rights group said large amounts of food and non-food aid had arrived on January 3 at the Indonesian military airport in capital Banda Aceh, not the civilian airport. "This means access to and distribution of this aid is under the control of the military. So, people have to queue up at military posts in order to receive food. This is difficult in itself, but they also have to present identity cards which they do not possess or have lost it," said Aguswandi, an Acehnese activist of Tapol.

From Stockholm, secessionist leader Malik Mahmud of the Free Aceh Movement condemned "the inhumane action of the Indonesian government". He said, "We would like to call upon the international community to exert pressure on the government of Indonesia to stop these heinous acts against the Acehnese and open up Aceh to international organisations, journalists and humanitarian relief workers to enable them to make an assessment of the destruction and discharge humanitarian aid to the victims without hindrance."

In Meulaboh, the worst-hit city, which was visited by Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and US state secretary Colin Powell, the Indonesian military have full control over food aid and distribution. Yet desperate Aceh residents looted stores in the second week after the tsunami. "There is no help, it’s each person for himself," district official Tengku Zulkarnain told Elshinta radio station. Sectarianism also came to the fore in Aceh. Some Jakarta newspapers claimed that many Chinese had fled Banda Aceh, suggesting that they do not want to share the burden with their fellow Acehnese. The Chinese minority has been discriminated against in Indonesia since its independence in 1945.

Aceh couldn’t be provided immediate succour because of the government itself. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had decided to extend a military emergency status over Aceh just a few days after he took office in September, making it difficult for international aid workers and journalists to enter the province following the devastation. Yudhoyono lifted the ban three days after the tsunami had killed thousands. A Golkar party legislator, Ade Komarudin, said, "I don’t see the government providing its best services to manage things like evenly distributing donations to the needy." With aid money pouring in, there are indeed signs that from being a disaster-hit area, Aceh may soon become a disaster project.