On February 15 the Indonesian government and army began shifting survivors of the tsunami to large camps - where they will stay for 2 years while government implements its own plans for communities.

WHY THE NEW CAMPS ARE NOT THE BEST OPTION

Locating people in camps undermines community identity, cohesion and leadership structures.

Living in camps creates dependency on external support mechanisms and personnel and erodes their sense of purpose and hope.

Camp environments adversely affect community initiatives and limits prospects for entrepreneurship.

Living passively in camps creates a sense of futility and insecurity about the future and intensifies the potential for deepening trauma.

Staying away from original locations jeopardizes and complicates peoples' tenure security in their original locations.

Camp life seriously hampers economic recovery of the disaster victims as they have limited employment and business opportunities especially when camps are located far from other settlements.

Moving to displaced persons camps only postpones final rehabilitation to the permanent sites.

Moving the affected families to interim camps effectively duplicates investments in shelter infrastructure and services.

Housing and infrastructure provided in temporary camps is more expensive when contracted out.

Medium and long term camps for IDPs burdens the Government with heavy recurrent costs for administration and maintenance of the camps.

Supervision of the camps by the military can only revive negative images of the treatment of Acehnese in previous decades and alienate the victims from the Government's well intended relief policies.

Long term IDP camps inevitably turn into permanent slums.

On this Page:

The camps -column left

Let Them Return Home: Displaced Acehnese Now Face Fears of Dispossession
Daniel Fitzpatrick
Below HERE

Speaking of OIL - down the page

 

 

 

Other Pages

PEOPLE CENTRED STRATEGIES
8 ways to promote a people-driven rehabilitation process after the tsunami

LESSONS FROM THE PAST
From the post disaster rehabilitation effort that followed the large earthquake in Gujarat in 2001
as reported the regional meeting HERE

It does not have to happen this way ......

The Masters of Survival
When we visited Aceh Jan 18 survivors in a coastal town had already built adequate temporary houses on higher land within walking distance of their town. They had negotiated with the land owner to do this. They built from recycled materials which would otherwise have been discarded.
They were able to do this because authorities were busy elsewhere. They could use their own initiative.
In the township itself, we met government damage assessors - who told us the people should try to not deal with the Army in the area which was extremely corrupt.

 

But the Indonesian Army has its own agenda for constructing mass produced camps.

Mass camps also fits well into the agenda of the government - contractor nexus - which in the past has been notoriously corrupt.

A survivor gives the thumbs up to us on a visit to Aceh. He's walking back to his village - down the hill - to gather materials for his temporary shelter - built with the help of friends in the village - who have negotiated for temporary land.

He's within sight of his own land - down the hill - and can return to work and plan his future together with his community - unlike those in the New military camps who will become dependents for 2 years - away from their former work and communities.

.

These temporary houses were built by the survivors themselves ... a few days after the tsunami struck. They will be improved upon incrementally - and in time people can move back to their own land at their own pace.

The force of the wave moved this gas or oil storage tank more than 500 meters.
Aceh is rich in oil - owned by Exxon (USA) and the Indonesian elite from Java.
Local Archenese receive little benefit from their resource rich province.

Speaking of OIL

Further down the coast - on the road to Medan - is the Exxon plant exploiting the huge oil fields in the area.
The locals told us they rarely see the hundreds of US employees working there. They live in luxury - well behind very high fences and embankments - surrounding their tropical island paradise ,,, with golf courses and swimming pools ... .

And so it goes ......

 

As we drove from Bande Acehe to Medan - we picked up locals who had not seen foreigners for years - because foreigners were not permitted into this area. They craved to yell their stories ... to the outside world ...... at almost every turn and village we heard a story of rape of their daughters and sisters, torture of their brothers and fathers, incarceration, attacks on civilians .... by the Indonesian army ..... the same army who now wish to put people in camps for 2 years or more .....

Is anybody listening ?

 

And so it goes .......

BBC's Asia World is giving some recognition to this story on the danger of the military camps ... with thanks ........

Let Them Return Home: Displaced Acehnese Now Face Fears of Dispossession

Daniel Fitzpatrick

As the massive aid program to Aceh accelerates, two proposals should be of particular concern: the relocation camps for thousands of Acehnese, and the coastal buffer zone to protect against future tsunami.

Both proposals may appear innocuous enough. More than 400,000 displaced Acehnese need adequate shelter while their cities and villages are re-built. Around 150,000 will be housed in 24 or more re-location camps, mainly around the cities of Banda Aceh and Meulaboh. Ostensibly, this is to allow orderly re-building over a period of 2 to 5 years.

A coastal buffer zone has also been proposed in the draft master plan for Aceh's reconstruction. This plan, not yet released for public comment, reportedly contains proposals for two zones: a 300 m coastal strip to be free of all buildings, and a 1.6 km wide secondary area in which re-building will be greatly restricted.

What is wrong with these proposals? Why have they generated such disquiet among so many Acehnese? The answer lies in issues of corruption and oppression. These issues have the potential to discredit relief efforts, including Australia's own assistance programme, and spark another stage in the long-running conflict between Indonesian military forces and the Acehnese rebel movement.

Civil administration in Aceh is often described as the most corrupt in Indonesia. It is closely linked with the military, which entrenched its control over Aceh during the 2003-4 period of martial law. Approximately 70% of the military's national budget comes from unofficial sources. Aceh is vital to military interests because it allows continued access to lucrative illegal logging, smuggling and extortion activities.

Military-backed conglomerates are now circling the huge reconstruction honeypot. This includes Artha Graha, which controversially announced and then denied that it had an agreement to re-build Meulaboh. Artha Graha's presence is highly visible in Aceh, with banners reading "Artha Graha Cares" festooning the shattered streets of Banda Aceh. Another conglomerate to watch is the Bakrie Group, a diversified group that has extensive plantation interests in Sumatra.

Closely linked with the military's rent-seeking imperative is its longstanding desire to separate the local population from Aceh's rebel forces. Even before the tsunami hit, approximately 20,000 Acehnese had already been forced into relocation camps along the east coast. These tactics mirror the disastrous re-settlement programme in East Timor that led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands from famine and disease.

International experience suggests that Aceh's “semi-permanent” re-location camps will most likely become permanent. The inhabitants will be tightly controlled, separated from their livelihoods, subjected to debilitating health and social problems. In the meantime, what will happen to their land? Who will get the benefit of the buffer zone? While most international attention has focused on the question of security, it is the question of land that is emerging as a primary flashpoint for the Acehnese people.

According to Indonesian media reports, a "land mafia" has already begun to obscure boundaries in devastated areas in order to make fraudulent land claims. If the experience in other parts of Indonesia is any guide, this mafia will act closely with corrupt officials to obtain valuable land with minimal compensation, if any, to local landholders. The head of Aceh's urban planning and housing agency has already been quoted as saying, of landholders in the proposed buffer zone: “we know they don't have ownership certificates, so we will compensate accordingly.”

In the 1980s and 1990s I travelled extensively down the West Coast of Aceh, an itinerant Australian surfer enjoying the extraordinary hospitality of the Acehnese. Aside from Meulaboh and Banda Aceh, the West Coast towns and villages were heavily based around fishing and other maritime industries. While local gardens and rice-fields were also worked, almost every family had a member who engaged in small-scale fishing, octopus collection or shrimp farming.

The coastal area had breathtaking views. In some places the mountains plunged into the sea; in others they retreated and were ringed with almost impenetrable rainforest. The population clung to the shoreline, selling fish and produce at small markets dotting the main road. They were maritime people; they needed to be close to the boats and small town markets. They relied on the coast road for passing trade.

These people will be dispossessed under the proposed buffer zone. They will not be allowed to re-build within 300 metres of the coastline; and, while some fishermen will be able to live in the secondary 1.6 kilometre strip, markets and other forms of infrastructure such as roads will be forbidden. The coast road itself will be re-routed through the mountains.

How will land in the buffer zone be utilised? Most media reports have focused on mangrove planting, but official statements have also mentioned the presence of palm trees. In this there may be a clue. Oil palm plantations have already proliferated along the southern coast of Aceh below Meulaboh. They have a notorious appetite for land. It would be no surprise then if plantation interests were particularly supportive of the draft zoning plan.

The people most devastated by the tsunami were the poor fishermen and farmers who lived along the West Coast. Most had no assets or livelihood other those offered by their former coastal lands. They are unlikely to receive adequate compensation for their land, let alone their livelihoods. Wouldn't an effective early warning system be a better way to protect against future tsunami? Would the protective benefits of coastal trees truly outweigh the injustice and anger generated by re-location? These are questions that deserve urgent attention if those who suffered most from the tsunami are not to suffer even more from opportunistic and shameful acts of dispossession.

 

 

This article appeared in the

Camberra Times

posted here Feb 22

Dr Daniel Fitzpatrick is a senior lecturer in law at the Australian National University.