It's hard to imagine how to rebuild your life after it has been washed away from beneath you.
"It dragged my wife away, then my two-month-old twins," he said. "Then I watched my seven-year-old son drown." - a Father in Sri Lanka
The 2004 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake, known as the
2004 Boxing Day Tsunami killed hundreds of thousands of people in countries from Indonesia and Thailand to Sri Lanka and India. But while most have forgotten the incident, or think only of the videos that captured the impact of the dramatic tsunami, the political implications of such an event to millions of Indonesians were vast.
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Aceh - the land which was
closest to the earthquake epicentre |
The special Indonesian territory of
Aceh is not an area of the world that most people in the west are familiar with. This part of the country is thought to be where Islam was first established in SE Asia, and to this day it retains the highest proportion of the faith. In 2000, the official census showed that 86% of Indonesians declared themselves as Muslim.
Six years ago, the Acehnese rebel movement, GAM, which had been fighting for independence against the Indonesian authorities for 29 years, effectively ended.
Former ambassador of Darul Islam, Hasan di Tiro had proclaimed Aceh Independence in 1976, and support for such a movement had been confirmed as recently as in 2000 when half a million people turned out for a referendum on the matter.
Though the government granted the province greater autonomy, such as the right to apply
for controversial Sharia law (something it seems was done hastily and with little backing by the Acehnese themselves) and the ability to receive foreign investment directly, many in Aceh still felt angered by the governments repressive policies. In 2003, a state of military emergency was declared and the government gave the rebels an ultimatum - accept autonomy or face the consequences.
The rebels held their ground.
Having reached
the end of her patience, on May 18, the President,
Megawati Sukarnoputri ordered 40,000 armed soldiers into the area and told all non-governmental organisations and aid organizations to drop what they were doing and exit the country immediately.
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Indonesia is the fourth most populous country on the planet.
Picture by: JOE BRISCOE |
By the middle of 2004, thousands of Free Aceh rebels had been killed or captured. Although the area was then downgraded to a state of civil emergency, it was estimated that at least 2,000 more people were killed after the supposed end of the operation.
Tragically, international human rights groups, including the government’s own human rights commission, maintain that most of the dead and tortured were civilians, not GAM combatants. But the 'war' continued, with rebels continuing to defy the government and campaign for autonomy.
Then something happened that nobody could have predicted, and it all changed.
As of Boxing Day 2004, for all intents and purposes, the Free Aceh movement ceased.
As a natural phenomenon, it was frighteningly impressive.
As a natural disaster, it was devastating.
A rupture 250 miles long and 60 miles wide, located 19 miles beneath the sea bed - the largest rupture ever known to have been caused by an earthquake - proceeded north westerly from the coast of Aceh at a speed of about 1.7 miles a second (or 6,300 mph) over a period of about 100 seconds.
It was the third largest earthquake in history, with faulting itself lasting for around ten minutes - the longest ever recorded. It is supposed that the sheer scale of the earthquake actually caused the entire planet to vibrate by as much as 0.4 inches (around a centimetre!).
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| Banda Aceh before the Tsunami struck |
People in fourteen countries were killed, with as many as 220,000 dead in Indonesia alone. Boxing day lunch was interrupted for many around the world as images of the destruction reached the west, prompting the donation of a total of $14 billion in humanitarian aid from the worldwide community. Many in Aceh believed that the Tsunami was religious punishment, and attention was drawn away from the struggle for Independence.
Homes were washed away, towns destroyed and families torn apart. While Thailand gained the most news coverage, containing as it did a large number of western tourists, it was Indonesia which really suffered. It is estimated that around 2% of the population of Indonesia were killed.
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| Banda Aceh after the disaster |
Both the Free Aceh movement and the government called a ceasefire to allow aid to reach the affected, but still disputed area.
The following
year on August 15, chief Indonesian negotiator Hamid Awaluddin and GAM leader Malik Mahmud signed a peace treaty. Both sides agreed to cease all hostilities immediately, with GAM disarming and the government agreeing to remove all non-local military and police by the end of the year.
Aceh-based political parties were allowed into the government and it was agreed that seventy percent of the income from the areas natural resources would stay within Aceh. On December 27, almost exactly one year to the day since the Tsunami destroyed the area, the Free Aceh movement announced they would be disbanding their military.
Since then,
organisations such as Flower Aceh have been set up to protect the rights of people in the wake of the state violence which occured during the 2003 crackdown.
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The Indonesian flag which flies in Aceh
can be seen flying over nearly 18,000 islands.
Picture by: JOE BRISCOE |
Some say that while the Tsunami ended the violence, it may just have given the government the excuse to exert more power over the area through building and redevelopment projects.
The Free Aceh movement achieved a lot towards the end of its thirty years of rebellion - but unless the government does more than simply stick to the agreement - unless it shows more sensitivity towards the area, the underlying feelings which died down in the aftermatch of the boxing day catastrophe, much like the towns themselves, may well rise up from the rubble once again...
