Titi Soentoro, APWLD Regional Coordinator

An Acehnese survivor outside her temporary shelter

One year after tsunami, there is little progress in reconstruction process in the affected countries. Of the worst affected countries: Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand, the latter receives many favourable reports --which is a good promotion of its tourism industry-- that its recovery process is ahead of the other countries. The reasons given are: smaller impact of the tsunami, good infrastructure, free from corruption, lots of private donations and the military were mobilised to assist in the relief efforts and help came without bureaucratic hindrances --compared to Aceh, for example. However, whether this reflects the real situation on the ground, is still questionable. In Thailand, there are reports of many families and communities facing landlessness as tourism industry tries to take advantage of the disaster situation and expropriate the land where several family generations lived without land titles, and women are not involved in the decision making.  The forgotten group among the survivors is Burmese migrant workers. Bodies of Burmese migrant workers killed in the tsunami are still not recovered by their families. Thai government support does not reach them. Affected Burmese migrant workers and their families were not invited to the one year tsunami commemoration events.

Corruption and unequal distribution of aids marked the situation in India, aside of a new problem of breaking relationships within the communities because they are fighting each others to get more aids. People still sleep in school buildings, sitting around during the day with no jobs.

Health services are not accessible for poorer tsunami survivors, and health problems resulted from the tsunami such as trauma, reproductive organ disorders, skin disease, etc. are not addressed, which mainly affect women. People are still afraid of the sea, children do not enjoy the sea anymore though their houses are now closer to the sea.  Floods hit the tsunami affected areas caused by the change of the landscape. This increases the burden of the tsunami survivors.

‘Tsunami marriage’ is a new Indian government policy providing widowers with certain amount of money if they get new wives. Forced marriage for many young women is the impact of this policy because their families are interested in the bride price. On the other hand, widows are not expected to remarry because of the existing social norm.

Aceh, the worst tsunami affected region, is still in ruins and large swamps. The UN, World Bank and ADB and other 480 aid agencies and international organisations have been operating in Aceh, the biggest aid action of the time totaling USD 9 billion. USD 150 million per month flows to Aceh, and more is expected. However, the other side of the coin is new loan commitments for the Indonesian people: USD 500 million of aid comes as a soft loan from the CGI (Consultative Groups on Indonesia, a consortium of donor countries), USD 76 million from the World Bank, USD 64.7 million from the ADB which are regular re-allocation used for other sectors. The ‘aids’ will flow back to the World Bank and ADB later someday with interest, of course. The UN and the World Bank personnel spend their time more in front of their laptops writing contracts and reports and sitting in the coordination meetings. ‘Fundraising, fundraising, fundraising’ is they key word. Rivalry among aid agencies and non-profit organisations and the sheer number of groups crowding into the relief effort have sometimes led to tensions among organisations and duplication of services. Lack of transparency led to fraud and corruption. USD 24.5 million is missing in the Indonesian government’s budget expenditure report for the emergency stage.

What about the survivors? In Indonesia, 67,500 still live in tents; forgotten 13,000 families on Nias Island still do not have place to stay, about 70,000 tsunami survivors have moved to stay with their extended families, 500,000 have no houses and other 50,000 live in the temporary barracks: long blockhouses with 12 rooms divided by thin ply-wood, one room per family.

The tsunami has encouraged peace negotiations between the Aceh Freedom Movement (GAM) and Indonesian government/military. GAM committed to dissolve their troops, and the Indonesian government has withdrawn about 21,000 soldiers and policemen. Therewith 29 years of military conflict came to an end. Amnesty to the fighters in jails and out in the free was given. However, there is no information about the fate of many women detainees suspected as ‘inong balee’ - women soldiers of the GAM.

One year after the tsunami, thousands of survivors are still waiting for assistance.