Indonesia restricts aid workers in Aceh

UN emergency relief coordinator Jan Egeland talks to journalists yesterday in Geneva about efforts to help victims of the tsunami that struck southeast Asia on December 26, 2004. The United Nations launched a new appeal yesterday to harness the unprecedented outpouring of support for Asia's tsunami disaster to help up to 30 million other people around the world, notably in Africa. PHOTO: AFP

Budi Atmaji, Indonesia's head of relief operations, said agencies would need permission to work outside the provincial capital, Banda Aceh, and the ravaged west coast town of Meulaboh.

Asked if Aceh was unsafe for international aid workers, he said: "Yes, in some places."

However, separatist rebels said they would never attack aid workers -- who in turn said they were not overly worried.

Huge waves unleashed by an earthquake 94 miles out to sea from Meulaboh killed at least 156,000 people on coasts around the Indian Ocean -- 104,000 in Indonesia, 30,000 in Sri Lanka, 15,000 in India and more than 5,000 in Thailand.

GAM (Free Aceh Movement) separatists and Indonesia's government made conciliatory gestures after the tsunami but have since accused one another of initiating several clashes as their three-decade-old conflict drags on despite the devastation.

Indonesian military chief General Endriartono Sutarto said GAM might attack foreign aid workers or troops in Aceh.

"Killing a foreigner here will attract international attention and they need it," the Jakarta Post newspaper quoted him as saying. GAM dismissed his remarks as propaganda.

"We never attacked and will never attack aid workers, be it foreign or Indonesian," GAM military wing spokesman Sofyan Dawood told Reuters by telephone.

Mike Huggins, spokesman for the World Food Program in Banda Aceh, appeared surprised by the Indonesian warning, but not too concerned that the safety of aid workers could be threatened.

"We have no reason to believe GAM would want to do anything untoward," he said.

AFP adds: Pushed by unprecedented global sympathy for victims of Asia's tsunami disaster, donor countries convened under UN auspices yesterday to try to ensure the world's pledges of aid find their way to those in need.

As representatives from more than 80 countries and organisations gathered, the UN's emergency relief coordinator Jan Egeland said the relief efforts now underway showcased humanity at its best.