The Tsunami: Rebuilding
Building a Future for Aceh – The story of Kuala Parek Village
Aceh before reconstruction. |
Three years have passed since the tsunami swept over Aceh, killing over 250,000. The tsunami brought devastation and destruction, but out of these ruins came one positive sign: a peace accord ending almost three decades of fighting. The people of Aceh have had to recover from two catastrophes – the natural disaster, and the disaster of a protracted bitter conflict. It is difficult to say which disaster did more damage.
In the period immediately after the tsunami, AFSC supported medical teams and mobile health clinics to the worst hit areas. However, local people quickly drew AFSC’s attention to areas of the province that had been cut off from aid and communication. These were mainly on the eastern side of the province, the region that had seen the most intense conflict between government and separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM). AFSC was one of the first organizations to survey this area for tsunami damage and to provide support to villages.
People in temporary shelter before being moved to New Kuala Parek. |
Kuala Parek was one of these villages. People of Kuala Parek were fisherfolk, earning their living from the sea and from what they could grow near their homes. However, in the years immediately preceding the tsunami, they were frequently displaced from their homes by the fighting. They found themselves caught between the two sides, always under suspicion, always in fear. Family members were taken away, their bodies found days later.
Voices from Kuala Parek
Ibu Fitri is 28 years old. She is the wife of the sub-village head in Kuala Parek and a village health worker. She has two children. In a recent interview Fitri reflects back on the period before the tsunami:
During the conflict, we were helpless and at a loss for what to do. We were always in the wrong, so we didn’t know who we should take sides with. Many of my family were victims, they were taken from their houses. We don’t know where they were taken. They were dead when we found them.
Now she lives in New Kuala Parek and her six year-old daughter participates in FPRM-AFSC’s non-formal education program. She attended the Children’s Day events organized by FPRM and the children and expressed her feelings on the change that she sees:
“I am hopeful because I have observed that even with a modest event like this and regular out-of-school activities by FPRM held under a tent, children in the community are more able to communicate fluently, are polite, and have self-confidence. Activities like this give me hope that Kuala Parek can be a better place.”
|
In December 2004, Kuala Parek villagers were finally allowed to return to their homes by military officials. They had been in their old home only one week when the tsunami came. The earthquake struck just after people had finished their morning prayers. The tsunami wave hit their village a few hours later. People ran along the levee to escape the wave, those that fell were lost.
The wave destroyed their houses and left their land contaminated with salt-water. While relief supplies were pouring into other parts of Aceh, no emergency assistance or aid organizations came into their area. There was still active fighting along the main road and it was very dangerous for any outsiders to travel into the area. When AFSC’s partner Care of the Poor Forum, FPRM, found the villagers, they were living in makeshift houses in a swamp area. FPRM became an advocate for the village, convincing the government to allow them to move to a safer location, helping them to get land and new houses.
The people of Kuala Parek are now settled into the village of New Kuala Parek. Their immediate needs are provided for, but the community still faces many challenges. They face jealousy from neighboring villagers and difficulty building new livelihoods now that they are farther from the sea. There are the individual and communal wounds – the memory of the suffering that they endured and of the family members tortured and killed. And there is a deep fear that the conflict will return and they will once again lose everything.
AFSC continues to support FPRM in its work in Kuala Parek and to support the staff and volunteers of FPRM as they struggle to recover themselves. The small local NGOs that AFSC works through in Aceh are intensely interested in learning more about peacebuilding. For them it is not an abstract issue – they can see the wounds of the conflict all around them and daily experience how violence and the threat of future conflict affects community life.
A village leader in front of newly constructed homes. |
Armed criminal activity is spreading rapidly, especially in the region around Kuala Parek. Attempts by the military and police to collect weapons have met with resistance because people have no confidence that the peace accord will last or that officials will be able to provide community security. Conflict victims and demobilized fighters see the amount of support given to tsunami victims and wonder why their situation is receiving little attention.
The social structures that hold communities together have been damaged and threats and intimidation have become a standard form of communication. Factions in communities will threaten NGO workers for certain types of aid or for upsetting the status quo. Parents tell teachers to beat their children to make them behave. Children, boys especially, are expected to be tough. They have grown up surrounded by violence and find meaning for their anger and fear in dreams of joining the battle for Aceh.
Children of the village who were victims of the confilct from before the tsunami. |
In Kuala Parek village, FPRM focus their current support on children’s education. After moving to a new location, Kuala Parek children had access to regular schooling for the first time. However, the children had great difficulty adjusting to standard schooling – they were behind their peers, could not concentrate in class, and were slow to pick up new information. They were stigmatized as being from a place that was poor and backwards. Teachers, and even parents, had very low opinions of their children’s ability. Children were seen as a problem to be controlled and corrected, not as a resource for the community.
FPRM saw the children’s behavior as a symptom of the trauma they had experienced. They began a program of non-formal education, run by volunteers. Children gather three times a week for activities that focus on developing creativity and working together. Neighboring villages are also allowed to send children, which helps build relationships among the adults.
This year Kuala Parek held its first ever National Children’s Day celebration – a two day event that included art and poetry competitions. The event was a great success. Local parents from Kuala Parek and neighboring communities were impressed with the creativity and enthusiasm of their children. The activity built relationships among the adults and reinforced a new vision of what the future could be like for the community.
AFSC will continue to support Kuala Parek village and other Acehnese communities as they struggle to rebuild. The physical infrastructure has been largely replaced, but the social recovery will take longer. As other aid agencies begin to withdraw, AFSC plans to stay in Aceh, working quietly with communities and Acehnese NGOs to address the deeper wounds of disaster and conflict. The story of Aceh is not yet complete.
^ Top of page |
Email this page