Worsened by war: Two hard-hit areas beset by civil strife
Washington -- For the two regions hit hardest by the Asian tsunami waves, international relief efforts are being complicated by more than the rising death tolls and physical devastation -- they are also war zones.
In the Indian Ocean nation of Sri Lanka and Indonesia's western Aceh province, bitter conflicts threaten to slow even further the painstaking work of locating victims, repairing infrastructure and caring for hundreds of thousands of refugees, according to relief workers and regional experts.
The Sri Lankan government and the rebel Tamil Tigers, which have fought a two-decade civil war, Tuesday traded barbs over the relief efforts and refused to work together -- and instead launched competing efforts.
Across the Indian Ocean, at the northern tip of Sumatra Island in Indonesia, the province of Aceh has been a no-go zone for most international aid organizations and journalists since May 2003, when a new government crackdown was launched in the 28-year struggle against the Free Aceh Movement.
Aid organizations scrambled to get into Aceh while former residents seeking to go back to find relatives complained Tuesday that the Indonesian government, which has been accused of widespread human rights violations in the area, continued to limit access, providing only two-week visas.
Academic analysts expressed hope that the tsunami tragedy might spur some badly needed progress in the two conflicts by creating opportunities for humanitarian cooperation. But at least in the short term, the warring factions were jockeying for advantage -- and in the process slowing rescue and relief efforts and putting more lives at risk.
"The contending sides, both in Sri Lanka and Aceh, are racing to provide relief," said Donald Emmerson, a senior fellow at Stanford University's Institute for International Studies and director of the Southeast Asian Forum.
"At stake is the legitimacy of the government on the one hand -- Colombo and Jakarta -- and the Tamil Tigers and the Free Aceh Movement on the other. If the response of the Sri Lankan and Indonesian governments is insufficient, there could be a crisis of legitimacy in those two areas, which have been engaged in civil war for some decades," he said.
In Sri Lanka, the minority Tamils, who are Hindu, have waged civil war against the country's majority Buddhists since 1983, and a 2002 cease-fire remains brittle. "Tens of thousands have died in an ethnic conflict that continues to fester" since the cease-fire, according to an unclassified report by the CIA.
The Tamil rebels control much of the country's north and east, including coastal areas severely damaged by the tsunami. The Tamil Tigers are conducting their own relief efforts and have made separate appeals to donor countries and the United Nations for assistance.
Even the immense scale of the tsunami damage did not appear to tamp down the deep-seated atmosphere of confrontation.
The Tamil Rehabilitation Organization said in a statement that "assistance channeled through the government of Sri Lanka has failed to reach the displaced in the northeast." It said that one-fourth of the people killed in the northeast were in Tamil-controlled areas.
A military spokesman, Brig. Daya Ratnayake, responded that the government was doing everything it can to help those affected in government-controlled areas and criticized the rebels for trying to score points amid the suffering.
In Aceh, where rebels are waging a fight for independence, there were some hopeful signs in the face of the horrific destruction. The Indonesian government and the Free Aceh Movement reportedly agreed to a cease-fire Tuesday to let aid efforts reach those in need.
However, aid officials worried that it would take days to get assistance to Aceh, where the majority of Indonesia's deaths occurred. And they said the conflict already has constrained aid efforts by limiting access to the region.
"International nongovernmental organizations have not been allowed into the conflict area since May 2003," said Michael Beer of the Washington-based Nonviolence International, whose field office in the provincial capital of Banda Aceh was lost, along with three of its four staff members. "This has hampered efforts already. The conflict has set back the international community, because they are starting from zero and have been excluded for political reasons."
"Even without the rebellion it is a tough area for the government to go in," said Blair King of the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, a nonprofit in Washington. "That is exacerbated by the political situation."