Where do IDPs Go? Evidence of Social Capital from Aceh Conflict ...

First International Conference of

Aceh and Indian Ocean Studies

Organized by

Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore &

Rehabilitation and Construction Executing Agency for Aceh and Nias (BRR), Banda Aceh, Indonesia

24 – 27 February 2007

Where do IDPs Go? Evidence of Social Capital from Aceh

Conflict and Tsunami IDPs

Saiful Mahdi

Universitas Syiah Kuala, Banda Aceh, Indonesia and

Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA

[email protected]; [email protected]

Not to be quoted without permission from the author

First International Conference of Aceh and Indian Ocean Studies 24 – 27 February 2007

Draft Copy – Not to be Quoted Without Permission from the Author

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Background

“Migration from an area afflicted by a major disaster to an unaffected area would seem to be one of the most common responses to disaster and an important survival strategy (Curson 1989:16). A man-made disaster like a war or conflict had caused major permanent and temporary migration in the history of Asia and Europe. Natural disasters often generate both large- and small-scale migrations of people away from affected areas. See for example Blaikie et al. 1994, Brook and Paul 2003, Cannon 1994, Lavell 1994, Parker et al. 1997, and Smith and Ward, 1998. Paul (2005), however, argued that not all affected communities out-migrate permanently after a disaster when there is a “constant flow of disaster aid and its proper distribution by the government and non-governmental organizations (NGOs)”. Nevertheless, disaster has always influenced population and its variables, including social characteristics of a community. Clarke et al (1989) documented extensive studies around the world on the ‘impact of disaster upon population’—mortality, fertility, migration. Aceh has witnessed human migration due to both man-made and natural disasters. The civil war during DI/TII (Darul Islam) in late 40s to early 50s and three decades of Free Aceh Movement (GAM) struggle for independence since 1976 has caused IDPs and refugee crisis along the fragile history of Aceh within Indonesia. The great quake and tsunami devastated Aceh on 26 December 2004 had caused major IDPs crisis to date with half million people displaced and homeless.1 The prolonged conflict had attested Acehnese’s ability to survive with almost no outside intervention2. During the war, most of the clashes between the rebels groups and the government troops took place in the rural-interior areas of Aceh, forcing people to leave, took refuge and settled in urban-coastal regions. The 26 December 2004 great quake and tsunami hit most of these Aceh’s populous urban-coastal regions. Survivors who still have connections with the rural-interior regions, their gampöng, returned back, took refuge temporarily or even re-settled, thus reversed the direction of mobility among the Acehnese IDPs of those during the war. Resettling in the rural areas after the tsunami made easier by the historical Helsinki peace accord on 15 August 2005. The humanitarian relief services centered in Banda Aceh and other urban areas, however, has caused indecisiveness among some IDPs about where to temporary resettle during the first months following the catastrophe. Resettling in the rural interior regions, temporarily or otherwise, would mean to miss most of those provided relief aid by national and international organizations. Migration within and across Aceh geographical border has been one of the most important mode of survival for Acehnese during the conflict and at the aftermath of tsunami. This migration has been supported by certain structure, notably structure of social relation and networks among the Acehnese. The networks involve individual(s) who want to move from one place and individual(s) or contacts from another considered-better or safer place. The later are usually individuals that the former already knew through different relationship like family ties, kinship, and, in this paper, gampöng networks. Although this network factors are not a direct cause of migration they do facilitate it.

1 Two year after the tsunami, Oxfam reported that about 70,000 are still living in military-style temporary shelters called “barracks” in Aceh, while more are still living with host communities throughout the region. http://www.oxfam.org.uk/applications/blogs/pressoffice/2006/11/oxfam_calls_to_step_up_respons.html (accessed January 10, 2007) 2 There was only a limited presence of reporting office of IOM and OCHA working with Indonesia’s Government Disaster Mitigation (Satkorlak) to report and monitor IDPs situation.



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Arguably, these networks are built on “trust” with specific “norms” and “values” regulating them, fitting a notion of “social capital” 3 as prescribed by Bourdieu and Wacquant (1992), and Coleman (1994), then popularized by Putnam (1993a, 1993b, 1995, 2000). Bourdieu noted that “social capital is the sum of resources, actual or virtual, that accrue to an individual or a group by virtue of possessing a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition.” Coleman defined “social capital” as “a useful resource available to an actor through his or her social relationship.“ Putnam (1993a) linked “the civic community” to the tradition of “civic humanism” which he specifies through four theoretical dimensions: (1) civic engagement, (2) political equality, (3) solidarity, trust, and tolerance, and (4) the social structure of cooperation. Putnam found in his study that northern regions in Italy performed better to those of southern ones as “social capital” was flourishing in the former.

“Collaboration, mutual assistance, civic obligation, and even trust…were the distinguishing features in the North. The chief virtue in the South, by contrast, was imposition of hierarchy and order on latent anarchy” (p. 130)

Fatimah Castillo (2003, in Siapno, forthcoming 2007)4 examines cultural adaptation and social capital aspects of resilience. Castillo argues that, in many cases, the fabric of social life and social capital: friendship, kinship, trust, religious beliefs, indigenous belief systems are more resilient. Therefore, “just because many have died, or that physical infrastructure is destroyed” does not always mean “that the fabric of social life is also destroyed”. Literature on human migration in Aceh is rare at best. Reports on IDPs situation have been provided mostly by government agencies and human rights groups.5 Similar to author argument, but with more account on agency, Siapno (forthcoming 2007) also concluded that displacement is indeed mode for resilience and resistance for Acehnese when seen with subjectivity beyond “the victims”, “the oppressed” or merely uninformed “displaced-masses”. This paper is an attempt to document and explore migration as mode of survival for Acehnese. More importantly, how migration is made possible by social relation based on gampöng networks. Association to a gampöng, therefore, is a form of social networks forming “secondary groups near enough to the individuals” when the State is too remote (Durkheim in Fukuyama 1995). This paper also argued that the social capital of gampöng connections is pivotal in the survival of tsunami IDPs, especially during emergency period when most of the survivors depend on their interior rural villages to take first refuge. The Acehnese’s “social capital” in gampöng networks is being tested, however, after the tsunami, when a great amount of outside intervention has been pouring to Aceh. The “donor push” for quick delivery of aid has resulted in, for instance, notorious “cash for work” programs which undermines social volunteerism in the society. Ignoring the social structure of or abandoning gampöng concepts in the reorganizing communities after the conflict and tsunami might slow down, at best, or worse, hinder the reconstruction process. It is recommended, therefore, gampöng be the basis for reorganizing Acehnese communities after conflict and tsunami. Gampöng has strong historical existence, attested social cohesiveness, and democratic social structure. Gampöng, instead of sub-district (kecamatan) or household, can be the basis for rehabilitation-reconstruction and

3 See Field (2003), for example of “key ideas” summary of on Social Capital. 4 Cited with permission 5 Hedman and Siapno are the only two scholars the author know to have been working on this issue. Nah and Hyndman have reported on Acehnese diaspora in Malaysia and North America.



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its coordination. Households are obviously too small and many as the basis for coordination. Kecamatans, on the other hand, have no social virtues other than government hands with top down mechanism in their works. They have the risk of being “too remote” to their population with no social relations whatsoever binding the offices, the officers and the people. Some statistics of IDPs and its mobility are examined to show that there is pattern of spatial behavior interaction between IDPs and their urban or rural settlements, their gampöngs. Whenever possible, quantitative data is used to further argue the case, keeping in mind Tarrow (1996)’s critics on Putnam (1995)’s connecting quantitative and qualitative data in social sciences, especially in the notion of social capital. Two contrasting micro-studies on how communities has been adapting to new realities after the tsunami are presented to show how different “social capital” lead to different reactions to outside interventions and different “level” of success of reconstruction.

Human migration: from forced migration to resistance and resilience

People move or migrate for a variety of reasons. Political, socio-economic, and ecological factors—often in combination, are usually main reasons for migration. People may migrate to improve their economic situation, to escape civil strife, persecution, or environmental disasters. A comprehensive understanding of people movement or migration is not easy to formulate. In addition to and based upon “reasons” to migrate, one can arguably formulate human movement or migration into different conceptualization. Traditionally, the reasons encouraging an individual to migrate were categorized as "push" or "pull" factors. People who were pushed out from their original settlement by civil unrest and natural disaster resulted in “forced migration”, while people who migrate to find a better life in a more developed region—pulled by economic factors, are said, arguably, to take “voluntary migration”. The distinction is of course not a clear cut. Therefore, there are also terms like “involuntary migration” and “encouraged migration” (Gardner 1981). In term of geographical boundaries, people who move across state are usually called refugees, while people who move within a country are called internally displaced persons (IDPs). These terms are often used interchangeably although, for political reasons, one country might insist on the use of term IDPs instead of refugee. In Indonesia, for example, the term IDPs is used for people who move both because of conflict and natural disaster; and both people who move within or across border are called pengungsi. Bahasa Indonesia actually knows only word pengungsi to term both IDPs and refugees. The situation of IDPs in Aceh after the tsunami proved that confusion on the terms of “IDPs” and its definition is not a trivial matter. A letter from United Nations Recovery Coordinator for Aceh and Nias (UNORC) to the Head of Aceh and Nias Rehabilitation and Reconstruction (BRR) on 2 December 2005, about a year after tsunami, shed light on this issue.

“Data on what UN Agencies and NGOs define as internally displaced persons or IDPs has represented a major problem in analyzing the post-tsunami humanitarian situation in Aceh and Nias. Credible data on these categories have been difficult to obtain due to the dispersed nature and mobility of affected communities and the varied arrangements of camp management, all preventing a uniform registration process of IDPs from occurring.” (See in Appendix 1 for a copy of the letter)

There are three main resources for data on IDPs in Aceh after tsunami: (1) Satkorlak, the provincial government agency for disaster management which produced IDPs



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estimates in the first weeks after tsunami.6 Satkorlak, in collaboration with Aceh’s Dinsos (Social Affairs Office) derived the numbers “from a combination of general estimates of population figures and data collected from the sub-district heads (Camats)”; (2) Aceh’s Electronic Data Management Agency (BPDE) with its field surveyors, Garansi, an Indonesian NGO. “Garansi was contracted to register IDPs throughout the province and adopted an approach of finger printing IDPs to prevent double counting”; (3) Population Census for Aceh and Nias (SPAN) by Office for Statistics (BPS) Aceh which launched its partial results on 29 November 2005. The foreign donors funded SPAN reported somewhat lower figures of IDPs compared to the first two. But Cibulskis7 concluded that “there is some comparability between SPAN and other sources of data, though not perfect partly because of different definitions and timing.” Garansi, the contractor for local government’s BPDE defined IDPs as person(s) “being affected by the disaster and displaced from their residence and living in temporary accommodation”. There are reports that Garansi survey at some places counting host families as part of IDPs counted. SPAN census, on the other hand, defined IDPs based on whether respondents at the time of interview identified themselves as an IDP. Respondent, a head of house hold, was asked “Apakah saat ini Anda sebagai pengungsi?” (Are you an internally displaced person at this time?). This subjective and self-identified question might have attributed to far lower count of IDPs than the numbers previously produced by Satkorlak and Dinsos. SPAN reported 192,055 IDPs during August-September 2005 while BPDE/Dinsor reported 436,820 IDPs per 8 September 2005.

Table 1 Number of IDPs: Comparison of Three Sources

Source: Richard Cibulskis of World Bank presentation IDPs from both conflict and natural disasters are often seen as victims with no or limited agency. In Aceh case, however, being IDPs can also be part of strategy for resilience and resistance. Siapno (forthcoming 2007) noted two contrasting formula in looking at ‘displacement’ in general, which she tried to escape. On one hand, there is government’s lens, as seen in their reports, which often attribute no agency to ‘displaced masses’. On the other hand, there is “human rights formulaic analysis” which tends to see the displaced as “the victims” and “the oppressed” missing “other subjectivities”.

6 Satkorlak in cooperation with IOM and OCHA had also previously published some conflict IDPs data before the tsunami. 7 Available on UNORC website http://www.humanitarianinfo.org/sumatra/reliefrecovery/livelihood/docs/doc/ inforesources/ IDPsSituationbyRichardCibulskisWB.ppt (18 July 2006), accessed 15 January 2007

SPAN Satkorlak DinsSos/ BPDE

IDP Tent 130,836 61,169Barrack 72,756 69,615

Tent/ Barrack 133,514 191,198 129,451

Host families 70,303 306,188 259,871

Total 203,817 565,384 425,434

Ex IDP 298,849



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When put in subjectivity as the question used by SPAN census, it might be surprising for some that “312,4638 tsunami/earthquake survivors who once identified themselves as IDPs no longer do”. This number is the result from a follow up question “Apakah Anda pernah mengungsi setelah gempa/tsunami?” (Have you ever been displaced as a result of the earthquake/tsunami?). But this should not be surprising for the fact that many communities decided to return to their original settlements as early as two-three months after the disaster and they do so with or without outside helps. Many of these returnees, early or later, are not recorded while they are actually “still living in tents or ad-hoc structures on their own land.” Chris Morris, United Nations Recovery Coordinator for Aceh & Nias, sketched an explanation for these “ex-IDPs”:

“There may also be cultural, psychological or linguistic reasons why such a large number of people who once considered themselves IDPs no longer want to identify themselves as such. Two possible explanations stand out. Firstly, many tsunami/earthquake survivors have gone back to their own lands and now consider themselves as having returned home and therefore no longer an IDP regardless of the living conditions they experience. Secondly, being labeled a “pengungsi” or IDP in Aceh may carry a negative connotation which many tsunami survivors probably want to avoid.”

Going back to one’s own land, nevertheless, is not an individual choice for many survivors in Aceh. Even when a survivor has been provided with a house, the decision to return might not be made until at least a number of people from the same settlement return. Re-organized communities in turn might decide whether to return or not, and if so when, based on other supporting variables like infrastructure (electricity, water and sanitation), livelihoods, and social life. Women and children might not feel safe to return when inhabitants are still sparse. Vebry (2006)9 reported this situation in several places around Banda Aceh and Aceh Besar. In one case, a survivor from Leupung of Aceh Besar admitted that it is difficult for some male survivors to return to their village as there are only four women left for possible marriage in the future.10 For a settlement to be a settlement for Acehnese, a gampong both in physical and non-physical notions must be rebuilt; not just a collective or bunches of houses without a thread to one another. People returned to their gampong, not merely to their houses. Hatmadji (2006), doing Gender Analysis for UNDP, also concluded that Ex-IDPs phenomenon “might be caused by the availability of places in other areas which are not (not much) suffered from the disaster where they can live”11. In fact, many families with surviving mother, women in general, the elderly, and children decided to place their loved ones in their original village or at relatives outside the affected areas. Displacement in Aceh is also very fluid, “instead of the static-ness of camp life as is often represented” in official reports. Siapno (forthcoming 2007), therefore, went “beyond the way this term displacement is often used in particular in human rights reports, i.e. enforced physical and geographic displacement, mostly in repressive and negative sense, to open up possibilities including fluidity and resilience, and ways of dealing courageously with forced displacement.”

8 When the SPAN is completed, the number of “Ex-IDP” is somehow lower as seen in Table 1. 9 Vebry, Muamar. (2006). Rumoh & Gampong (Housing and Gampong), published in “Oase” at www.acehinstitute.org on 1 December 2006 (accessed 5 January 2007) 10 In Aceh tradition, a man resides in his wife residence/gampong. 11 UNDP Gender Analisys SPAN Report by Hatmadji, S.H. (18 July 2006) available at http://www.humanitarianinfo.org/sumatra/reliefrecovery/livelihood/ (accessed 10 January 2007)



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Gampöng: Acehnese Social Capital

The smallest unit of communities in Acehnese society was a gampöng until Indonesia under Soeharto tried to fit all community structures into desa or kelurahan with Law No. 5/1979. Since then, more “village” in urban areas has become desa or kelurahan, but some maintain its gampöng status. In rural areas, however, most remain to be a gampöng with decreased capacity. A desa or kelurahan is led by a lurah appointed and paid by government, while gampöng is led by keuchik elected by the gampöng’s inhabitants. Keuchik gets some support from the government but keuchik is not a government employee. Additionally, gampong lost its strength as mukim, a higher unit, groups of gampöngs was abolished by the government and replaced by kecamatan (sub-district) led by camat, a government trained and paid employee. It was the case until recently approved Law No. 11/2006 on Aceh Governance (UUPA) take effect. The new law, a manifestation of Helsinki peace accord, will let the Acehnese to resort back to its former governance structure based on gampöng and mukim. Gampöng (Malay kampung) is “the smallest territorial unit” (Hurgronje 1906:58). The famous Dutch colonial ethnographer described how a gampöng looked like in former times:

“There are the courtyards, part of which are utilized as gardens, containing one or more houses separated from one another and from gampöng-path (jurong) by fences; then the whole gampöng surrounded by a fence of its own, and connected by a gate with the main road (rèt or ròt) which leads through fields and gardens (blang and lampoih) and tertiary jungle (tamah) to other similar gampöngs.” (p. 58-59)

Gampöng was initially inhibited by kawoms (kinship) or of its sub-division “which added to its numbers only by marriages within its closure, or at most with the women of neighboring fellow-tribesmen.” Each gampöng has a meunasah12 “as a nightly resting-place of all the full-grown youths of the gampöng, and all the men who are temporarily residing there and have no wife in the gampöng” (p. 61). Meunasah is also a place for Muslim prayer, both individually and in congregation as well as for meetings to discuss matters of public interest. Thus, meunasah is inseparable to a gampöng. Gampöng ABC is sometimes also called Meunasah ABC instead. Meunasah, therefore, can mean a physical structure for prayer or a territory (gampöng). That is why some called Acehnese with its gampöngs as ‘religious territory society’ (Nya’ Pha 1998 in Tripa 2006). Gampöng is headed by a keuchik13 (village head), who used to be chosen from among uleebalangs (chief) of the kawom or their successors. Later, however, as kawoms get bigger and boundaries among one another became not as clear, the keuchiks are chosen more democratically. Meunasah as a teaching institute, mostly for religious affairs, is lead by a teungku or imeum meunasah. Keuchik and teungku runs the gampöng together with their own specified duties. In one gampöng there might me more than one meunasah. Hurgronje noted this and the relation between keuchik and teungku:

It sometimes occurs indeed, that one gampöng has more than one meunasah (in rare cases as many as four), but in every case the relation between the teungku and the keuchi’ within the sphere of each meunasah is indicated by the comparison “the keuchi’ is the father, the teungku is the mother”, and each has his own limit of action and his own appointed duties. (footnote, p. 61)

12 “This word which also appears in the form beunasah, meulasah, and beulasah is derived from the Arabic word madrasah, meaning a teaching institute…” (footnote in Hurgronje 1906:61) 13 Some use geusyik or geuchik. Local Law (Perda) No. 7/2000 uses geusyik, Qanun No.5/2003 uses keuchik.



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Hurgronje, therefore claimed that it was erroneous for Van Langen14 to describe the teungku as subordinate of the village head. Keuchik, according to Hurgronje, can appoint one or more waki (deputy) for each meunasah. According to Qanun No. 5/2003, keuchik is the executive of the gampöng in day to day gampöng governance. Keuchik works together with tuha peut (the elder four), teungku or imeum meunasah and village secretary (Ismail 2006:34). Keuchik in a gampöng perspective is not only a leader for its people and territory, but also the caretaker of adat, the customary law. Tuha peut, the elder four, are four persons considered knowledgeable and resourceful within the population, help keuchik as wise-men, advisory council, and in some cases as judge (Nya’ Pha 1998 in Tripa 2006). “They are men of experience, worldly wisdom, good manners, and knowledge of adap in the gampöng (Hurgronje 1906:75). Today, keuchik is elected democratically by people in gampöng while lurah or kepala desa (village head) are appointed top down by government through camat (head of kecamatan, sub-district). Therefore, there is a real sense of democracy and sovereignty in a gampöng. Additionally, all matters of public interest in a gampöng are discussed openly and decisions are made based on mupakat (muwafakat, Arabic). Decision by palaver has to be made at least by the three offices in gampöng: keuchik, teungku meunasah, and ureung tuha or tuha peut. Administration of a gampöng, thus, is “composed of these three elements” (Hurgronje 1906:64). In gampöng, there are also “professional” customary offices to help and in consultation with the keuchik. They are people considered the most knowledgeable and wise in each field of public affairs. Panglima laöt15 helps keuchik in matters related to sea. Peutua seuneubok deals with forestry, gardens, and unirrigated agricultural field; Keujreun blang helps keuchik regulate water and farming in the rice field; Haria peukan helps maintain order, security and cleanliness in village market. Haria peukan also collect dues from sellers and vendors. Panglima laot is usually assisted by syahbanda who lead and regulate boats and traffic in a river or harbor. Life in gampöng is very communal with strong association among its members. Relations among members of a gampöng are not based on self-interest, but more on harmony, accordance and appropriateness (Nya’ Pha 1998 in Tripa 2006). This might due to the fact that gampöng was started by a kawom or kinship. Tripa (2006) describes how communities in Aceh were started and developed based on three categories as shown in Table 2. Accordingly, it is not any more surprising to comprehend the fact that one might loss tens or even hundreds of his or her extended family from the tsunami. This is usually the case in many coastal villages in Banda Aceh, Aceh Besar, Aceh Jaya, and Aceh Barat, which families and relatives are living next to one another.

Table 2 Community Formation and Association in Acehnese Society

Community Form of Association Remark

Genealogic Kawom-syedara (kinship) Based on parents track, following both mother and father side

Territorial Syedara lingka (territorial relation)

Starting from neighbor around one’s house to the whole gampong

Genealogic -Territorial

Syedara gampöng (territorial- kinship)

It is common to find that inhabitants in a gampöng are related to one another

14 Atjehsch Staatsbestuur p.391 in Hurgronje (1906). 15 The most contemporary account on the panglima laöt and Aceh sea customary law (huköm adat laöt) see Abdullah et al (2006)



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Source: Tripa (2006)16

Gampöng is an ideal manifestation of human as social beings. There is a basic instinct to live together and continuously interact with one another creating interconnectedness. In order to maintain public interest, a need for social structure comes naturally. On the other hand, each community is also a social phenomenon which governs itself with values and norms. People act in accordance with these agreed values and norms, which, in Aceh context, are closely, albeit not formally, related to huköm (religious law) and adat (customary law).

Huköm and Adat Gampöng as basis for resilience

“Huköm and adat are inseparable, even as God’s essence and his attributes” says Acehnese proverb (Hurgronje 1906:72). In the footnote on the same page, Hurgronje noted various original version of this proverb as

Huköm ngòn adat han jeuët chré, lagèë dat ngòn sipheuët Huköm ngòn adat, lagèë mata itam ngòn mata putèh (Huköm and adat are like the pupil and the white of the eye) Huköm hukömölah, adapt adatölah (The huköm is Allah’s huköm, the adat is Allah’s adat).

The close and obvious relation between huköm and adat in Acehnese (and other Muslim) communities, nevertheless, does not mean that the two always are the same or always in agreement. Hurgronje noted that

…a distinction is drawn in practice between what is religious in the strict sense, and therefore inviolable and what is of more secular nature and may accordingly be modified to suit the requirements of the state and of the society, or even altogether set aside. This explains the contrast which the Achehnese express by the words huköm and adat.(Hurgronje 1906:(2)314)

Still, all laws alike possess religious character, including norms and values those have to do with resilience and resistance.

Siapno (forthcoming 2007) reported that Acehnese people “gave at least three reasons for their resilience and resiliency in time of conflict and displacement: (1) the tradition and structure of experience of perantauan, (2) tawakkal; and (3) saudara seperjuangan (kindred spirit networks, communities of displaced persons)”. All these reasons, especially the first and third are directly related to the concept of silaturrahim nurtured by Islamic values confined strongly, although not exclusively, in gampöng. Additionally, the two concepts can not be separated from the notion of mobility, and thus, geographical setting. This is, then, giving “space” to what Siapno pictures as more of a mental state. As no matter how strong Acehnese mentally, that is individually, I argue, will not be as strong as when they are in cohesiveness with their gampöng.

When Acehnese faced hardship, tawakkal (submission to, trust in God who orders everything) and silaturrahim (or silaturrahmi, bond of good friendship or brotherhood) are the most resorted. Tawakkal is more personal where one only turns to his or her belief in God for everything that happened. One, therefore, is not to be engrossed in prolonged sadness as everything is on God wills. Some even say that crying is forbidden

16 Tripa, S. Memahami Budaya dalam Konteks Aceh (Understanding Culture in The Aceh Context), Opinion on www.acehinstitute.org, 16 May 2006, accessed 10 December 2006.



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when your loved ones pass away as this might burden his or her journey in the after-life. However, it is allowable to mourn for the death or missing loved-ones. Acehnese usually mourn up to forty days after the calamity. During this period, relatives, friends and acquaintances are invited or come to pay respect and make prayers for the death or missing ones, and for the one sparse or left behind (the host). Helped by one’s extended family and gampöng folks, a host will have special kanduri, a generic term for feast, for their love ones in the 3rd, 5th, 7th, 10th, 30th, 40th or 44th, 100th day and the anniversary after the death (Hurgronje 1906:428). This kanduri, although considered forbidden (bid’ah, no jurisprudence in Islamic law) by some Muslims, has made silaturrahim stronger within the society.

Silaturrahim, on the other hand, is a community virtue where people strengthen one another in calamity. It is a religious and customary obligation to visit and soothe member of communities who is (are) in sorrow. It is religious because every Muslim is brothers and sisters as ascribed by one of the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad (hadist) that Muslims are like a body, of which one part feels pain, another part will also feel the pain. It is customary because in gampöngs people know one another and often visit one another. The visits are more essential during important times of one’s life: new birth, marriages, and deaths with all considered important events in between those. If one excludes him or herself for these exchanges of visits, one might lost his or her rights to get the same. During these visits to a friend or relatives in calamity—usually done in the forty days mourning period, one would say “Be patient, be tawakkal” to the host. Also, “We all are going to die one day. Your loved-one(s) is in a dear place of God”.

During both kanduri and silaturrahim, Acehnese do peusijuek to “cool down”, to “make cool again”, or to “refresh”, a blessing ceremony for “returned political prisoners, a new house, a newly married couple, someone emerging from a tragic, traumatic experience” (Siapno, fortcoming 2007). The peusijuek is done by the elders and community leaders.

On perantauan, Siapno noted it as

“the mentality of always being on a journey…a structure of experience which is not prone to parochialism but towards open-mindedness and constant striving. A tradition of constant striving, of constantly re-creating one’s self, of living in uncertainty, of being an outsider in an established system—whether in search of ilmu (knowledge), vocation, or a job, as a precondition to a mature self in Aceh”

Moreover, Siapno relates perantauan to the concept of musafir (travelers) which Islam advocates as one in the category one should assist and show compassion to, besides fakir miskin (poor people) and aneuk yatim (orphans).

The concept of perantauan (the non-original place) and merantau (to travel, to migrate) dates back to early history as Acehnese embraces the notion of meudagang, literally means “to trade”. Hurgronje (1906(2):26) noted that “In Acheh, the word meudagang, which originally signifies ‘to be a stranger, to travel from place to place, has passed directly this meaning to that of “to be engaged in study”. In a footnote on the same page, he wrote “ureung dagang always means ‘stranger’ usually applied to traders…..” However, “meudagang has now no other meaning than that of ‘to study’ and ureung meudagang means ‘a student’”. This concept of meudagang is still used and has always been in the psyche of Acehnese until this modern time. It is especially true among the people from Pidie who are famous of being great migrant traders and are fond of traveling to seek for knowledge and better life.



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Acehnese also express their resilience concept in their proverbs (narit maja) which often referred and quoted by their elders, describing self-resilience, communal life, virtues of hard works and hopes:

Bek taharap kéu teuga gob (Do not expect from others’ strength) Ubèe na daya mawa bidéun, mèe hana usaha ta tran keudroe (No matter how good is a midwive, she will not be able to help a mother who did not push herself) Hudèp sarèe, matèe syahid (Live together and die in a good cause) Tulöng teumulöng sarèe keudroë-droë, ta peukong nanggroë sarèe syedara (Help one another, strengthen your country with your fellow countrymen) Harëuta nyang gèt, beu ta pubuët keudroë, bèk peuhah jaroë jak geumadèe (bak meulakèe) (Good wealth comes from hardworks, don’t open you hand to do begging) Ôh lhéuh lhôk kôn dhéu (A deep water always follows by a shallow one; after hardship, there must be ease)

These living proverbs in Acehnese communities show that there are values supported resilience and self-helped among the Acehnese forming a social capital. These values have enabled the Acehnese to navigate displacement during the conflict and the tsunami.

Conflict IDPs

In 1999, Inside Indonesia reported that approximately 80,000 Acehnese have been displaced from their rural villages in the three most conflict prone districts (Pidie, North Aceh, and East Aceh) 17 [bold emphasis by author]. Hugo 18 reported that based on condition at the beginning of 2002, Indonesia has one of the largest groups of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) of any nations in the world, with originated mostly from the outer islands provinces including Aceh. The global IDP Project, established by the Norwegian Refugee Council at the request of the United Nations to monitor conflict-induced internal displacement world wide, reported that Indonesia (Aceh) has the world’s ten worst displacement situation in 200319

Both GAM and the Indonesia military are responsible for displacements in Aceh during the conflict time. During 1999-2000, GAM occasionally used IDPs and refugees to attract international attention.

“One tactic has been to cultivate the support of international human rights groups. Another approach – employed in mid-1999 – was to empty dozens of villages, and move between 80,000 and 100,000 Acehnese into 61 refugee [IDPs] camps, provoking a refugee [IDPs] crisis. After drawing

17 Towards a mapping of 'at risk' ethnic, religious and political groups in Indonesia. Inside

Indonesia 1999 [cited 10 April 2006]; 86: Available from: http://www.serve.com/inside/digest/dig86.htm.

18 Hugo, G. 2002. Pengungsi-Indonesia’s Internally Displaced Persons. Asian and Pacific Migration Journal 11(3), 297-331

19 Global IDP Project, Internal Displacement: A Global Overview of Trends and Developments in 2003. Geneva, February 2004. In this report, the entry is specifically written “Indonesia (Aceh)” which I assume based on IDPs situation in Aceh rather than a combined number throughout Indonesia.



12

international media attention, villagers were allowed to return to their villages and these camps were largely closed down”20.

Information compiled by ELSAM, a human rights national NGO based in Jakarta, showed that during June-July 1999, there were at least 117,667 IDPs in Pidie, North and East Aceh.21 The number was decreasing during the implementation of Cessation of Hostilities Agreement (CoHA), brokered by Switzerland-based Henry Dunant Center for Humanitarian Dialog, in 2000-2002 .

Following the abrupt halt of CoHA, Aceh was put under martial law on 19 May 2003, since when the military has been using “forced evacuation” of people from their villages to split them from the guerrillas, a tactic known as “separating fish from the water” in counter insurgency warfare. An unofficial report of UN-OCHA, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affair, showed that there were 8,251 household comprising 35,649 IDPs between 19 May and 17 June 2002 with 509 burnt schools.22 After two months of the imposition of martial law, IDPs increased to over 50,000 people spread in different regions throughout Aceh. And some 24% of the total IDPs comprises infants, babies, children, pregnant women, and the elderly.23 By August 2003, according to International Organization of Migration (IOM), the grant total of IDPs in Aceh had reached 104,702 persons and 603 schools were burnt.24

By October 2003, IOM working with its Indonesia’s counterpart, Satkorlak, national authority for disaster mitigation, officially reported that 118,000 people displaced by the military operation. Hedman (2006), however, reported that

“These numbers only include IDPs in designated camps; many displaced have sought refuge with relatives or are in camps that are not managed by the martial law administration. For example, 3,780 persons from Pasie Raja Sub-district in South Aceh sought refuge with host families. There have also been reliable reports of people fleeing into the forests. Furthermore, the figures do not account for displacement to other regions of Indonesia and asylum-seekers in other countries."25

Geographically, many people left, or being moved from, their villages in rural areas where hostilities of the conflict were high, especially in the interior of Pidie, North Aceh, and East Aceh. If independent mobility were possible, these IDPs usually moved to urban areas like Banda Aceh, Sigli, Lhokseumawe and not least Medan in North Sumatra, Jakarta and other places in Indonesia to as far as neighboring Malaysia and other countries. It was obvious that time, for example, that “Kota Mini Beureuneun”, a small city in Pidie, one of the hottest spot during the conflict, was much less vibrant as many traders moved and settled in Banda Aceh or Medan market places. Many abandoned and empty shops and warehouses in Banda Aceh market places were suddenly crowded by these unseemingly IDPs. People in the group of “the have” in Acehnese society were

20 Ross, Michael L. 2003. Resources and Rebellion in Aceh, Indonesia. Prepared paper for The

Yale-Word Bank project on “The Economics and Political Violence.” (Quoted with permission). 21 As reported in Sulistyanto, Priyambudi. 2001. Whither Aceh?. Third World Quarterly. 22:3. pp

437-452 (p. 447) 22 www.reliefweb.int 23 Kompas daily, 28 May 2003. 24 See map of IDPs, Camps and Burnt School by IOM/Satkorlak in Appendix 1 25 In Hedman, E.-L.E. The Right to Return: IDPs in Aceh. 2006 [cited 12 June 2006]



13

famous in Medan for buying new houses or second houses in Medan so to escape the hostilities in Aceh. Flows of Acehnese seeking refugee status in or through Malaysia to other countries were much on the media coverage. It has also started to trigger more interest in studying it among scholars.26 The movement of this IDPs are very much dependent on how wide is their connections to parties (family, friends, organizations, etc) in those destinations. Based on several observations, family and friendship ties are most common, but all are, one way or another, influenced by place of origin (gampöng) connections. Even the rebel groups who fled Aceh seemed to be bounded more by this gampöng concept rather than by their organizational structure.27 The martial law status on Aceh was revoked by Jakarta on 18 May 2004 just to be replaced by a ‘civil emergency’, basically the same repressive status with different name. When tsunami hit on 26 December 2004, Aceh was still under this status and remained in it until 18 May 2005.28 Days before tsunami, IOM reported that there were at least 1,800 conflict IDPs in camps. Although there was no corresponding figure for those who had sought refuge from militarization and violence with relatives or friends 29 , it is believed these IDPs are more than those in the camps.

Tsunami IDPs

Aceh had not overcome the impact of the conflict when it was further devastated by the earthquake and tsunami on 26 December 2004. The impact of the disaster is huge both in physical and non-physical terms. Latest available figures of casualties from official sources cited 129,498 deaths and 37,066 missing in Aceh 30 . Although no gender-disaggregated data is available, most of the victims are believed to be women.31 As per September 2005, there are 436,820 IDP in Aceh (not including Nias) who lives in temporary living centers (TLC)--including government-built barracks (17.3%), self set-up tents (15.5%) and host communities (67.2%). From the total IDP, some 181,516 (42%) are women, and 36,397 (8%) are babies and children under 5 years old, who are traditionally under women responsibility.

It is clear that host communities constitute the biggest “shelter” (67.2%) for the tsunami IDPs in Aceh. Host communities here could mean family member, relatives, friends, or

26 See for example, HR Watch - http://www. hrw. org/english/docs/2004/04/01/malays8379. htm

(accessed 10 Aug 2006); Nah, AM (2005), “Ripples of Hope: Acehnese Refugees in Post-Tsunami Malaysia, Singapore J. of Tropical Geography Vol. 26, 2, 2005, p. 249; Hyndman, J and James McLean (2006) “Settling Like a State: Acehnese Refugees in Vancouver”, Journal of Refugee Studies 2006 19(3):345-360

27 Based on author observations and several interviews in Penang, Kuala Lumpur (both in Malaysia) and in Medan, Indonesia in 2003 and 2004.

28 This status was blamed for slow and late updates of early number of casualties from tsunami in Aceh as it was sealed-off from outsiders including foreign journalists.

29 Hedman, E.-L.E. The Right…op cit. 30 http://www.humanitarianinfo.org/sumatra/products/statistics/docs/DeathStatisticMay2005.pdf

(accessed 17 November 2005). As in many catastrophes, single agreed accurate number is difficult to get. It seems that reports on earthquake and tsunami victims often confused, for example, between total and death-missing numbers, total in Aceh only versus total with other countries.

31 Many believed that female victims are around 55-70 percent. Aceh NGO Forum and Oxfam reported that there are several villages that lost 80% of their female residents. Oxfam also noted that there is strong indication of gender imbalance after tsunami, that is, many male survivors compared to female. Both male and female survivors are mostly in their active reproductive ages. It is also important to note that Aceh pre-tsunami population has been around 50-50 female-male ratio.



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merely a social relation based on gampöng relations. The tsunami devastated coastal, mostly urbanized areas in Aceh. In the case of IDP in host communities, once again, the social fabric manifested in family, friends, and places of origin connections, the gampöng, plays a very important role for communities in urban areas as it was during the conflict time for those from rural areas. Many who still have social relations to communities in the interior went back to villages in the rural areas. This is especially true for people from Pidie and Bireuen (northeastern) Districts who are famous for being local migrants and traders to urban areas like Banda Aceh and Lhokseumawe. Although Pidie and Bireuen were not as much devastated areas compared to Banda Aceh, Aceh Besar, Western Aceh, the communities in these two districts are greatly affected by the returns of their people from the coastal-urbanized areas. This phenomenon is indicated by the distribution of the number of tsunami IDPs in districts of Aceh, especially in the urbanized regions, as shown by Table 1 above32. Numbers of IDPs in central Aceh regions like Aceh Tengah, Bener Meriah, Aceh Tenggara and Gayo Lues which does not border with sea indicate that people move from coastal areas to a more hinterland after tsunami, most probably to return to their gampöng (See Table in Appendix 2). While coastal areas in western Aceh are worse hit by the tsunami, due to their proximity to the epicenter of the quake that caused the tsunami, more IDPs are actually in the more urbanized, more populous regions in Banda Aceh, Aceh Besar and in the eastern coast. Additionally, east and northern coast regions of Aceh which was more conflict prone, left by its people during the conflict time, were getting the influx of tsunami IDPs from south and western Aceh, including Banda Aceh and Aceh Besar following the disaster. People returned to their rural village (gampöng) as their resort after any casualties; to mourn, to heal and to gather strengths to start a new life.

Table 3 Tsunami IDPs Distrubution in “Conflict Prone” Areas in Northeastern Aceh

NO Districts Data Satkorlak/Dinsos* Data from BPDE**/Dinsos

8-Jan-

05

24-Feb-

05

25-May-

05

22-Jun-

05

4-Jul-

05

20-Jul-

06

1 Bireuen 23,550 14,043 49,945 38,662 49,945 35,963

2 Pidie 55,099 32,067 82,612 48,456 81,532 79,188

3 Aceh Utara 28,470 28,113 33,004 32,761 30,511 31,667

4 Lhokseumawe 3,456 16,412 10,643 2,494 6,260

5 Banda Aceh 27,980 40,831 49,921 56,874 49,921 37,382

6 Aceh Besar 107,740 98,384 97,485 55,800 99,815 64,145

7 Aceh Timur 1,849 14,054 12,422 13,773 14,072 20,456

8 Langsa 10,227 2,806 6,156 1,052 6,156 1,401

Total 258,371 246,710 331,545 258,021 334,446 276,462

Percentage

from Total IDPs in

Aceh

71% 61,5% 64,5% 82.2% 58.4% 59.7%

*Satkorlak is Indonesia’s chapter of disaster mitigation agency working during emergency period following tsunami in Aceh; **BPDE, Badan Pengelola Data Elektronik, local government electronic data clearing house.

32 A complete table of Tsunami IPDs distribution in all Aceh districts is in Table of Appendix 2.



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Gampöng, a village in both physical and community notions, therefore, proved to be a backbone of Acehnese society. However, while many people did return to their gampöng after the tsunami, to heal from traumatic experience of the quake and tsunami, they gradually got back to the cities and towns in coastal-urbanized areas after forty days of mourning period33. One of the reasons to once again leave their gampöng this time is that services for IDPs are mostly available in urban areas, especially those provided by international organizations. Thus, the classic question whether services should follow the IDPs or IDPs should follow the services, hence, is important to be contemplated again in Aceh. So far, the later is the case in many areas in Aceh causing people to ignore the concept of gampöng in delivering humanitarian and relief aids. This pattern is clearly showed by the chart in Figure 1 below, particularly in the case of IDPs from Pidie and Bireuen. The patterns for other districts are not so obvious. This might due to the fact that most local migrations in Aceh are originated from Pidie and Northen Aceh. This region is also more populous compared to other regions in Aceh.

Figure 1. IDPs Distribution in Conflict Prone Districts January to May 2005

Tsunami IDPs in Conflict Prone Areas in Aceh Jan-

May 2005 (Satkorlak)

0

20,000

40,000

60,000

80,000

100,000

120,000

1 2 3

8Jan05 24Feb05 25May05

Nu

mb

er

of

IDP

s Bireun

Pidie

Aceh Utara

Lhokseumawe

Banda Aceh

Aceh Besar

Aceh Timur

Langsa

Source: processed based on IDPs data from Aceh Satkorlak/Social Affairs Office

In addition, most of the conflict IDPs who remain in camps and host communities, despite their significantly smaller number compared to tsunami IDPs, were also from the east and northern districts. Hedman found that “Until quite recently, another category of host community IDPs had remained largely invisible in the wider context of post-tsunami Aceh – those displaced by conflict during the militarized campaigns of counter/insurgency.”34 The signing of Helsinki MoU also echoed in the distribution of Tsunami and, presumably, Conflict IDPs. Figure 2 shows how IDPs were decreasing in Banda Aceh and Aceh Besar, but interestingly, stay in big number in Pidie after one year tsunami. Villages in Pidie and Bireueun, which was left by its population during the conflict time, is now more crowded with returnees, tsunami and conflict IDPs alike.

33 It is a custom among Muslims in Indonesia that when one passed away, families left behind are not as active until about 40 days after the death. This is a kind of “mourning period” when family and relatives get together especially on the 3rd, 7th and 40th day of the death. 34 Hedman, E.-L.E. The Right…op cit.



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There is no official number or list that differentiates tsunami and conflict IDPs in Pidie and Bireuen. Some 5,000 conflict IDPs in Pidie and Bireuen who tried to return to their lands in Aceh Tengah and Bener Meriah (central Aceh), however, is indicative of their significance number.35 Figure 1 show the numbers of Tsunami IDPs in Pidie and in Bireuen were both higher on 8 January 2005 compared to the numbers on 14 February 2005. This is a strong indication that many people in Banda Aceh, Aceh Besar and Western Aceh who were from Pidie and Bireuen were returning in days after tsunami. The decrease in February suggested that the returnees might have returned back to urban areas after mourning period, especially to Banda Aceh where most humanitarian and relief aids are concentrated and where they might be looking for missing family members. The numbers of IDPs in Pidie and Bireuen increased again on 25 May 2005 indicating that they might return again from urban areas, as shelters in devastated urban areas are not yet recovered. The steady increase of IDPs number in Banda Aceh supports the hypothesis of IDPs movements from and to Pidie and Bireuen, or in general, from urban to rural areas.

Figure 2. IDPs Distribution in Conflict Prone Districts after One Year

Tsunami IDPs in "Conflict Prone" Areas of Aceh

after One Year

0

20,000

40,000

60,000

80,000

100,000

120,000

1 2 3

22Jun05 4Jul05 20Jun06

Nu

mb

er

of

IDP

s Bireun

Pidie

Aceh Utara

Lhokseumawe

Banda Aceh

Aceh Besar

Aceh Timur

Langsa

Source: processed based on IDPs data from Aceh BPDE.

The presence of national and international humanitarian, and then, relief organizations in Aceh seems to bring alternative support system to IDPs beside the support of gampöng connections, the main, if not only, support system they know before. Many worried that if they stayed too long in their rural village, they might not get the supplies they needed, as described by Zulfikar (46 years), a Lingke of Banda Aceh resident who went back to his wife family in Pidie two days after tsunami:

“A couple days after tsunami we all went back to our village in Pidie. Although we had to live at my mother in laws place with another twenty one persons from my wife extended family who also lost their houses in Banda Aceh and Aceh Besar, it was good for us, especially children, to get together with family and other villagers and feel safe with the support of

35 Hedman, E.-L.E. The Right…op cit. and CHSE report, a local NGO in Pidie.



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one another. But after about a month, we realized that we will not get enough helps if we stayed in Pidie. So all of us move back to Banda Aceh and we had to stay in family and relative places, or some have to go to barracks. Some choose to commute every other week or so between Banda Aceh and Pidie. This way, we get relief supplies.”36

Split-community: a break down of Acehnse social relations

When Indonesia government decided to provide barracks, military style shelters, for tsunami IDPs, the challenge to Acehnese social structure and cultural practices were very significant. Not only are the barracks culturally inappropriate, their provision is also not enough for everybody causing split-family and split-community problems. Because the units built are not enough for every IDPs or slowly built for people to move in, villagers are divided in several groups to fit in several barracks locations or just to fulfill a barrack quota. There were reports that family might be divided into units in barracks or combined with other IDPs. The barracks are not so friendly to vulnerable groups like women, children, the elderly, and the handicapped. In a more macro point of view, the divisions of IDPs from a same village into different barracks location are more troubling. There are also cases that some portions of IDPs from a same village were moved into barracks while the rest were not due to limited number of barracks the government could provide. In both cases, the cohesiveness of local social structure (gampöng) is under pressure. The concept of gampöng is difficult to exist and to nurture in those shelters. Instead, many use these temporary living centers (TLC) as a place to mark their existence for relief supplies provision only. Two case studies of Al-Mukarramah neighborhood of Punge Jurong village and Lambung village are reported here to show how humanitarian interventions can break up the gampöng concept and make horizontal conflict inevitable. Disharmonized provisions of relief supplies and livelihood options are among the major cause of horizontal conflict or the one which make it worse. When Punge Jurong is a gampöng split up after tsunami, for the whole village did not fit into one (set of) barracks, Lambung people stick together, rejecting resettlement into barracks outside their village and decided to move back into their village once it was accessible at the end of 2005. Punge Jurong village is, therefore, a split-community while Lambung village, also in Banda Aceh, is a re-united village after the tsunami. Punge Jurong is more diverse in term of nativity. A significant number of its population is from Pidie, a conflict hot spot. The tsunami wave brought hundred of corpses and debris from the other closer to coastal villages including Lambung, two-village away from Punge Jurong. Remaining structure of houses in this village made it difficult to do, for example, land consolidation, and aid supplies distribution.

36 Interview with Zulfikar, not a real name, in Banda Aceh, 10 March 2006.



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Table 4 Population Comparison between Punge Jurong and Lambung

Population

After Tsunami Village Before Tsunami

Missing Dead Survivor

HH M F T M F T M F T HH M F T

Punge Jurong

1122 2999 2950 5949 38 215 253 1691 2070 3761 778 1570 865 2435

Lambung 268 683 558 1241 18 55 73 462 396 858 149 210 110 320

HH=Household, M=Male, F=Female, T=Total Source: Drs. Tarmizi Yahya, MM, head of Meuraxa Sub-District (Kecamatan) presentation at Komite Rehabilitasi and Rekonstruksi Meuraxa (Korrexa) meeting. It is evidence that united communities are better able to negotiate with outside interventions, including international organizations, while others split vis-à-vis solutions offered, thus could not keep gampöng together. Although the two villages are geographically very close together (See Appendix 1), they seem to be different in that Lambung is socially more cohesive with most inhabitants are native to the village. Punge Jurong is less so with most are people coming from other regions in Aceh, especially Pidie as local economic migrant and due to conflict displacement.

The Case of Al-Mukarramah Neighborhood

Al-Mukkaramah neighborhood is one of five neighborhoods in the village of Punge Jurong, Meuraxa sub-district, City of Banda Aceh. The village is one of the 34 villages in Banda Aceh listed by a United Nation agency as being completely wiped out by the tsunami days after the tsunami. Although situated nearly four kilometers inland, the neighborhood could not stand the force of the tsunami (see Map in Appendix 3). Prior to the tsunami, the neighborhood has 3812 members (382 households), but now the population is numbering around 875 only. Some 192 of the survivors are now living in Lhong Raya barracks; about 165 are living barrack units and tents within the neighborhood, while the rest are scattered in different host community in Banda Aceh, Pidie, and North Aceh. Some went to as far as Medan, Jakarta and Malaysia.37 Most of residences in this neighborhood come from Pidie. Famous as traders, they based their livelihood in the central market of Banda Aceh as road side vendors, shop owners or bigger traders (distributors, etc). Days after tsunami, survivors from this neighborhood were scattered in several camps in Banda Aceh. Some went back to Pidie to send their smaller children, women or the elderly to their original gampöng. When they got back to Banda Aceh in early to middle of January, to look further for missing family members, or to find humanitarian and relief supplies, they based in a public building (Gedung Sosial) near the gate to the city of Banda Aceh. Led by Abubakar Ishak (47 years), a community organizer, asked by the group to be in charge replacing missing neighborhood head, they seemed to be very united during the first months after

37 Author interview with Abubakar Ishak, Head of Al-Mukarramah neighborhood, Punge Jurong, February 2006



19

tsunami.38 Problems and disputes usually occur with other groups of IDPs from other villages in the same shelter where they live. However, when temporary living center (TLC) in the form of barracks were built by the government in April-May 2005, and the number of units for IDPs from this neighborhood is less then enough, the division started to occur. The trigger was the problem of who got to move to the barracks and who would stay in the public building. Fortunately, around that time, the government decided to let the IDPs to return to their villages canceling the issues of buffer zones in Banda Aceh. Mr. Ishak led meetings with his people and decided to prioritize women, and women with children to move to barracks plus some male IDPs. The rest voluntarily decided to return to the destroyed but already accessible neighborhood in Punge Jurong. After that, what author usually heard were jokes among the two groups, the groups that stay in the barracks and the groups who returned to the neighborhood and live in tents and the remains of houses, teasing each other about their living condition. The groups who returned said that they were lucky deciding not to insist on moving to barracks as the condition in barracks were terrible. Some coming from barracks admitted the situation but claimed that they can be more restful in a close unit of TLC rather than living in the open before moving to barracks. They admitted the poor sanitation and water problem in barracks. On the other hand, people from barracks teased the returnees as having to cope with worse condition on the ground. During emergency period following tsunami, humanitarian and relief organizations, especially international ones, hold back their interventions to the returnees and barracks inhabitants. For the first, they were not sure whether Indonesia government would allow returnees to coastal areas while for the later they know that barracks are not Sphere compliance.39 With no or limited interventions, both IDPs confined to barracks and those of early returnees, had to live under a grim living conditions. But the jokes and teasing each other kept going on as part of their everyday life. The situation became more serious after the government green-lighted the rights to return for early returnees and asked international organizations to step in helping IDPs in barracks despite the breach of international standards. Afterwards, many organizations did and do step in to help both groups of IDPs. But then the problem of division started to worsen as geographical divide prevent effective communication of two IDPs groups who are actually from the same village. Early returnees claim that their fellow villagers living in barracks are well taken care of as everything is provided by the government and relief organizations. In contrast, the people in barracks claim that they did not get enough and insisted in getting relief supplies delivered directly to the neighborhood. Suspicions and distrust among one another started to take place and increased as some village figures compete for influence.

38 Author visited the shelter several times in January-April 2005. 39 Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement.



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Table 5 Summary statistics of pre- and post tsunami situation of Al-Mukarramah Neigborhood, Punge Jurong, Banda Aceh

Variable Pre-Tsunami Post-Tsunami

1. Demography

Population 3812 942**

Household number 382 276**

Family Size 9,9 3,4

Male 49%* 60,9%

Female 51%* 39,1%

Under 5 years old n/a 6,1%

Children and adolescent n/a 16,9%

Elderly (>55yrs) n/a 5,2%

2. Land and Property

Own land certificate 67,4% 51%

Own land buying note 14% 2,3%

No land note or certificate 16,3% 41,8%

Average land size 204,54 m2 198,96 m2

Land dispute 2 cases No cases

Own house 74.4% 51.2%

House renter 7.0% 7.0%

Relatives’ house 11.6% 32.6%

3. Livelihood

Merchants 44.2% 37.2%

Jobless 7.8% 16.3%

Own capital 82.0% 10.0%

Average capital to start Rp. 28 juta Rp. 18,5 juta

Income < IDR 500,000 27.9% 34.9%

Income IDR 500,000–1.5 millions

39.5% 34.9%

Income IDR 1.5–3 millions 9.3% 7.0%

Income > IDR 5 million 4.6% 0.0%

Source: Mahdi et.al (2006)40 The culmination of the divide was when Pak Abu, the head, decided to resign in early May 2006 in front of a neighborhood meeting. He said that he is tired being criticized by

40 Mahdi, S., Muhyiddin, Cut Famelia (2006) Tracking Changes: Where Al-Mukarramah Neighborhood Stands One Year after Tsunami, Yayasan Masyarakat Iqra-UN-HABITAT Aceh and Nias Shelter Support Program (ANSSP), Banda Aceh



21

his fellow villagers living outside the neighborhood (barracks and host communities) who come back occasionally to the neighborhood and had not done anything but demanding for supplies and services they already had in their temporary shelters. Despite his sincere works to help return the neighborhood to normalcy, some people suspected him of corruptions based of hearsay. It is understandable when he said that it is not easy to make everybody happy while they do not even meet each other regularly: some live in the neighborhood under tents, barrack, and destroyed houses, some live in the barracks outside the neighborhood, some live far away outside Banda Aceh in their respective gampöng, and yet some live in host communities in Banda Aceh. Having no ideas of this intra village/neighborhood divides, relief organizations are still competing one another to make their donors happy. There is lack of coordination in national, provincial, and district level of humanitarian and relief works, so it might be also the case for, if not worse, a micro coordination among organizations working in village level. The reconstruction in the neighborhood has been very slow. When this paper is written, no new houses have been built to provide shelters for 265 “households” survivors from this neighborhood. Lambung: A Re-united Community

More than 1,500 out of some 1,900 residents of Lambung vanished to the tsunami. Lambung is almost “cleared” by the tsunami wave leaving not a single intake physical structure. According to Drs. Zaidi M. Adan, Geuchik of Lambung, 100 percent buildings and houses in Lambung destroyed.41 To date, there are 420 people registered as official residents in this village, of which about 400 are survivors from the quake and tsunami. The remaining are new residents due to new marriage after tsunami. Gampöng Lambung has been always a gampöng, thus never changed into a desa or kelurahan. The villagers are mostly native and deeply rooted to the spatial territory of Lambung. These two seem to have made social ties stronger in this village, resulting in easier and faster in reorganizing and making consensus after the tsunami. The village, for instance, reached consensus for land consolidation relatively easily. Gampong Lambung’s success in participatory land consolidation has been applauded by local government of Banda Aceh and BRR alike. Gampong Lambung has been chosen to be a model village for reconstruction. A seventy billion IDR, about $7.7 million, has been earmarked by the BRR to develop 42 road blocks in the gampong with sewer system, telephone network, public and social facilities. 42 Roads in the gampong will be at least six meters wide; some will be 15 meter wide. Thanks to the willingness of its people to voluntarily let go part of their land or consolidate with another fellow villager.

41 Government of Lambung presentation at Aceh Habitat Club, a reconstruction participatory forum hosted by UN-Habitat and The Aceh Institute. 42 Untuk Bangun Desa Lambung Butuh Dana Rp 70 M, Serambi Indonesia Daily, 15 October 2006.



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Table 6 Summary statistics of pre- and post tsunami situation Of Gampöng Lambung, Kec. Meuraxa, Banda Aceh

Variable Pre-Tsunami Post-Tsunami

1. Demography

Population 1.900 400

Household number 320 309

Family Size 6,9 1,29

Male 55 % 60%

Female 45 % 40%

Under 5 years old n/a 2%

Children and adolescent n/a 15%

Elderly (>55yrs) n/a 2%

2. Land and Property

Own land certificate 40 % 100 %*

Own land buying note 10 % - %*

No land note or certificate

50 % 0 %*

Average land size

Land dispute 5 kasus -

Own house 85 % 100 %

House renter 1.0 % 0 %

Relatives’ house 14 % 0 %

3. Livelihood

Merchants 5 %

Jobless 30%

Others

Own capital 80%

*planned with RALAS project Source: process by author based on estimates from interviewees. Some 90% of people in Lambung are native inhabitants of the gampöng.43 Others come to the village through marriage, not by merely moving into it. Most of the native villagers are related to one another through family ties, fitting a kawom concept of the former time of Aceh. This, among others, has always been resulted in the strength of community and social ties among the villagers. Right after the quake and tsunami, like many residents of Banda Aceh, survivor from Lambung ran and took refuge in hilly area of southeast Banda Aceh around TVRI (state TV) tower and relay station in Mata Ie. Soon this area became the famous IDP camp with

43 Interview with Hardiansyah, a native of and community organizer in Lambung, 15 December 2006.



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influx from all over Banda Aceh and Aceh Besar. This was also the first concentration where government and non-government, local, national and international tsunami humanitarian and relief aids gave much helps in the first day after tsunami. Interestingly, survivor from Lambung did not stay in the TVRI camp. Instead, they took refuge with their relatives having several houses near TVRI area. Later, when many more survivors got there, they rent a piece of land in the area and erected several tents, allowing them to stick together separated from the bigger crowd in the TVRI camp. When asked why people from Lambung separated themselves from the bigger crowd of IDPs in TVRI camp, Hardiansyah, one of Lambung’s community organizer answered:

“We did not separate ourselves from others. But we centralized ourselves, so we can focus, reorganize, and mobilize our people easily. Everybody who was healthy and strong enough works together. First, we have these relatives offering us their places to stay, then when it was overcrowded, we rent land close to the place and erected several tents with public kitchen, water pump, and latrine.”44

They returned to their village soon after road access allowed them to do so. They rejected being put into barrack units while other survivors from other villages were trying to get one. Instead, they were proposing to donors that were doubtful then, to help early returnees like them provide barracks on the site of their village. Before they were helped by any donor, they built their own one barrack unit by gotong royong45. Survivors used salvaged materials and buy new ones with donation from their better of fellow villagers in Banda Aceh and elsewhere. Later, an international organization built two more barracks in the village allowing more survivors to return. There were survivors from Lambung who did not stay together, but all agreed that there was only one “Posko” for every survivor from Lambung to turn to when needed; unlike survivors from other villages who opened several “Posko” depending on where they took refuge. Survivors from Lambung did spread into different host communities; some even temporarily left Banda Aceh. But when they called, or returned, they only had one number to call and one place to return. All decisions on public affairs are made at the Posko based on mufakat. The gampöng officers were also put back together as soon as they had first rapat (mufakat) gampöng when they were still in IDP camp. Therefore, survivors from Lambung re-organized faster and better than, for example, those survivors of Punge Jurong. “I noticed the weakness of other village is that they opened several “poskos” to get the most from relief supplies, but caused problems of coordination” observed Hardi, the young community organizer from Lambung. Like many other communities, early returnees in Lambung were all male survivors. Female survivors stayed in host families and did not return until two more barrack units were erected. Once temporary shelters in the village were available, however, women chose to leave the host communities or other type of temporary shelters and return to the village where they found more acquaintances46. When asked what made Lambung survivors re-organized faster and stick together along the way for recovery, Hardi said

“Sticking together with people of acquaintances who underwent the same experiences ease your burden and sadness. But leadership from our keuchik and sekdes (waki) was also essential in keeping us together. Our keuchik is an

44 Interview with Hardiansyah, 29 January 2007, emphasized by author with italics. 45 Gotong royong is working together for public needs, a social volunteerism challenged by outside scheme like ‘cash for work’ that does the same thing but pays everybody involves. 46 One of conclusion Cibulskis (2006) had on SPAN data is that “Women more likely to move out from temporary homes”



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achiever (pendobrak) while our waki is a careful planner. But I think we have been very cohesive (kompak) since before the tsunami.”

Sadly, however, Hardi observed that the cohesiveness has been eroding after the emergency period, especially when infamous “cash for work program” were introduced in Lambung.

“Before many friends of my age and other fellow villagers were willing to work voluntarily, for free, for our own gampöng. Now, there is still some willingness, but I felt that it has been gradually decreased. People started to be lazy to work together, gotong royong, maybe, since the introduction of ‘cash for work’. It would be better if “they” just give the money away, without attaching it to any scheme like that. No need for reason to “work”, cleaning up your own gampöng. It should have been clear difference: donation or earned-money. Don’t mix them up. Why they have to make up reasons to give away money?”



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Appendix 2: Maps of IDPs, Camps, and Burnt School in Aceh, 11 August 2003



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Appendix 3: Table of Tsunami IDPs Distribution in all 21 Districts in Aceh

NO Districts Data Satkorlak/Social Affairs Office Data from BPDE

8-Jan-05 24-Feb-05 25-May-05 22-Jun-05 4-Jul-05 20-Jul-06

1 Bireuen 23,550 14,043 49,945 38,662 49,945 35,963

2 Pidie 55,099 32,067 82,612 48,456 81,532 79,188

3 Aceh Utara 28,470 28,113 33,004 32,761 30,511 31,667

4 Lhokseumawe 3,456 16,412 10,643 2,494 6,260

5 Banda Aceh 27,980 40,831 49,921 56,874 49,921 37,382

6 Aceh Besar 107,740 98,384 97,485 55,800 99,815 64,145

7 Aceh Timur 1,849 14,054 12,422 13,773 14,072 20,456

8 Langsa 10,227 2,806 6,156 1,052 6,156 1,401

Sub-Total Northeastern Aceh 258,371 246,710 331,545 258,021 334,446 276,462

9 Aceh Jaya 31,465 31,564 40,422 20,781 40,422 33,309

10 Aceh Selatan 0 16,049 16,148 10,370 16,149 14,421

11 Aceh Barat Daya 3,180 13,847 3,480 4,599 3,480 4,062

12 Aceh Tamiang 0 800 3,396 1,261 3,396 1,792

13 Aceh Barat 56,497 49,310 72,689 72,689 68,931

14 Nagan Raya 10,712 11,281 17,040 12,679 17,040 13,514

15 Aceh Tengah 3,454 5,161 5,288 1,642 5,288 832

16 Bener Meriah 0 1,204 819 819 110

17 Aceh Tenggara 0 1,759 809 169 809 484

18 Aceh Singkil 0 2,032 105 30,967 21,884

19 Gayo Lues 0 158 158 4

20 Simeulue 0 15,551 18,009 42,751 24,400

21 Sabang 0 5,633 3,712 4,263 3,712 2,685

Sub-Total Central & Southwestern Aceh 105,308 154,191 182,075 55,764 237,680 186,428

Total 363,679 400,901 513,620 313,785 572,126 462,890



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Appendix 4: Map of Meuraxa sub-district, the “ground zero” of tsunami destruction in Banda Aceh



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Appendix 5: Population of Kecamatan (Sub-District) Meuraxa, Before and After Tsunmai

Population

After Tsunami Before Tsunami

Missing Dead Survivor

GAMPÖNG / KELURAHAN

HH M F T M F T M F T HH M F T

1 Ulee Lheue 839 1776 2378 4154 30 271 301 1146 1773 2919 570 700 429 1129

2 Deah Glumpang 294 642 530 1172 23 76 99 397 342 739 174 242 128 370

3 Deah Baro 258 584 426 1010 21 180 201 335 186 521 172 242 70 312

4 Alue Deah Teungoh 349 785 707 1492 25 77 102 542 533 1075 182 258 117 375

5 Lampaseh Aceh 438 1142 1258 2400 40 144 184 596 841 1437 249 806 394 1200

6 Lambung 268 683 558 1241 18 55 73 462 396 858 149 210 110 320

7 Blang Oi 753 1630 1770 3400 36 199 235 1021 1201 2222 692 723 458 1181

8 Punge Jurong 1122 2999 2950 5949 38 215 253 1691 2070 3761 778 1570 865 2435

9 Punge Ujong 368 1062 951 2013 26 231 257 540 367 907 227 622 393 1015

10 Gampöng Baro 280 815 570 1385 23 128 151 481 274 755 183 341 196 537

11 Surien 282 721 547 1268 14 78 92 306 380 686 192 451 120 571

12 Lamjabat 300 666 456 1122 25 74 99 496 305 801 98 214 87 301

13 Cot Lamkuweuh 374 796 1209 2005 84 476 560 594 670 1264 183 223 117 340

14 Gampöng Blang 152 365 218 583 26 73 99 295 119 414 49 149 65 214

15 Aso Nanggroe 235 711 503 1214 20 114 134 540 324 864 134 181 83 264

16 Gampöng Pie 184 481 329 810 9 170 179 368 111 479 124 118 54 172

Total 6496 15858 15360 31218 458 2561 3019 9810 9892 19702 4156 7050 3686 10736

HH=Household, M=Male, F=Female, T=Total

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