Destructive tsunami also brought peace to conflict-riven Aceh

Yahoo – AFP, December 14, 2014

Destructive tsunami also brought peace to conflict-riven Aceh

Banda Aceh (Indonesia) (AFP) - When a tsunami engulfed Indonesia's Aceh a decade ago, it not only killed tens of thousands of people but also wiped the slate clean in the conflict-racked, poverty-stricken province and paved the way for peace.

The province on the northern tip of Sumatra island was ill-prepared when disaster struck -- in ruins, mired in poverty and with barely any functioning infrastructure after almost three decades of conflict.

Rebels in Aceh had spent years fighting against the central government for an independent state, a conflict that left at least 15,000 people dead, and a heavy military presence kept the area cut off from the outside world.

In the immediate aftermath of the tsunami, triggered by a huge undersea earthquake off Sumatra on December 26, 2004, there was only a chilling silence from Aceh and it was not until several days later that the full scale of the destruction became clear.

Almost 170,000 people were killed in the archipelago, the vast majority in Aceh, by far the biggest death toll in any single country. More than 220,000 people died in countries around the Indian Ocean, with Thailand and Sri Lanka also hard hit.

The disaster triggered a huge global relief and reconstruction effort that has been a success in Aceh. But just as importantly, it finally persuaded the rebels and Jakarta to strike a peace deal that has held to this day.

"It's clear that the tsunami hastened the peace process," said Sidney Jones, director of Jakarta-based think-tank the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC), adding that "the chances of returning to conflict are very, very, very small".

Prospects for peace were already looking better before the tsunami, with a new government in Jakarta that seemed more determined to resolve the conflict and signs the rebels were growing weary, but the disaster provided the final push.

Under the deal between the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) and Jakarta, which was signed in Helsinki in August, 2005, the rebels agreed to give up their demands for independence in exchange for greater autonomy.

The GAM fighters laid down their arms and Jakarta withdrew non-local troops and weapons and police from Aceh, and granted an amnesty to rebels and political prisoners.

'Blessing in disguise'

After a decade of post-tsunami reconstruction and nine years of peace, Aceh has been transformed. Provincial capital Banda Aceh is a pleasant, mid-size Indonesian city with few visible scars remaining from the disaster.

While many remain poor, there are signs of increasing affluence that has accompanied years of stability and former rebels have been brought into mainstream politics.

Aceh's governors are now directly elected by the people and both the current one, Zaini Abdullah, and his predecessor, Irwandi Yusuf, previously held senior positions in the rebel movement.

"We had no freedom and lived in fear during the conflict," Ridwan, a bicycle rickshaw driver in the fishing community of Meulaboh, which was one of the areas hardest hit by the tsunami, told AFP.

"It's terrible to say that the tsunami was a blessing in disguise, but probably it was," added the 56-year-old, who like many Indonesians goes by one name.

Nevertheless, problems undoubtedly remain. The former rebels set up their own political party and have kept a stranglehold on power, with critics accusing them of being more concerned with bettering their own lot than helping ordinary Acehnese.

"We've had 10 years of really lousy governance in Aceh," said IPAC's Jones, pointing to problems in the education system, rising infant mortality rates and growing drug problems.

Violence still flares between local political parties formed as part of the peace deal, with several people killed in attacks before elections last year.

Critics also point to the strengthening of sharia laws in conservative Aceh, the only province in Indonesia allowed to implement Islamic regulations, such as one passed in September that makes gay sex punishable by 100 lashes of the cane.

For many Acehnese, there has also been a failure to bring closure after years of conflict, Amnesty International said in a report last year, noting that promises to set up a human rights court and a truth and reconciliation commission had not been honoured.

While a reintegration programme helped many former rebels, some have failed to benefit and a tiny number are so disillusioned they want to keep fighting the authorities, although serious violence is rare nowadays.

"We will keep this guerilla movement alive and fight the government until there is justice for ex-combatants and the people of Aceh," Nurdin Ismail Amat, a former GAM fighter, told AFP.

Related Article:

"A Summary" – Apr 2, 2011 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Religion, Shift of Human Consciousness, 2012, Intelligent/Benevolent Design, EU, South America, 5 Currencies, Water Cycle (Heat up, Mini Ice Ace, Oceans, Fish, Earthquakes ..), Middle East, Internet, Israel, Dictators, Palestine, US, Japan (Quake/Tsunami Disasters , People, Society ...), Nuclear Power Revealed, Hydro Power, Geothermal Power, Moon, Financial Institutes (Recession, Realign integrity values ..) , China, North Korea, Global Unity,..... etc.) - (Text version)

“... Japan

Let us talk for a moment about Japan, and then I'll close the day of messages. There are thousands of souls on my side of the veil and they're just fine, more than fine. We have spoken so often of what happens at the Wind of Birth. I told you, before they even came in, they saw the potential. I looked in their eyes. "You may not last long. You know that, don't you? You're coming into this planet and you may not be here very long. And the passing that you will have with your family will not be pleasant, if any ever are. Why would you come in anyway?" I want to tell you what they said. When a soul has the mind of God, it understands fully what generates peace and what generates energy shift. You can clearly see what generates what the planet needs the most when you are about to arrive. So they said, "We're going to be part of one of the biggest compassion events the planet has ever seen." One earthquake, one tsunami. All of those who left that day will change the earth forever. And it already has. It was the same for the last tsunami as well.

Every single one of them on my side of the veil is getting ready to come back. Many old souls were involved, and just for a moment, if they could give you any information, if they could talk to you right now, if they could speak your language and look into your eyes, they would thank you for your compassion for them and those who are left. And they would say, "Be with those family members who are still alive. Enter their hearts every day and give them peace and keep them from crying, because we're OK."

Nuclear Power Revealed

So let me tell you what else they did. They just showed you what's wrong with nuclear power. "Safe to the maximum," they said. "Our devices are strong and cannot fail." But they did. They are no match for Gaia.

It seems that for more than 20 years, every single time we sit in the chair and speak of electric power, we tell you that hundreds of thousands of tons of push/pull energy on a regular schedule is available to you. It is moon-driven, forever. It can make all of the electricity for all of the cities on your planet, no matter how much you use. There's no environmental impact at all. Use the power of the tides, the oceans, the waves in clever ways. Use them in a bigger way than any designer has ever put together yet, to power your cities. The largest cities on your planet are on the coasts, and that's where the power source is. Hydro is the answer. It's not dangerous. You've ignored it because it seems harder to engineer and it's not in a controlled environment. Yet, you've chosen to build one of the most complex and dangerous steam engines on Earth - nuclear power.

We also have indicated that all you have to do is dig down deep enough and the planet will give you heat. It's right below the surface, not too far away all the time. You'll have a Gaia steam engine that way, too. There's no danger at all and you don't have to dig that far. All you have to do is heat fluid, and there are some fluids that boil far faster than water. So we say it again and again. Maybe this will show you what's wrong with what you've been doing, and this will turn the attitudes of your science to create something so beautiful and so powerful for your grandchildren. Why do you think you were given the moon? Now you know.

This benevolent Universe gave you an astral body that allows the waters in your ocean to push and pull and push on the most regular schedule of anything you know of. Yet there you sit enjoying just looking at it instead of using it. It could be enormous, free energy forever, ready to be converted when you design the methods of capturing it. It's time.

So in closing, do you understand what you're seeing? You're seeing intelligent design, quantum energy and high consciousness. You are seeing changes in Human nature. You're seeing countries putting things together instead of separating. You are seeing those who don't want war and instead want peace, good schools for their children, safety in their streets and a say in their government. We told you it was going to happen this way. I want my partner to teach these things that I have said in his 3D lectures for awhile. Many won't be able to know these things otherwise.  …”

Culture War as the Maldives Opens Up to Backpackers

Jakarta Globe - AFP, Adam Plowright on 5:25 pm October 13, 2013

This photograph taken on September 9, 2013 shows an aerial view of one of the
 many luxurious resorts that dot the many islands that comprise the Maldives in the
Indian Ocean. (AFP Photo/ Roberto Schmidt)

Male. The Maldives is one of the world’s most exclusive holiday destinations but it has quietly opened up to backpackers in the last five years with a reform that has upset religious hard-liners.

Most visitors arrive at the country’s airport island, take a speed boat or seaplane to their expensive coral-fringed private resort and spend the next week relaxing in blissful ignorance of the country around them.

It has been this way for decades, the result of a deliberate policy of keeping the wealthy holidaymakers — mostly Westerners and often newly-weds — on uninhabited islands separate from the local Muslim population.

The Islamic Republic applies different laws for both: travelers are free to drink alcohol, eat pork, and for those not on their honeymoon, enjoy pre-marital sex. Elsewhere, Maldivian women can be flogged in public for fornication.

“Since Maldives is a Muslim country, we have always supported the idea that the tourism industry should be separate from the inhabited islands,” says Mauroof Hussain, vice president of the conservative Adhaalath Party.

“If the hippy-type of travelers come, along will come drugs and narcotics which even now our society is suffering from,” says Hussain, whose party has been a minority partner in successive governments since 2008.

While the archipelago is still far from the hippy trail, the sight of backpackers wandering around Male and the nearby island of Maafushi is growing thanks to a new policy to attract budget travellers.

“Things like nudity are not acceptable in a place where people are living,” adds Mauroof. “The people complain that they are praying in the mosque and just outside there are tourists in bikinis.”

Men enjoy a nightly game of chess outside a corner restaurant in Male on
September 6, 2013. (AFP Photo/ Roberto Schmidt)

‘Very welcoming people’

Since a reform under the country’s first democratically-elected president Mohamed Nasheed in 2009, Maldivians have been allowed to open their own guesthouses on populated islands.

While fundamentalist interpretations of Islam imported from the Gulf and Pakistan are progressively taking root in the Maldives, Mauroof’s views lie far outside the mainstream and are ridiculed by many.

What started as a trickle of guesthouses has become a torrent with entrepreneurs like 25-year-old Ibrahim Mohamed converting properties and profiting from what is the islands’ biggest business and foreign exchange earner.

“Maldivians are very welcoming people. It wasn’t Maldivians that wanted separation, it was the government and a few businessmen saying that they should be isolated,” Mohamed told AFP. “The Maldives can’t hide from the world anymore.”

His three-roomed Sundhara Palace located on a busy street of the cramped capital Male opened at the beginning of September, offering basic en-suite accommodation for $30 a night.

The cheapest resorts are usually about 10 times this, with prices stretching up to several thousand dollars a night — with expensively priced food and drink on top.

Mohamed stresses that the guesthouse policy is also “a good system to get money to the people instead of to wealthy businessmen.”

A handful of well-connected resort owners who prospered under the 30-year autocratic rule of strongman Maumoon Abdul Gayoom continue to control the Maldives economy and are active in politics.

These oligarchs have united against Nasheed, who was ousted in February 2012 following a mutiny by security forces, which he branded a “coup.”

His efforts to return to power through the ballot box have since been thwarted with the country wracked by protests and uncertainty after the Supreme Court annulled elections he won on September 7.

The court order came in response to a legal challenge from the third-placed candidate Gasim Ibrahim, one of the country’s wealthiest tycoons who is in alliance with the Adhaalath Party.

A re-run of the polls has been ordered for October 19, with the British government warning travellers to avoid demonstrations and take precautions in the capital.

If re-elected, Nasheed has promised in to expand the guesthouse policy as part of his ambitious social and economic reform program.

“The industry is flourishing very rapidly. We feel there is so much more scope for that,” he told reporters days before voting in the first round of the election in September.

One of the people to take advantage of the changes is Dutch tourist Chris Constandse, a 27-year-old web designer who works for a travel website in Amsterdam.

He booked a few nights at a hotel in the capital, but plans to spend the rest of his two-week holiday staying in guesthouses dotted around the country of more than 1,000 islands.

“Backpackers go to India, Sri Lanka, Thailand and I was like ‘I always do things different,’ so I thought I’d go backpacking in the Maldives,” he told AFP shortly before leaving on a ferry for one of the nearby islands.

“The most important thing is that you get in touch with the people. I’ve stayed in Male for three nights and I’ve already met some people and made some friends.”

Agence France-Presse

Islam-inspired green initiatives deserve Western support

The West should co-opt Islam in the fight for a better environment, says Evert Faber van der Meulen

NRC International, by Evert Faber van der Meulen, 22 December 2009 16:54, Opinion

A Danish imam reads the Koran in his mosque. (Photo AP)

Despite the disappointing agreement reached at the climate conference in Copenhagen, the US seems to have joined the EU in its commitment to binding carbon dioxide reduction schemes. This guarantees climate change will remain at the top of the agenda in the Western world in the coming years.

In the Islamic world, however, this is not the case. Hardly any country has put climate change on the agenda at all. This is made all the more tragic because Islamic countries will face the brunt of a changing climate. Desertification is a major threat in North Africa and the Middle East, and rising sea levels are expected to have dire consequences for the worlds’ poor in countries like Bangladesh and Indonesia.

The 1.2 billion Muslims of this world currently produce a relatively small amount of carbon dioxide emissions. Islamic countries are roughly responsible for ten percent of global carbon dioxide output, whilst 300 million US citizens alone produce more than 20 percent. But over the last ten years both energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions have risen by 4.5 percent annually in the Islamic world.

It is only a matter of time before the carbon dioxide output of Islamic countries will become a major problem, and the sooner these countries can be involved in global climate policy, the better.

One of the lessons learnt from the Western world is that it took time before climate change moved from the scientific to the political agenda. Individuals and NGOs played an important part in this process by bringing the existing scientific evidence to the fore. But what to do in countries where freedom of speech is limited and Western-style NGOs don’t exist?

We can look to the grassroots organisation that is able to reach the population at large in these countries: Islam. Born in the deserts of Arabia, where means of livelihood were scarce, early Islam already pleaded for modesty and humility, especially at a material level. Moreover, Islam sees humanity as the pinnacle of creation and therefore charged with the responsibility to safeguard this world.

Islam and the climate movement also have something in common, the colour green. Green is the colour of the prophet and represents paradise, because the desert people of early Islam imagined paradise to be a fertile green oasis.

Islamic ‘green’ initiatives are rare. Many Muslim countries are poor, and one cannot really blame the population that climate change is not its first priority. Of course, oil and gas are mostly found in Islamic countries, which gives them a vested interest in the non-sustainable energy mix. But equally important is that Islamic countries see climate policy as simply the next initiative produced by a Western neo-colonial mentality.

In the short term the West can do two relatively simple things. First, it should support the global Islamic initiatives that are taking place. For instance, in July of this year, the Muslim Association for Climate Change (MACCA) was founded by a number of influential Muslims, including several influential Islamic spiritual leaders. Western governments and NGOs could work together with such an organisation and supply funding and knowledge for concrete initiatives. A first initiative could involve supplying green power to all mosques worldwide, for instance.

Secondly, our own European Muslim minority could fulfil an important role as mediator between the West and the Islamic world. Especially in the UK, a number of Islamic organisations is already trying to enhance ecological awareness amongst Muslims in their own country and abroad

As an example we can look at the Islamic Foundation for Ecology and Environmental Sciences (IFEES). One of their most interesting projects involved the introduction of sustainable fishing methods in Zanzibar. During the 1990s, the World Wildlife Foundation had started a campaign in order to discourage local fishermen from using dynamite as their preferred method of fishing. The situation started to improve only when IFEES was asked for help in 2000. Via an Islamic educational program IFEES explained to the local populace that this fishing method was against Islamic values. As a result the population has now declared the area to be a ‘Hima’ (an Islamic reservation).

Finally, there is another reason why Islam should be involved in the debate on climate change. Generally western politicians and NGOs have terse discussions with Islamic countries on topics such as democracy, human rights and freedom of speech. Islamic leaders often interpret these discussions as veiled attempts to undermine Islamic values. However, the challenge posed by climate change is a global problem that affects both Islam and the West equally. In that sense climate change is not only a major problem, but also a golden opportunity to show that the world does have to sink into a ‘clash of civilisations’.

Evert Faber van der Meulen reads Islamic Studies and History (M.Phil) at Oxford University