Analyst Applauds Indonesia for Maintaining Sovereignty During Aid Efforts
by Chad Groening
January 24, 2005
(AgapePress) - A retired military officer says the government of Indonesia needs to be commended for refusing to turn a tsunami-ravaged province over to the United Nations and other organizations who are there to provide disaster relief.Dana Dillon is a former Army major who now serves as the senior policy analyst in the Asian Studies Center at the Heritage Foundation. Dillon says the liberal left is shocked to learn that Indonesia does not want the U.N. to control the aid efforts in the Aceh Province, which was hardest hit by the December 26 tsunami.
Dillon says that government is involved in putting down an insurgency effort by a terrorist group known as the "Free Aceh Movement."
"They rape, murder, kidnap for money; they extort money from people -- they're just a bad group of people," the analyst explains. "The Indonesian military has taken the safety of the foreign aid workers and the foreign military guests quite seriously, and wants to avoid incidents where the Free Aceh Movement is kidnapping or murdering people [involved in the relief effort]."
So Dillon says the Indonesians do not want to give control of the aid effort to outsiders. He contends the Indonesian government is saying essentially that, while the situation is a huge national tragedy that cannot be met with national resources, it is not about to surrender the sovereignty of Aceh to the United Nations or foreign NGOs (non-government organizations) as it tries to reassert control in the area.
According to the Heritage official, local representatives are in a better position to see that relief efforts are expended wisely. "Foreign aid workers -- especially United Nations workers -- are not in the position to determine who is a legitimate refugee and who is a Free Aceh Movement guy who's just trying to steal the aid and take it back to his camp," he states.
That is why, Dillon says, local government officials are taking control. "[They are] trying to make sure that these various organizations [the United Nations and others] are not supporting the Free Aceh Movement in the middle of what is a war zone in Indonesia."
Dillon says it is interesting that various aid organizations are "dismayed," "concerned," and "skeptical" of a sovereign nation with a democratically elected government exerting its rights in a time of national emergency.
Chad Groening, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
