San Francisco Frontiers - Months after floods, Indonesian survivors frustrated by slow response

They are among 26,000 flood survivors still displaced after a monsoon deluge struck their villages on Sumatra island last year.

In hardest-hit Aceh province, which accounted for most of the more than 1,000 deaths, families have become increasingly frustrated over authorities' sluggish response.

Many remain crammed in temporary shelters or a cluster of tents, with little expectation of returning to their mud-caked homes any time soon.

Seated on a thin carpet covering the cardboard floor, Rauzah and her four children share an iftar meal of vegetables and prawns. But at least they are dry and safe.

"I still feel traumatised," said the 42-year-old, who goes by one name. "Whenever it rains, I get anxious. I keep thinking about the children, about how I would save them."

As the weeks amass and donations dwindle, survivors question how long they will be left in limbo after the worst disaster to strike Aceh since a 2004 tsunami.

President Prabowo Subianto has refused calls to declare a national disaster to release emergency funds, and declined international assistance, describing the situation as "under control".

In Pidie Jaya district, not much has changed since the muddy torrent swallowed homes.

"My village still looks as if the disaster just happened," Rauzah said. "The houses are still buried in mud."

- Reliant on charity -

Unusually intense monsoon rains pummelled parts of South and Southeast Asia in November and December, triggering landslides and floods from Indonesia's rainforests to highland plantations in Sri Lanka.

Across the three inundated provinces on Sumatra, more than 1,200 people were killed and nearly 140 others remain missing, according to the national disaster agency.

Authorities have blamed the scale of devastation partly on uncontrolled logging, and have revoked forestry permits in the disaster's wake.

But they have shrugged off offers of international aid, even after the estimated cost to rebuild soared past 51.82 trillion rupiah ($3.1 billion).

In the provincial capital Banda Aceh, student groups and civil society organisations have descended on the local parliament to demand greater mobilisation of national resources.

Much of Aceh already had to be reconstructed with international assistance after 2004's Boxing Day tsunami, which killed more than 170,000 people in the province alone.

The earlier disaster may have helped douse a decades-long conflict between Aceh's separatists and the Indonesian government, but a simmering mistrust of Jakarta lingers.

"The government programmes are slow, we don't know where the problem comes from," said local imam Fakhri.

Just before Ramadan started, he said provisions from a government-backed agency stopped. And with the rice fields destroyed, "many people are out of work."

"(We) rely solely on charity."

- Broken promises -

Rauzah had hoped her children would have at least a mattress and a roof over their heads by now.

"I really hope the temporary shelters are finished soon. Because in the tent we can't rest. It's so hot we can't sleep," she said.

Home Minister Tito Karnavian, who leads a reconstruction task force in Sumatra, told lawmakers on February 18 that only 8,300 temporary structures -- roughly half of the 16,688 planned -- have been built.

And fewer than 10 percent of the 16,300 homes the government promised exist so far.

Reni and her teenage daughters were among those relocated to a tightly packed temporary housing warehouse in Pidie Jaya district last month.

"We're grateful that at least we have a place like this now, but still, a lot of the promises weren't kept," said the 37-year-old whose house was partially swept away.

She said they were told there would be a cafeteria and a daily living allowance of 15,000 rupiah (89 cents), neither of which proved to be true.

If the authorities were not going to provide these, "don't give us hope" by making promises, she said.

She worries about how she will afford electricity when the three-month government subsidy lapses, and what to do long-term.

"There's still a lot of mud in the villages," she said.

For Fakhri, the imam, it is another bittersweet Ramadan in Aceh.

"This is our fate as Acehnese," he said. "For now, we simply make the most of what little we have."

J.Martinez--SFF