Between a rock and a hard place: Journalism in Indonesia

By Jacqueline Koch
AsiaMedia Contributing Writer

Serambi's journalists faced hardships even before the tsunami, Jacqueline Koch writes from Aceh

Banda Aceh, Indonesia -- Photojournalist Bedu Saini was at home with his wife, three children and mother when a 9.0 earthquake rocked Banda Aceh.

"I went to the center of town to shoot pictures of the damage, and suddenly I heard people screaming, 'The river is rising!'" He started photographing the crowd running from the water and then began running himself.

Having survived the deadly wave, Saini returned to his home to look for his family. "My wife and one child survived. I lost my youngest and oldest child and my mother," he says quietly. Yet six days later, he was back to work shooting pictures for the local daily newspaper, Serambi Indonesia.

Serambi, which means "veranda," reflects Aceh’s historical departure point for Muslim pilgrims to Mecca and was the only publication at ground zero of one of the deadliest natural disasters in modern history. The tsunami destroyed the newspaper’s office, most of its equipment and printing press when it washed through Indonesia’s western-most province claiming some 224,000 lives and leaving 400,000 more homeless.

While the Indonesian government predicted it would take Aceh up to a decade to rebuild from the unprecedented catastrophe, Serambi was up and running by January 1, 2005, publishing from its satellite office in Lhokseumawe, in North Aceh.

"For us, if we worked, then we could keep our minds busy and think about the future," says Saini. "Working kept us from thinking about our losses too much."

This is just the latest chapter in the story of Serambi’s extraordinary tenacity and the hardship for the people of Aceh. Prior to the disaster, the province was already awash in tragedy resulting from a 30-year separatist conflict.

"Aceh has been in a state of misery for year and years and years," says Daniel Lev, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Washington.

Prior to the disaster, Aceh was closed off to the world, locked in the grips of one of the most brutal yet hidden conflicts in Southeast Asia. As of May 2003, at least 15,000 people had died in a string of military campaigns that began in 1989 to wipe out separatist rebels. Thousands more have been arbitrarily detained, beaten, tortured or simply gone missing in "forced disappearances." Many of the victims are civilians, caught in the crossfire between Indonesian troops and separatist rebels of the Free Aceh Movement, known as GAM.

The violence escalated in the 18 months prior to the tsunami disaster when the government abandoned a historic peace accord and imposed martial law. Over 40,000 troops were dispatched to Aceh to crush the GAM rebels. At the onset of renewed military operations, Indonesia’s generals predicted the anti-insurgency campaign would wipe out an estimated 5,000 armed rebels in five months. But as December 2004 came to a close, combat operations dragged on.

The military closed the province off to foreign journalists and aid groups and muzzled the national media. In a move to reclaim hard-won press freedoms, Aceh’s military operations chief General Endang Suwarya ordered the media to report on the conflict "in the spirit of nationalism." The national press was warned not to interview or quote rebel commanders. The military, known as TNI, has a long record of human rights abuses, especially in Aceh. Many journalists feared serious repercussions should they cross the top brass.

"The military made a policy to limit the press," says Serambi’s deputy chief editor, Mohammad Din. "We are in the middle of a conflict and are pressured from both sides." Prior to martial law, from March to August of 2001, Serambi was forced to halt its presses for "security reasons." While editorial management refused to name any particular side as a threat, it made a pledge to its readers that the paper would maintain a neutral stance in its reporting of the conflict.

After martial law was instated in May of 2003, Serambi faced even greater limitations. Even before foreign journalists were banned, Din says they were not able to meet with them: "We would be considered suspect," he says.

Despite the catastrophe, in some respects, the tsunami brought renewed opportunity and optimism for Indonesia’s journalists. A flood of international correspondents appeared on the scene to report on the disaster, opening the door for the Indonesian media as well. Din points to a recent report on local government corruption, as an example.

Some readers, however, feel that Serambi has yet to provide complete reporting on the conflict or has entirely reclaimed its freedom of expression. Many complain reports on the conflict are in favor of the military.

The Acehnese are tired of the conflict says Din adding, "The disaster is a bigger story."

TNI is still restricting foreign journalists to the affected areas of the disaster: Banda Aceh and West Aceh. Areas of intense military operations such as North, East and South Aceh are still off-limits and the violence rages on.

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Jacqueline Koch is a freelance photojournalist and reporter. Her work has been published in Time, Newsweek, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Sidney Morning Herald and Salon.com. Based near Seattle, she is a regular contributor to Pacific Northwest, The Seattle Times Sunday magazine. Koch is a Pew Fellow of International Reporting at Johns Hopkins University; her project focuses on post-Suharto Indonesia and she is traveling through Aceh for several weeks.

The views expressed above are those of the author and are not necessarily those of AsiaMedia or the UCLA Asia Institute.

Date Posted: 3/21/2005