TOURISM AFTER TSUNAMI

Ten years after the tsunami that caused more than two hundred thousand deaths, reconstruction in the Indonesian province of Aceh, located in the north of the island of Sumatra, definitely seems complete. Although it was 90% destroyed Banda Aceh, the provincial capital, now shines on the regional economy. The houses were rebuilt, a tsunami museum and a research center on natural disasters were opened, while the Acehnese come to pray on memorials and graves built around the city. The management of the disaster is so willingly submitted by the Indonesian government as an example of success. Especially since the tsunami was an opportunity to end the armed confit that opposed for over twenty-five years the central government and the independence movement Gerakan Aceh Merdeka (GAM): peace agreements were signed between both parties under the supervision of the European Union in Helsinki in August 2005, less than a year after the disaster.

Among the fourteen countries that were affected by the tsunami, Indonesia was the one who received the most aid. According to the World Bank, in command of the multi-donor fund for the reconstruction of Aceh, nearly 7 billion dollars have been invested in the province. In fact, of the two hundred and eighty six thousand people who perished in the disaster, most were in Aceh.

But if reconstruction is readily deemed exemplary, it was not without encountering a number of difficulties. But now it seems that the Acehnese have a much better quality of life before the tsunami. The economic boom of Banda Aceh, where flower shops of all kinds of mobile telephony to the sale of scooters, is visible. And there has been a boom in the tourism sector. The island of Pulau Weh, a half-hour boat off the city, immersed in one of the best water parks in the world and is a paradise for diving enthusiasts. In the small town of Logkhna, about fifteen kilometers east of the provincial capital, some families for their rebuilt their home in order to host Western travelers, surfers generally attracted to beautiful spots accessible to few minutes.

Yoyok and his wife Nina, both residents of Logkhna, have lost their homes and many of their relatives during the tsunami. After living several months in temporary accommodation, they have received support from the German Red Cross to rebuild their houses by building spaces specially designed for tourists. At the beginning of 2014, they finished building and the bottom of their garden atjehnaise a typical home - a wooden building on stilts - which allows them to receive more visitors. It is possible to book a room online.

Furthermore, Yoyok and Nina offer laundry service, allowing them to increase their income while they continue to exercise intermittently professional activity outside their village. Both have particularly been used by some non-governmental organizations (NGOs) on site during the reconstruction period. Yoyok today continues to work in coordinating projects for risk prevention by making frequent trips to Java, while Nina, now a mother, worked as an assistant and coordinator of social programs implemented by the government to local level.

The reconstruction of the province was thus accompanied by opportunities that have allowed some Acehnese to acquire new know-how to contact these organizations on the ground, and to develop new forms of economic activity. The progressive departure of NGOs from 2010, mainly because of the earthquake in Haiti, however, meant the end of the "bubble" of tsunami funds, and especially the transfer of long-term development programs on administrations and local authorities that have not necessarily been prepared. If the region demonstrated unprecedented openness to the world, economic autonomy is far from being reached: the level of poverty in Aceh remains above the national average (17.6% of the population, against 11 37% (1)). In addition, the province is plagued by recurring political conflicts.

The reconstruction challenge indeed was not only to rebuild homes and infrastructure destroyed by the tsunami by germinating sustained economic development, but also to achieve lasting political stability in a region marked by civil war. Aceh is full resource effects, in particular natural gas and oil - long, she was considered one of the most profitable of the Indonesian archipelago, inspiring many desires at the source of many conflicts.

The discovery of large gas fields in the 1970s led to tension between Aceh and the central government, accused wrong distribute resources. It is in this context that forms in 1976, GAM, which was able to stand up in Jakarta for over twenty-five years long conflict that caused among ten thousand to twenty thousand deaths.

The tsunami could he truly represented a chance to end the conflict? Two days after the disaster, the top hierarchy of GAM effect publicly declared an immediate cease-fire to allow the arrival of the first aid and humanitarian convoys. At the beginning of 2005, negotiations commenced between GAM and Jakarta under the auspices of the European Union, leading 15 August 2005 to the signing of a "Memorandum of Understanding" between the two parties. According Ilan Kelman, a professor at University College London and one of the founders of the Disaster Task Force and Diplomacy, reconciliations between GAM and the Indonesian government had been primed actually well before 26 December 2004. If tsunami could represent an opportunity to openly negotiate the peace process, he has certainly not yet initiated. As it points out, "the disaster is an excuse, a catalyst, a trigger, but I think that people will somehow find a way to do what they want. The disaster has provided an opportunity for both parties to negotiate if they wished. " In Sri Lanka, a country also engaged in an armed conflict between long Sinhala government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the tsunami had exactly the opposite effect by representing an excuse to sink a little deeper into the war. In Aceh, unlike the two parties have each in turn, try to take advantage of international actors who were involved in the post-disaster recovery.

The Memorandum of Understanding signed by the representatives of GAM and the Indonesian government has a number of agreements which recognize Aceh political and religious autonomy (Sharia law) and establish the rules of political participation at local level. While in Indonesia, only political parties active in at least three provinces are allowed to apply to government and parliamentary elections, exception is made for Aceh, where independent candidates can apply. Thus, during the elections held in December 2006 to elect the Governor of Aceh, is a former leader of the GAM and one of the negotiators in Helsinki, Mr Irwandi Yusuf, who is elected by a large majority as an independent. It will be dethroned the following elections of 2011 by rival Zaini Abdullah, who was also a member of GAM before going into exile abroad. Mr. Abdullah was then supported by the Partai Aceh (PA), the main party formed by former members of GAM after the signing of peace agreements. Founded in 2009, the PA had therefore succeeded in electing a large number of legislative candidates that took place the same year by getting thirty-three of sixty-nine seats in the provincial parliament.

If the measures in the Memorandum of Understanding has been to reorganize results fast enough local politics in which former GAM members to convert back to politics, they have also caused confusion among the parties and movements formed after war. The legislation of April 2014 revealed the relative progressive disenchantment of voters for the AP, weakened by corruption and its distance from his political ideals of the early hours. The latter has seen its number of seats down, to win "only" twenty-nine on eighty-one (35.8% of the seats, against 47.8% in 2009). He also suffered from its strategic alliance with the national party Gerindra, carrying the candidacy of Mr. Prabowo Subianto for the presidential election in July 2014. Close to the former dictator Suharto, in whose government he was minister, former Commander special forces, Mr Subianto is accused of involvement in many cases of human rights violations during military operations by the central government during the conflict. This alliance meant to allow the PA to ensure representation in the national Parliament, which excludes local parties appeared against nature. This is however not its direct rival, the Partai Nasional Aceh (ANP), also formed in part by former GAM combatants in 2011 and led by former Governor Irwandi Yusuf, who has the most prejudiced: he won only three seats. Competition came from national organizations such as the liberal and corporatist Nasdem, founded in 2011 by businessman and media tycoon Surya Paloh which won nine seats in the provincial parliament and two nationally.

The election of Mr. Joko Widodo - dubbed Jokowi - the Presidency of the Republic July 22, 2014 Mr. Subianto face might change the situation. Embodies a new political generation close to the people, Mr. Widodo carries the hopes of a genuine democratic consolidation throughout the archipelago. On 4 July, Mr Nur Djuli, also a member of the negotiating team of the GAM in Helsinki and PNA, used his article in the Jakarta Post for calling his countrymen to vote for Jokowi and refuse all costs a presidency embodied by his challenger. It seems that his request was heard.

Jokowi and Vice President Jusuf Kalla in Aceh are well known: one for having lived there in the 1980s, the second to have been one of the instigators of the peace negotiations of the central government side. If the peace process is often presented as having helped to stabilize a region historically on, many challenges remain. Political violence is latent in the entire province. Evidenced by the assassination on March 2, 2014, one of the candidates of the ANP front of his house by motorcycle gunmen: a month later, three people were killed in an attack on a public transport minibus carrying the party insignia. According Jakarta Globe over thirty-four incidents (intimidation, vote buying, violence) have been reported during the electoral campaign of April. The PA has not been officially recognized responsible; it remains believed to be one way or another involved in order to undermine the chances of his rival and to maintain its influence throughout the province.

The application of Sharia to all

In addition, Jokowi will implement several administrative regulations on the governance of Aceh which, though under the MOU were not applied by his predecessor. Among them is the delicate issue of resource sharing between the province and the central government.

The President will also have to cope with the demand to form two new provinces by residents living in the outlying areas of Aceh, tired of the lack of attention given to them by the provincial government, rather turned north and Est. Such territorial disputes represent threats to peace being likely to affect the already tense relations between the provincial government and the central government. Finally, while a special status since 1999 allows Aceh to adopt legal measures derived from sharia, partly enhanced status by the recognition of its "identity except" by the Memorandum of Understanding, the growing influence of the Islamic Penal Code (Qanum Sinayah) is problematic in light of the great principles of the Indonesian national law.

So qu'Atjeh is the only of the thirty-four provinces of Indonesia to be able to claim the Shari'a, last September the Provincial Parliament extended the offenses related to the practice of homosexuality and sex outside marriage with Buddhist minorities and Christian, as well as foreign visitors to the province. An evaluation by the Ministry of the Interior has been requested last October by President Jokowi, respect for human rights constitutes one of the central points of his campaign. This assessment, however, the risk of blurring its relations with Parliament Acehnese, very jealous of his "cultural exception", in a context where many of the clauses of the memorandum have not been met, particularly in terms of aid to reintegration of former combatants and the implementation of social programs.

Today international organizations and NGOs involved in the reconstruction process have indeed mostly left the territory and closed their programs. Ms. Shadia Marhaban, the only woman to have been part of negotiators pool GAM in Helsinki, is director of the Women's League of Aceh (LINA), a non-profit organization whose purpose is to facilitate the demobilization of former combatants, promote political participation of women and their integration into the world. His association has been severely restrict its activities entirely funded by NGOs when the latter left the country between 2010 and 2011. Like other programs installed between 2004 and 2010 in Aceh, LINA failed to replace international funding with other types of financing, the central government refusing to engage in such initiatives.

Ms. Marhaban denounces a construction model of peace "Western", originally in her a certain chaos in the confit resolution process, as the massive aid granted after the tsunami: "All this has caused great difficulties to develop public policies and assume responsibilities. Everyone had financial support, everyone is accustomed to receive money, and it was not possible to build a strong and sustainable civil society. "She regrets that the central government has still not complied with all the commitments made at the signing of peace agreements, notably regarding the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the establishment of a criminal court to try human rights violations, "This administration must prove to the Acehnese people that it is serious about the consideration of human rights violations not only in Aceh but across Indonesia" . The example of Aceh looks actually like a reflection of the general situation in Indonesia, where the violence of the past continues to be a taboo.

As noted by the director of the documentary filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer The Act of Killing (2012), dealing with death squads that murdered between five hundred thousand and one million people in 1965, the issue of the prosecution of human rights violations remains taboo in this country still extremely polarized.

Camille Boutron