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Nearly 100,000 Dead in Aceh From Tsunami, as Activists Blast
Indonesian Military for Holding Up Critical Aid
The Mire of Death, Lies and Atrocities: Robert Fisk Looks
Back at 2004
Nearly 100,000 Dead in Aceh From Tsunami, as Activists
Blast Indonesian Military for Holding Up Critical Aid
As the aftermath of the Asian Tsunami continues to devastate
the region, the people of Aceh in Indonesia have paid the
heaviest price with some 94,000 feared dead. But human rights
activists and aid groups accuse the Indonesian military of
holding up aid to the most needy because of its war against
the province. We'll talk to a human rights activist from Aceh
and veteran activist and journalist Allan Nairn. As the confirmed
death toll from the Asian Tsunami continues to rise to nearly
140,000, much of the world's attention is focused on the Indonesian
province of Aceh, where the overwhelming majority of that
country's 94,000 deaths have occured. Secretary of State General
Colin Powell announced that he will visit Aceh on his tour
of the devestation in the region, accompanied by Florida Governor
Jeb Bush. Here is Colin Powell speaking on NBC's Meet the
Press.
- Secretary of State Colin Powell
Despite the grave situation in Aceh, Humanitarian officials
and human rights groups say the Indonesian military is actively
preventing aid from being distributed. On Saturday, several
aid groups and non-governmental organizations held a protest
calling on control of the aid distribution to be taken out
of the hands of the Indonesian military. The military took
control of the airport warehouse, where goods are received
from relief flights and stored until they can be distributed
around Banda Aceh and other devestated towns. With its control
of outgoing supplies, the military has complete power in determining
where scarce trucks head with their precious cargoes. The
Indonesian government"s senior disaster response coordinator,
Alwi Shihab, announced Sunday that he had appointed Maj. Gen.
Ambang Dharmono to take command of immediate relief efforts.
- Aguswandi, an Acehnese activist with the human rights
group Tapol
For more information and to make donations for the grassroots
relief effort:
The Mire of Death, Lies and Atrocities: Robert Fisk
Looks Back at 2004
Veteran Middle East Correspondent Robert Fisk says, "Over
the past year, there has been evidence enough that our whole
project in Iraq is hopelessly flawed, that our Western armies
- when they are not torturing prisoners, killing innocents
and destroying one of the largest cities in Iraq - are being
vanquished by a ferocious guerrilla army, the like of which
we have not seen before in the Middle East." Fisk joins
us from Beirut, Lebanon. In a year-in-review article by veteran
Middle east correspondent Robert Fisk in the Independent of
London, Fisk begins his piece with a question:
Who said this and when?
"The people of England have been led in Mesopotamia
into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with dignity
and honour. They have been tricked into it by a steady withholding
of information. The Baghdad communiques are belated, insincere,
incomplete. Things have been far worse than we have been told,
our administration more bloody and inefficient that the public
knows... We are today not far from a disaster."
Those were the words of T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia fame) in
The Sunday Times in August, 1920.
"And," Robert Fisk writes, "every word of
it is true today.”
We turn now to Robert Fisk to look back on 2004 from Iraq
to Palestine and beyond.
- Robert Fisk, correspondent for The Independent
For a copy of today’s program, call 1 (800) 881 2359.
Our website is www.democracynow.org.
Our email address is mail@democracynow.org.
Democracy Now! is produced by Mike Burke, Sharif Abdel Kouddous,
Ana Nogueira, Elizabeth Press, Jeremy Scahill and Parvez Sharma.
Mike Di Filippo is our engineer.
Thanks also to Uri Galed, Angela Alston, Orlando Richards,
Simba Russeau, Johnny Sender, Rich Kim, Joe Murgio, John Randolph,
Chris Zucker, Karen Ranucci, Denis Moynihan, Eric Rweyemamu,
Jenny Filipazzo and Isis Phillips.
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