Jakarta – Indonesia's president praised Thursday the progress made in peace talks between government negotiators and separatist rebels from tsunami-wracked Aceh province, but he cautioned that a speedy solution to the three-decades-long conflict was unlikely.

Abdul Khalik, Banda Aceh – Standing in front of his ruined house in Lampu'uk, Lhoknga in Aceh Besar regency, 35-year-old Effendi expressed his determination to stay and rebuild his house no matter what.

John Aglionby – Mohammed Yassin has trouble falling asleep at night. But his insomnia is not caused by haunting dreams of a second tsunami – the sound of construction work until late at night is what keeps him, and other Nusa residents, awake.

Sunariah, Jakarta – Armed forces (TNI) chief General Endriartono Sutarto has question the desire by the leadership of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) for self-government, one of the pre-conditions for resolving the conflict between GAM and Indonesia.

[This letter was sent to Green Left Weekly for publication by Zely Ariane, the international affairs spokesperson of the Aceh solidarity group SEGERA. Green Left Weekly has been asking our readers to assist SEGERA's appeal after the tsunami, for details visit .]

Matthew Davies – Publicity about the tsunami relief effort in Indonesia's Aceh province has mostly depicted Indonesia's military (TNI) in an unprecedented favourable light.

Tomi Soetjipto, Jakarta – Tricky details could trip up an apparent political breakthrough for Indonesia's rebellious Aceh province after rebels agreed to drop a demand for independence for the tsunami-hit region during peace talks in Finland.

Abdul Khalik, Banda Aceh – Humanitarian volunteers are still finding corpses in Aceh, almost two months after the tsunami struck the stricken province, a relief worker says.

Some 1,850 volunteers from the Indonesian Red Cross (PMI) and other organizations were still recovering and burying between 200 and 300 corpses a day, a PMI official said.

The December 26 earthquake and tsunami disaster that devastated Indonesia's restive province of Aceh, killing 123,071 people, has strengthened the Acehnese people's sense of Indonesian identify, according to the results of a survey released Tuesday.

The Australian government has put out warnings to its citizens to avoid Acheh because of an undefined terrorist threat, which apparently is not believed by either the US or Indonesian governments.

Banda Aceh – Separatist rebels in tsunami-ravaged Aceh province exchanged gunfire with Indonesian soldiers escorting an aid convoy over the weekend, but no relief workers were injured, a spokeswoman said Monday.

Separatists from tsunami-hit Aceh province will demand a full withdrawal of the 50,000 Indonesian security forces from the region as part of a negotiated settlement to end the long-running civil war, an Australian member of the rebel delegation said.

Shawn Donnan, Calang (Aceh) – Almost two months after the Asian tsunamis, survivors in some of the hardest hit areas of Indonesia's Aceh province have begun rebuilding, turning to scavenged wood, recycled nails and aid from abroad to erect homes.

Vaudine England – The lonely mosque, the last thing standing in the once-thriving seaside community of Lampuuk just west of Banda Aceh, now plays host to a huddle of tents.

John Aglionby – It is almost eight weeks since the Boxing Day tsunami devastated much of the coast of Indonesia's Aceh province on the northern tip of Sumatra and it appears the world is beginning to suffer media fatigue over the story.

Ridwan Max Sijabat, Banda Aceh – Muzakir Sulaiman heads the Banda Aceh municipal manpower office but he cannot go to work. While he has attended several coordination meetings for public services, he has done little else and he finds it hard to summon up the energy to get busy.

Tom McCawley, Banda Aceh – In a crammed row of storefronts, only Joy Optikal, an eyeglasses shop, has reopened on a dusty street of the tsunami-battered city of Banda Aceh.

Luhur Hertanto, Jakarta – The Coordinating Minister for Politics, Legal and Security Affairs, Widodo AS, has revealed that the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) has agreed to including special autonomy in the agenda to be discussed in the next informal meeting between GAM and the Indonesian government which is to take place in Helsinki.

Jakarta – The Indonesian Red Cross (PMI) and dozens of its international counterparts are teaming up to take an active role in the rehabilitation and reconstruction of Aceh and North Sumatra, Red Cross representatives said on Wednesday.

Jakarta – On the grounds that the investigation is yet to be completed, the detention of Government Watch coordinator Farid Faqih by police on charges of being involved in the theft of aid for victims of the Acehnese disaster was extended by 40 days on Tuesday February 15. Under the extension, Faqih will retain the status of a prisoner until March 27.

Laurence Ronan – This city of 400,000 is in shambles, a third of it completely wiped off the earth, another third under water and mud. Imagine if a wave took out Dorchester, South Boston, Back Bay, and the South End, leaving only a few sticks that were trees and no buildings, just foundations. Well over 100,000 people died here and along the nearby coast.

It's almost two months after the Indian Ocean Tsunami wiped out much of Banda Aceh in Indonesia. But while many reports have focused on the progress of rebuilding efforts, the long-troubled province is experiencing much more subtle shifts.

Medan – The state government must do something to involve the Acehnese in its rebuilding and reconstruction programs, a group of activists said on Tuesday.

Andreas Harsono, Lamno – Muhammad Ali finished a plate of fried noodles, sipped a glass of cold tea and lamented about his misfortune in a coffee shop at the market in small town Lamno, about 200 kilometers south of the Acehnese capital Banda Aceh.

Tim Johnston, Jakarta – Seven weeks after December's tsunami devastated Indonesia's Aceh province, the immediate crisis is under control. The authorities are now looking to medium-term coping strategies for the hundreds of thousands of people who lost their homes and livelihoods.

Banda Aceh – As many as 10,000 children in Indonesia's tsunami-devastated Aceh province may be seeking lost parents, the United Nations and other agencies said on Tuesday.

That figure represents about 2.5 percent of the 400,000 people displaced on the northern end of Sumatra island by the giant waves, triggered by an earthquake on December 26.

Singapore – Peace talks with separatist rebels in Indonesia's Aceh province will continue if the guerrillas stick to the agenda of special autonomy, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said here on Tuesday.

For the second time since the tsunami destroyed his house, Kamaruzaman slogged his way up the steep hill on the broken road to Ligan, still searching for somewhere to live and something to eat.

Tim O'Connor – Recently returned from Aceh, academic Ed Aspinall has been traveling regularly to Aceh for several years and written extensively on this area. He talks to Tim O'Connor about experiences during his 3 weeks assisting in the emergency efforts and and of the vital and unheralded work the local civil society groups were doing in the immediate aftermath.

Fears of a post-tsunami disease explosion in Indonesia prompted the influx of huge medical resources, but with no sign of epidemic, a surfeit of foreign doctors is now struggling to find patients as hospital beds lie empty.

Christopher Bodeen, Banda Aceh – In this tsunami-ravaged Indonesian city, the streets couldn't seem safer. Rifle-toting Indonesian soldiers patrol while children head off to school. Shoppers cram makeshift markets, and unarmed troops from foreign powers deliver aid.

Among the donors to tsunami survivors in Indonesia's Aceh, Turkey stands out. Not for bringing money, shelter or food, but for flying their flag – an emblem that bears an uncanny likeness to the outlawed insignia of separatist rebels.

Gordon G Benton – It is more than likely that there will be an unholy battle over the desolation in Aceh and North Sumatra on who is going to rebuild the infrastructure, towns and villages.

Teams collecting corpses in the Indonesian province of Aceh have estimated it will take at least another six months to find all the tsunami victims, the Red Cross said. Volunteers have been pulling scores of bodies from the rubble daily since the December 26 disaster, a grim task complicated by rapid decomposition in tropical temperatures.

Indonesia has urged the global community to heighten vigilance to ensure rampant corruption does not swallow billions of dollars of tsunami aid as it promises a March deadline to begin large-scale reconstruction in ravaged Aceh province.

[The following open letter was sent by the UK base human rights organisation Tapol to British Foreign Office Minister, Douglas Alexander, on 9 February 2005.]

Douglas Alexander
Minister of State
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
London SW1A 2AH

Dear Mr Alexander,

Human Rights Abuses in Aceh

Zely Ariane has been the secretary-general of the Peoples Democratic Party (PRD) since 2003. Indonesia's only openly operating socialist party, It played a central role in the movement to overthrow Suharto between 1994 and 1998 and has been at the forefront of attempts to unite the fragmented opposition to the neoliberal economic policies of the post-Suharto governments.

Thousands of Indonesians left homeless by the tsunami will be able to move into newly-finished barracks next week, but despite the promise of shelter, food and water, many instead want to return to the windswept piles of rubble they once called home.

Jay Solomon,Medan – Textile trader Shie Hok Lai lost everything when the tsunami destroyed his shop and home in Indonesia's Aceh province December 26., but the ethnic Chinese businessman is getting ready to start over again – in the same place.

Geneva – Donor countries are failing to provide enough funds for temporary housing and job creation for survivors of December's Indian Ocean tsunami, a senior United Nations official said on Monday.

Margareta Wahlstrom, the UN's special tsunami relief envoy, also urged governments to convert their aid pledges into cash as quickly as possible.

Banda Aceh – The United Nations on Tuesday pronounced the often chaotic relief effort to aid Indonesian tsunami victims a success but warned that the toughest part of the operation was still to come.

Indonesian soldiers prevented an Associated Press journalist from traveling in tsunami-wracked Aceh, a war-torn region that was off limits to foreigners before the disaster.

New York – The Indonesian government's plan in Aceh to register and relocate more than 100,000 people displaced by the tsunami to semi-permanent camps threatens their right to return home, Human Rights Watch and Human Rights First said today. The Indonesian government needs to ensure that any relocation program in the province fully respects the rights of the displaced people.

The Indonesian government's plan in Aceh to register and relocate more than 100,000 people displaced by the tsunami to semi-permanent camps threatens their right to return home, Human Rights Watch and Human Rights First said today. The Indonesian government needs to ensure that any relocation program in the province fully respects the rights of the displaced people.

Matthew Moore, Lamno (Aceh) – Almost everyone is on a hopeless search, but one family breaks the circle of doom.

Tears of grief are still falling across Aceh's tsunami-devastated west coast, but Cutchairiah is one of the few people here with reason to cry tears of joy.

The number of people believed killed in December's tsunami disaster rose to nearly 295,000, six weeks after the catastrophe, as Indonesia again increased its number of dead.

Indonesia was hardest-hit by the December 26 quake and tsunamis, with a total of 241,687 people listed as dead or missing, the health ministry said in its latest figures.

Tensions are rising between militant Islamic groups working in tsunami-struck Aceh and local residents as the outsiders seek to force hardline views on the traumatised local community.

Jakarta – President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono explained to UN General Secretary Kofi Annan last night, Friday February 4, that the Indonesian government will not be internationalising the handling of the conflict with the Free Aceh Movement (GAM).

Achmad Sukarsono, Banda Aceh – Aid groups, foreign armies and Indonesian officials have prevented disease and starvation from engulfing tsunami-hit Aceh province, but closer cooperation is needed to rebuild shattered livelihoods, government and aid officials said.

Rendi A. Witular and Eva C. Komandjaja, Jakarta – The government has decided to drop its plan to set up a special authority for Aceh since the tsunami-stricken areas in the province already had functioning local governments, according to Vice President Jusuf Kalla.