Aceh's victims of nature and war

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Pak Awalat says he has not received any aid destined for conflict victims By Lucy Williamson BBC News, Aceh

There is good business to be done in Aceh these days. And where better to hone your business skills than a class at the local mosque?

Dozens of women crowd on to carpets in the little prayer hall, fanning themselves against the heat, listlessly rocking babies as they listen to the class.

Four years on from the tsunami, many of these women have received generous aid packages to help them rebuild their lives. This course is designed to help them use it well.

One of them is Elly. She used to run a cake-making business, but that - and her house - was destroyed by the tsunami.

Now she has opened a new business, making fresh bread for a local supermarket.

And it has developed into a real enterprise. It has proper catering equipment and 12 staff, all paid for with money handed out by aid organisations to Aceh's tsunami victims.Women can learn how best to use the aid they received after the tsunami

Build back better

More than $6bn (£3.8bn) poured into Aceh in the aftermath of the tsunami - one of the largest aid flows in history.

It paid for 100,000 new houses, new schools, new markets.

The reconstruction body here had a slogan: Build Back Better. And for Elly, they did.

She showed me her new house - also paid for with aid money and extended with the profits from her new business.

She has added more space to the living room, she says, and built on a big new kitchen.

There is more money in the family now than ever before, and it has meant big changes.

"Firstly, I can pay for my kids' education," she told me, "it was difficult before.

"Secondly, I could extend the house, and I could buy a motorbike, even though I can't ride it yet! And I've also been able to buy furniture to decorate the house."

Life destroyed

But not all Aceh's victims are so lucky.

Twenty minutes' drive away lives Pak Awalat, a man with grown children, a sick wife, and life's hardships etched into his dark eyes.

He showed me his house too.

Except it was not a house any more - just a dusty patch of land, with the frail outline of its foundations shadowed on the ground.

Pak Awalat's house was also destroyed - but not by the tsunami.

The tsunami victims lost their houses and they got fixed. I lost my home, and got nothing Pak AwalatAceh resident

It was burned down, he says, during fighting between the army and separatists here.

And he has not rebuilt it because no-one has given him any money to do it.

Problems of peace

The tsunami not only reshaped Aceh's physical landscape; it also helped bring to an end a 30-year armed struggle for independence by separatist guerrillas.

Pak Awalat's son was one of them. That was the reason, Pak Awalat says, that security forces here targeted him for information, torturing him, and burning down his house.

It is hard to count the conflict victims in Aceh - the dead, the injured, the homeless, the poor, the traumatised.

Help for them has been a trickle compared to the flow of aid to tsunami survivors.

"I'm really sad," Pak Awalat told me, "because some people - especially the tsunami victims - have got help.

"But my home was destroyed too. The tsunami victims lost their houses and they got fixed. I lost my home, and got nothing."

The government has a programme to help people like Pak Awalat, but so far it has reached only a third of the conflict victims on its list.

And when it does, says the World Bank, it is often less than half the amount given to tsunami victims.

That means villages like Pak Awalat's are being left behind.

If that is not fixed, the legacy of Aceh's recovery might actually be new conflict, and new divisions.