Acehnese remain traumatised despite peace - study
Source: Reuters
By Ahmad Pathoni JAKARTA, Dec 15 (Reuters) - People in Indonesia's Aceh province remain physically and emotionally traumatised more than a year after a landmark pact that ended almost three decades of bloody separatist conflict, a study showed. Deep insecurity continued to haunt Acehnese despite the signing of a peace accord in August 2005 between the government and the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM), the study by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), the Indonesian government and Harvard Medical School found. Ninety percent of the almost 600 Acehnese interviewed said they had had difficulty finding work, while 85 percent described difficulties providing for their families. "The nearly 30 years of conflict have clearly wreaked havoc on local economies, preventing villagers from working their land, killing their animals, destroying trade networks, wrecking their houses and preventing the young people from entering into the labour economy," the report said. The interviews were conducted in February in three conflict-hit districts largely unaffected by the December 2004 Asian tsunami which killed more than 170,000 people in Aceh. Forty-seven percent of respondents linked stress to seeing perpetrators of crimes and 30 percent said they had experienced physical or psychological attacks or threats since the signing of the peace pact. "Despite the cessation of formal conflict, continued insecurity remains a challenge to recovery of individuals and communities," the report said. The study found that Acehnese were suffering from depression and anxiety, at levels comparable to those experienced by people in Bosnia and Afghanistan. Seventy-eight percent of the interviewees reported having lived through combat experiences while 41 percent said they had had a relative or friend killed. Thirty-three percent reported having a relative or friend kidnapped or disappeared, and 45 percent had had property confiscated or destroyed. "Members of these communities have experienced remarkably high levels of terrible and accumulated traumatic events as a result of the violence," the report said. A more comprehensive study on mental health in Aceh would be conducted in the first quarter of 2007, IOM spokesman Paul Dillon said The 29-year separatist conflict in Aceh killed an estimated 15,000, mostly civilians. The resource-rich province held its first direct elections for top executive posts on Monday and a former rebel spokesman emerged as a winner according to vote samples taken from polling stations throughout Aceh.
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