Indonesia gives forces deadline, limits aid workers

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia -- The Indonesian government yesterday told foreign military forces to leave by the end of March and tightened controls over the movement of international aid workers, raising concerns that relief might not reach isolated regions that need it most.

Vice President Jusuf Kalla told the Indonesian news agency Antara that three months would be enough time for foreign military forces to finish their mission and leave. He said Aceh Province would soon need foreign engineers and doctors rather than soldiers.

The country has long been sensitive about foreign intervention, especially in Aceh Province where it has been facing an insurgency by separatist rebels since 1976.

Indonesia's chief of relief operations, Budi Atmadi Adiputro, told international aid groups they should inform the government if they plan to travel outside Banda Aceh, adding that the relief workers' ''safety will be organized by the national security authority" if they entered regions the government deemed too dangerous.

Australia, the United States, Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, Germany, China, and Spain are among the countries using military planes to bring relief supplies and to help in recovery operations in Aceh in northwest Sumatra, by far the worst-hit part of the country.

In response to the Indonesian government's concerns, US military officials agreed that Marines would not carry guns on Indonesian soil and that the vast majority of US forces working in relief projects would return to ships stationed off the coast after each day's operations. The US officials also scaled back their plans to send hundreds of Marines ashore to build roads and clear rubble.

The USS Abraham Lincoln, the aircraft carrier leading the US government's relief effort, sailed out of Indonesian waters yesterday after the Indonesian government refused to allow fighter jets from the carrier to continue training missions over Indonesian territory.

American officials said the training missions, which are required for pilots to remain certified, would be conducted at sea, and the increased distance would not affect the relief flights to Indonesia because the helicopters could refuel on other ships stationed closer to shore.

In Washington, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said that the United States would ''seek further clarification" from Indonesia about the March deadline. ''We hope that the government of Indonesia and the military in Indonesia will continue the strong support they have provided to the international relief efforts so far," he said.

There was no immediate response from the other governments with troops working in Aceh Province.

Meanwhile, two top Indonesian relief officials told reporters that the kidnapping of an Indonesian health worker, allegedly by the separatist rebel group known as the Free Aceh Movement, or GAM, had prompted them to restrict the movement of foreign aid workers and journalists.

''It is important to note that the government would be placed in a very difficult position if any foreigner who came to Aceh to assist in the aid effort was harmed through acts of an irresponsible party," Adiputro, head of the national disaster relief team, told a crowd of skeptical reporters at the morning briefing.

The new restrictions were announced more than two weeks after a devastating earthquake and tsunami prompted the Indonesian government to lift restrictions on foreign travel to Aceh. The province had been largely off-limits to foreigners due to the long-simmering civil war.

Although the rebels announced a cease-fire after the tsunami and said they would not harm aid workers, Alwi Shihab, the central government's coordinating minister for people's welfare, said the GAM is still a threat to foreigners. ''GAM is not a regular movement that takes an order from one source," Shihab said. ''If there is a cease-fire, then why is there a kidnapping?"

At first, Shihab and Adiputro gave few details about the kidnapping. But after a series of angry questions about the travel clampdown from reporters, they said the head of Banda Aceh's Health Department was kidnapped and shot four or five days after the tsunami hit by a person associated with GAM. He was rescued by the army after pretending to be dead, and is now recovering in the nearby city of Medan, they said.

''We are today requesting your full understanding that there is no politics in this," Shihab said. ''We want you to be safe."

Indonesia's military-dominated government declared a state of emergency in 2002 and launched a crackdown to counter a surging independence movement. Critics say foreign nongovernmental organizations and journalists have been kept out of the province to keep atrocities committed by the government from coming to light. The government has said the restrictions were meant to protect foreigners in the midst of a guerrilla war.

Since the Dec. 26 disaster, hundreds of foreign journalists, nearly 60 foreign aid organizations, and soldiers from about a dozen foreign militaries have flooded through Aceh.

Large aid agencies appeared to accept the travel restrictions.

A. John Watson, the president of CARE Canada, praised the Indonesian military and Indonesian aid groups for delivering support to the devastated coastal towns that foreign aid agencies have yet to penetrate.

Watson, who had just returned from a military-assisted helicopter trip to Calang, said the village of 9,000 only had 1,000 survivors and that he saw no evidence of international aid there. ''They get the credit," he said, of the Indonesian effort.

But members of smaller groups in Banda Aceh said they feared that their requests to travel out of Banda Aceh would linger in the limbo of bureaucracy, and they expressed concern that the restrictions would limit their effectiveness.

Joe DiCarlo, director of emergency relief at Northwest Medical Team in Portland, Ore., said the group has two teams in Sumatra, operating mobile clinics. He said the organization canceled the departure of a third team yesterday in part because of the new travel constraints.

The Associated Press quoted Australian National University defense expert Clive Williams as saying that the Indonesians want to keep close tabs on foreigners to conceal corruption.

''The big problem with dealing with [the military] in Aceh is that they're involved in a lot of corruption there and the reason I think they don't want people to go to some areas is because they're involved in human rights abuses," Williams said.

UN officials said they worried the new rules might delay the delivery of supplies. The AP quoted Kevin Kennedy at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs as saying: ''Any requirements that would create any additional bottlenecks or delays or otherwise adversely affect our operations need to be reviewed very carefully."

Colonel Tom Greenwood, commander of the US 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, said the Marines will keep a ''minimal footprint" in the country, and that most would return each night to their ships anchored offshore. About 13,000 US military personnel, including 2,000 Marines, are taking part in the tsunami relief.

Correspondent Simon Ros contributed to this report from Boston. Material from additional wire services also was included.