Australian PM Howard visits Indonesia tsunami zone
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-02-02 21:43

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia - Australian Prime Minister John Howard, whose government made the largest pledge of aid to tsunami-stricken nations, toured ravaged Aceh province on Wednesday as Indonesia said it had buried 110,000 victims.

Howard flew in an Australian military transport plane to Banda Aceh to meet with patients and doctors at the provincial capital's severely damaged main hospital, where the giant waves left mud-spattered halls and dark pools where gardens used to be.

"The whole response to the tsunami has been a reminder of the common humanity that we all share," Howard said.

"When you have tragedy, you forget differences of race, of religion, of ethnicity. The only aim you have is to deliver competent assistance."

Of the $8 billion in public and private pledges to nations hit by the Dec. 26 tsunami, Australia's government promised $815 million, the largest amount from any country.

Its military was among the first to respond with 1,000 Australian Defense Force personnel in Sumatra, along with helicopters, transport aircraft, a military field hospital and a water purification plant.

Howard joined a growing list of foreign dignitaries -- including then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and the Sultan of Brunei -- to tour the tsunami-hit northern tip of Sumatra island.

Occasionally testy relations between Canberra and Jakarta were seriously strained in 1999 when Indonesia objected to Australia leading a U.N. peacekeeping force into East Timor to quell an outbreak of violence after it voted for independence.

But they have been mending fences and their police have worked closely together since the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings that killed 202 people, including 88 Australians.

"This is a historic moment to build a better relation with Australia and forget the past," Indonesian Social Welfare Minister Alwi Shihab said. "Let's start with a new intimacy."

BOATS TO REPLACE HELICOPTERS

Shihab, in charge of Aceh's recovery from the tsunami that left 230,000 dead or missing in the province, said Indonesia was in transition from emergency relief to rehabilitation.

He said the government was renting 20 boats capable of moving 50 to 70 tons each of supplies along the coast, and was making plans to improve shelters for more than 400,000 homeless. "By March 26 we will be able to stand on our own feet," Shihab told a news conference in Banda Aceh.

The boats will help to replace foreign military helicopters that have been used to ferry supplies.

Indonesian officials have suggested late March as the latest exit date for 3,260 foreign troops from 14 countries in Aceh.

They have been helping after the magnitude 9 earthquake and resulting tsunami killed perhaps as many as 300,000 people around the Indian Ocean.

Asked about replacing soldiers with civilian relief workers, Howard said: "When we are no longer needed we go, because we are guests in another country."

Indonesian army chief Endriartono Sutarto said his forces would focus on aid rather than fighting separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM) rebels, who have battled for decades for independence of staunchly Muslim, gas-rich Aceh.

"The situation has changed since the tsunami," Sutarto said. "People need military forces for humanitarian tasks rather than hunting GAM rebels."

Even so, the Indonesian military has said it has killed more than 200 rebels since the tsunami struck. Talks in Helsinki between the government and GAM's self-exiled leaders ended without accord on Saturday.

MORE DEAD BURIED

Shihab said workers were still retrieving more than 500 bodies a day from the debris and had now buried 110,146 people.

"I think we will reach 120 to 130,000 by the completion of our evacuation operation," he said.

Officials have not reduced the number of people missing, 127,749, for days, even as thousands of victims have been found and buried. Because of the condition of the bodies, they are being buried without being identified.

With foreign relief agencies and the government on guard against disease in refugee camps, Shihab said 74,000 children had received vaccinations.

Health organizations have said the shelters and tent camps are at risk from illnesses such as measles, malaria, dengue fever.

Indonesia plans to move thousands of people from camps to more substantial settlements with wooden barracks and better facilities.

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