[Marinir] [NYT] Running Relief Operation in Indonesia With an Iron Fist

[YapHongGie]

Dari milis tetangga.

From:  mouse gun <mousegun87 at y...>
Date:  Sun Jan 16, 2005  4:56 pm ; Msg 7859
Subject:  Kol. Geerhan Lantara in NY Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/16/international/worldspecial4/16aid.html

Judulnya memang cenderung negatif, tetapi isinya banyak menyanjung
Kol Lantara dalam menangani bencana di Meulaboh.

In an emergency like this, an iron fist may be what we need to succeed.

Running Relief Operation in Indonesia With an Iron Fist
By ERIC LIPTON
Published: January 16, 2005
Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

MEULABOH, Indonesia, Jan. 14 - Col. Geerhan Lantara, the Indonesian Army
official in charge of the relief operation here, was restless.

All day, he directs various militaries from around the world as he paces in
his command center, even issuing orders as he reclines for a few minutes on
a cot.
The unease continues into the night as he grills his staff about every
aspect of the effort - food, water, medicine, shelter, electricity and other
needs.

"Where are those sardines?" he asked one day this week, disappointed that
only a dozen cans of needed protein had been delivered the day before.
"Where are those 12 cans? Where have they been distributed?"

The motivation for his restlessness is posted on the barracks' wall: one
marker board tallies the dead, while two others track the delivery and
distribution of emergency supplies needed to sustain the living.
Colonel Lantara's ability to ensure that items most in need are delivered
and distributed to Meulaboh, instead of those in greatest supply, will
determine, in part, how much more suffering occurs in this seaside city.

"It is all about coordinating the need," said Colonel Lantara, who works in
a classroom-size barrack.

A consensus holds among relief workers that the most urgent needs of the
residents in and immediately around Meulaboh have been met.
Food stockrooms at makeshift shelters - where many of the provincial
district's 60,000 homeless live - are in most cases packed with rice,
noodles and briskets.

Teams of doctors have visited most of the larger shelters and have offered
care to those who needed it, distributing vitamins as well.
In fact, so many surgeons have arrived at the one city hospital that they
squabbled in recent days over the right to operate on a new patient.

But serious gaps in supplies remain. Displaced families need pots and pans
and other basic household items. The food rations, in most cases, lack
protein like fish or meat.
Tetanus vaccine is in short supply. Too many people are still drinking water
from contaminated wells. Lumber is needed to build beds.
Latrines are far too few.

"In the bigger towns like Meulaboh, the emergency medical needs are
absolutely being met," said Dr. Andrew Auld, a physician volunteering with
Global Relief,  an organization based in South Africa. "But the public
health needs are still great."

Colonel Lantara and others in the Indonesian military decide just what the
30 or so helicopters buzzing through the skies and the beach-landing boats
operated by the United States and Singapore militaries should carry to the
Meulaboh area.

A jockey-sized, quick-witted, chain-smoking soldier, who has closely cropped
hair and ears that stick out, Colonel Lantara is well known in Meulaboh.
He helped lead the government's crackdown in recent years on separatist
rebels here in Aceh, as well as helping to put down a similar movement in
the late 1990's in East Timor. The Indonesian military has been accused of
human rights violations in both cases.

The activity is constant here. Singapore, the United States, Malaysia,
India, Australia and France have now landed troops or sent supply ships or
helicopters to the western coast of the Aceh province, the region hardest
hit by the earthquake and tsunami on Dec. 26.

On the city's beach, a mammoth United States Marine hovercraft, loaded with
cargo, has been stirring up a furious sandstorm each day as it fights its
way onto the shore. From the air, the putter of an approaching Chinook
helicopter, operated by the Singapore armed forces, turns heads up across
the city.
Emergency relief truck convoys rumble through town, dodging scooters and
bicycles. Colonel Lantara watches all of this.

At his nightly briefing, he leaned forward to speak into the only microphone
in the room.

While too many surgeons may be available, too few doctors are on hand to
deal with trauma, he said. "I need a psychologist," he said, sitting under a
framed picture of himself.

And delay in restarting the cellphone system is causing hardship citywide,
he said. "I will break up with my girlfriends if you do not fix the cellular
phones," he said, in jest.