harbor

_introduction
Pak Faisal Ridwan introduced us to another Acehnese engineer: Subhan Muhammad, who is currently developing strategies for a possible role for Aceh in the global shipping market, as his PhD research at a Malaysian university. This text attempts to summarize our interactions with Subhan.

(the Dutch harbor at Pulau Weh - image: http://www.group.abnamro.com/about/history/themes/history/sabang2.cfm)

_interview
When talking with Faisal about the regional planning and the possible future scenarios for Aceh, he asked us if he could introduce us to a friend of his; Subhan Muhammad. Subhan had asked him if we would be willing to be interviewed by him on the construction of an Acehnese big scale shipping harbor as a potential future scenario. We agreed to meet at the UNDP office in Banda, the 14th of May 2009. Subhan and Michiel sat down to talk for about an hour.

One of the main reasons Subhan requested this interview, was his desire to be able to test his lines of thought on the topic in an open discussion with foreign educated spatial planners, him feeling restrained by the feedback he receives from local (more politically restricted) conversation partners. Our team’s origin in the Netherlands, with Rotterdam harbor as part of its everyday knowledge, he considered a possible added value to the conversation.

Michiel explained the potential he recognizes in Aceh: “The province obviously has a rather poor populace, with a quite modest level of education, wages are low (minimum wage is around 1 million Indonesian Rupiah a month, say one hundred US $ a month) and the unemployment rate is rather high. Unemployment will even rise significantly the coming period with the departure of the many tsunami reconstruction agencies. Despite the grim circumstances this depicts, it also illustrates the presence of a large and growing potential; being a vast and cheap labor force. Exactly the thing you would need when constructing and operating a global scale shipping harbor. So both short term and long term livelihood possibilities will arise when developing a harbor.

(the SS Sumatra at Sabang harbor - image: http://www.group.abnamro.com/about/history/themes/history/sabang.cfm)

Secondly the city of Banda Aceh is historically seen one of the key geographical positions in the world, especially in shipping. Through the centuries it has functioned as the seafaring doorway (‘Banda’ literally meaning doorway) to the endless natural resources of Indonesia and the Malacca Strait leading to the destinations further to the East. Frequented by Arab, Chinese, Portuguese, British, Dutch, and Japanese traders and occupation forces, the many shipping routes passing by its doorstep led to great wealth in the city during the 17th century and the spread of Islam into Asia. Singapore nowadays owes its prosperity to its fairly similar setting. Earlier on in time the Dutch had recognized the strategic naval position of Banda Aceh, and because of it constructed a supply base and harbor on one of the small islands right off the coast of Banda Aceh early 20th century. Unfortunately the outbreak of World War II and the Japanese invasion of Indonesia brought massive destruction there and hindered any future larger scale shipping developments for Banda Aceh.

With this historical chain of events underlining the strategic naval potential of this location, a third argument speaking for the development of a harbor is that the timing for considering massive harbor developments might just be perfect. The tsunami redevelopment period has left Aceh’s governance in a rather strong financial position, allowing them to speculate on ambitious big scale interventions like the construction of a global shipping harbor. As an added bonus the tsunami recovery also brought peace to Aceh, and a high influx of foreign organizations. This enabled the world to develop a much more sophisticated look into Aceh, which through the previous decades of armed conflict had known virtually no foreign involvement. So now the door to the world is open, it should be much easier to get foreign parties interested in developing a global scale shipping harbor. Sumatra itself offers a range of natural resources, which might find their way to world markets much easier from its geographically well positioned most Northern tip.

An immediate threat to the functionality of a harbor in Aceh, is the infrastructural connection with the hinterland. Aceh has just a very basic road structure connecting it to the rest of Sumatra, leading straight through the city of Banda Aceh itself, and there are neither mayor waterways nor rail systems. So as is, there is no bulk goods transport possible from the land to the harbor and vice versa. Either the costly construction of such a specialized cargo infrastructure would have to be incorporated in the development of a harbor, or, the harbor should be able to sustain itself without actually exchanging cargo with Aceh. The latter implies making the harbor to just operate on cargo transfer and refueling, losing the economical benefit of export trade for Sumatra. When discussing where to position the harbor in Aceh, it might be beneficial to locate the harbor close to where the labor force is, so no large personnel movements, consuming time and energy, are needed. ‘Next to or in Banda Aceh’ would be the logical answer from this perspective.

Aside from the transportation over land, a second threat might be the accessibility of the waterways leading to Aceh. If there is no passage from West to East allowing the present day bulk cargo carriers, with their 20+ meters depth, to pass, it is rather likely they will seek different shipping routes, ignoring Aceh.

(the harbor area of Banda Aceh right after the 2004 tsunami - image: http://www.bricoleurbanism.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/banda_aceh_after.jpg)

With the 2004 tsunami still fresh in our minds, we realize Aceh might be heading for another mayor natural event, like an earthquake or even another tsunami. How likely is an event like that to reoccur in Aceh? How well can a newly developed harbor be protected from a future catastrophe, and how far will the investments needed for these measures leave the development of the harbor feasible?

Aside from accomplishing the complex development of a global scale harbor, its operational existence should also be looked at. Maintenance, staff, room for new investments in equipment, you name it. Shipping is an expensive business. How is the global bulk cargo shipping market evolving? Increasing? Decreasing? What are the future prognoses? Will Aceh harbor be able to pay its bills? Will Aceh even be able to compete with its nearby rivals like Medan, or shipping titans like Singapore? If Aceh in the end can offer its cargo services cheaper than the others in that market can, the answer to these last two questions may just be yes.”

aftermath

_introduction
While doing our research in Banda Aceh, we are kindly hosted by the UNDP Waste Management Group, under leadership of Nigel Landon. He has generously allowed us to use his office space during our stay in Indonesia. This is where we have met pak Faisal Ridwan, Program Officer (Equipment) within this UNDP unit, former Oxfam employee and native from Banda Aceh. He has been helping our research significantly, by providing us with several reports on the tsunami recovery process, photographs he made himself, and by joining us in conversations on this convoluted topic. This text attempts to summarize the insights coming from our interaction with Faisal.

(downtown Banda Aceh, 5 min. before tsunami - image by Faisal Ridwan)

_boxing day 04
Faisal described the commotion right after the massive earthquake preceding the December 26th tsunami in 2004. He at that moment happened to at home. Realizing many buildings must have collapsed he headed to downtown Banda Aceh on his motorbike, and had his photo camera with him. The pictures he took show many people in the streets, amazed by the force of the quake, looking at the 5 story hotel that turned 4 stories, and the 4 story supermarket that turned 3 stories. The bottom stories just seized to exist, and my guess is the same goes for the people that were in there. The rest of the buildings look battered and beaten, with cracked columns and cantilever shaders broken off. Within five minutes after the severe shock people came rushing by, yelling that “the water is coming”. Faisal got on his bike and raced inland, not knowing exactly what he was running from, trying to reach his family and get them to safety. Fortunately he, unlike many many others, succeeded.

Six hours after the tsunami hit, Faisal and his wife return to their home, hoping they would find milk and diapers for their nine month old daughter, forgetting about their own needs. They find all their doors knocked out of the walls, their furniture trashed, knee-deep mud throughout the house and visible on all walls a waterline at 1.5 meter high. Faisal and his family were spared, but now faced new threats. They had attempted to clean up for a couple of hours when they realized they could not stay in the city, where disease and lack of supplies would soon reign. Their house flooded, their devastated city rapidly turning into a biohazardous menace, with thousands of dead people lying around. They had to leave this place, so headed to the house of a relative. Many others had done the same, meeting there.

(downtown Banda Aceh after tsunami - image by Faisal Ridwan)

_the days after
There are no words to describe the images Faisal showed me that he took in Banda Aceh the days right after the tsunami. I’ve looked at them almost a month and a half ago, and now writing about it makes me nauseous, shaken up and baffled all over again. The Krueng Aceh river that flows through downtown, stashed up with an endless ten meters high pile of blackened dead people, mangled up in building debris and fishing boats. Streets filled with mud, debris, toppled cars and more dead people. Buildings bashed into rubble. Black water everywhere. Indescribable. Unforgettable.

Banda Aceh rapidly turned into a ghost town, with more than a third of its inhabitants killed, and the rest of them on the run from the approaching epidemic in the traumatized cityscape. The Indonesian national army rushed in to stop the people from the surrounding villages pillaging the abandoned houses and stores. Surprisingly the same was done by their sworn enemies from the Acehnese separatist army GAM, who left their hideouts in the mountains to come and help. Apparently the incomprehensible dimensions of this disaster made the combatants forget to fight for the first time in over thirty years.

Aside from the numerous dead, there were many injured, often severe, but there was no medical care available. Faisal told me he went driving around the city with an injured lady on the back of his motorbike, searching in vain. Two days later she was dead. He and his family decide to use the last bit of gasoline left in their car to get them to safety with relatives in the city of Sigli, 120 kilometers east of Banda.

_upwards
Faisal and his brother wanted to help, realizing they were not the only ones looking for baby supplies in Banda. While the armies made a start with clearing the city, Faisal’s brother started transporting fuel and instant foods to Banda and Faisal focused on bringing baby and feminine supplies. He came in contact with more and more people wanting to apply the money they had into helping the population, making his initiative almost develop into a NGO. Banda Aceh by now had been noticed internationally, and pushed by the overwhelming amount of money raised globally to help the tsunami victims, the city was gradually invaded by almost five hundred help organizations. This made Faisal meet with Oxfam, and he started working for them to extend his aid work, supplying the city with new water and sanitation systems, and later with shelter. After quite some time with Oxfam he transfers to UNDP, where he still works today.

Now, after almost four and a half years of working in tsunami relief, he is thinking maybe this year will be the last. He will have to go back to his original profession in building construction. But before that, he has the wish to further study engineering. He has noticed the need for proper engineering skills to help develop Aceh and make use of the growth potential with all the natural resources Aceh has. Hopefully his savings and some luck will take him to one of the colleges in Malaysia, Australia or even Delft at some point.

(Lhok Nga after tsunami - image by Faisal Ridwan)

_in general
It took just a few days before the international community realized the full extent of the destruction in Aceh, but to the survivors those days seemed ages. No drinkable water, no food, no shelter, no sanitation, circumstances grown ups can deal with for a day or two, but babies, elderly, handicapped and the ill are seriously threatened by. Especially these more vulnerable people require immediate attention, otherwise the chance of them perishing in the aftermath of a disaster is considerable.

Looking back at the recovery process from the tsunami, it is obvious that the physical transport of goods into a disaster area anywhere in the world is time consuming, and the first aid attempts will have to be undertaken on a small scale by the locals. The same lengthiness goes for gathering sufficient funds and organizations available for the recovery and reconstruction. Because money and effort is gradually coming in from all over the world, the web of aid agencies in Banda Aceh got very very complicated. Then the coordination agency established by the Indonesian government a good four months after the disaster (BRR) encountered the impossible task of unraveling this complex knot. Because of this needless complexity of the aid structure, a lot of aid effort has gone to waste to senseless initiatives.

With the limited means and people available in a disaster struck area right after the disaster has hit, it is very difficult to develop a clear image of what type of help is needed, and, equally important, of what type of help is available locally. It might therefore be a good idea to always have an international specialist team on standby, ready to be flown in anywhere in the world where instantaneous aid coordination is needed. Their task would be nothing but mapping the local supply and demand of aid, and communicating this picture clearly to anyone involved. Apparently the same development can be recognized in the aid work as we have seen in the way armies work; to be able to win battles the emphasis gradually shifts towards intelligence.