Aceh newspaper up and running

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia – The tsunami smashed into the offices of Aceh’s only newspaper with awesome force, picking up its two huge printing presses like toys and tumbling them into the parking lot. The human toll was worse: 100 staff are feared dead.

But just six days after the disaster, Serambi Indonesia – which has survived threats from both the government and rebels for its hard-hitting coverage of this war-torn corner of Indonesia – was back in circulation.

“Cholera is threatening our refugees,” read the banner headline of the first edition, a slimmed down version printed in Aceh province’s second city, Lhokseumawe, and handed out free.

Also on the front page: a telephone number and message urging employees to call in and let the editors know they were still alive.

“We were badly hit, but the spirit of our journalists got this edition out,” said Ismail Syah, the paper’s Lhokseumawe bureau chief. “We need to give information to the people and allow our employees to get in touch with us.”

Media people say it will be a blow to free speech in one of Indonesia’s most tightly controlled and trouble-prone regions if Serambi cannot get up and running again in its previous tenacious form.

“Serambi has played an extraordinary role in Aceh, not only in providing information and education on the conflict but also in brightening the minds of Acehnese people,” said Eddy Suprapto of the Alliance of Independent Journalists.

“It is a big loss. We may find qualified and skilled journalists, but it is not easy to find those with idealism like those at Serambi,” he said.