As someone who has lived many years in Indonesia, I am particularly concerned about the situation in Aceh, Indonesia, where the tsunami has caused more than 150,000 deaths.

Now the Indonesian government is placing restrictions on foreign aid workers who wish to travel freely in order to pro-vide desperately needed services. Relief groups are being extorted and blocked by Indonesian military forces. This is all part of the policy of the Indonesian central authorities who have almost entirely sealed off the Acehnese province from a foreign presence since the beginning of martial law in May 2003.

They have not wanted others to see the brutal repression of a legitimate independence movement there, a repression which includes torture, rape and killing of innocent civilians.

For several hundred years until the early 20th century, Aceh was an independent state. It provided the greatest resistance in the archipelago to Dutch colonial conquest, and has again been fighting for independence from Jakarta for three decades.

The Indonesian government must not be allowed to prevail in its aim once again to act with impunity in Aceh. Our own government must put pressure on Indonesian authorities, so that the Acehnese people, who have already suffered so much, will not be subjected to even further tragedy, and will be given free access to foreign aid.

Francine Wickes

Bangor