The world has come together to assist survivors of the Indian Ocean tsunami. By and large it has been welcomed in the countries affected in South and Southeast Asia.

Yet in Indonesia's Aceh province, the welcome is proving awkward and signs are emerging that there is paranoia about the presence of foreigners on Indonesian soil.

Early this month some Indonesian legislators, especially members of the Muslim-based Prosperous and Justice Party (PKS) and the Golkar Party, which dominates Parliament, raised the issue of foreign troops being a ''threat to Indonesia's sovereignty'' in Aceh, which has been the hardest hit by the Dec. 26 tsunami.

The death toll in Aceh and northern Sumatra stands at more than 166,000 of the over 220,000 deaths reported globally to date. The number of homeless in Aceh is estimated at 800,000.

Hidayat Nur Wahid, a PKS member and currently the speaker of the People's Consultative Assembly, said that the arrival of US, Australian as well as other foreign troops to help the tsunami victims should be controlled.

''They should go out within a month,'' said Hidayat, adding that his party is worried some foreign soldiers as well as international aid workers might 'Christianise'' the predominantly Muslim Acehnese.

Such concerns were soon brought up in a cabinet meeting led by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono ( photo ).

Presidential spokesman Alifian Mallarangeng declined to reveal who raised the issue, but the cabinet agreed to set the withdrawal deadline in three months time.

Vice-President Jusuf Kalla, who attended the meeting, later told the media that ''foreigners should get out of Aceh as soon as possible....three months are enough. The sooner (they leave), the better."

Indonesians, not foreign troops, according to Kalla, should take charge of caring for those who lost their homes to the tsunami.

When asked about long-term relief efforts, he said: ''We don't need foreign troops.''

Adoption issues

Up to now, the international relief efforts in Aceh have gone on smoothly with some 1,700 foreign troops having joined hands with 2,500 foreign aid workers and volunteers.

But a combination of nationalism, xenophobia and the inability of Indonesia to deal with Aceh's violent past, may work against the huge international relief effort at the expense of the homeless Acehnese.

Aceh has been almost entirely closed to any international presence due to military operations there against the Free Aceh Movement - known by its Indonesian acronym as GAM - which has been fighting for independence since 1976. More than 10,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed since then.

The government put the province under martial law on May 19, 2003 before reducing this to a state of civil emergency one year later.

Ironically, Hidayat's and Kalla's statements have found resonance in many Indonesian circles that are opposed to the US.

For one, US forces aren't anybody's pin-up heroes after the bad publicity they received from the Abu Ghra ib prison atrocities in Iraq. Indonesian newspapers have carried the prison scandal pictures in full and that has only fuelled resentment against them. Many Indonesian Muslims see the US troops as staunchly anti-Islam.

Nonetheless, many have termed Kalla's statement as short-sighted and are concerned about Indonesia's actual capacity to cope with post-disaster management if it had to do it all by itself.

The vice-president, an advocate for the implementation of Islamic law in Indonesia, is also the chairman of Indonesia's disaster co-ordinating body.

Nono Anwar Makarim of the Jakarta-based Aksara think-tank described Kalla's statement as one bordering on ''xenophobia''. He made the reference in a column for the Kompas daily newspaper.

Makarim also castigated both Kalla and Hidayat for raising the issue of the adoption of Acehnese children by so-called ''Christian foreigners'' - which has been played up by the mainstream media here.

In hitting out against the two Islamic nationalists, the columnist wrote a story on two Indonesian children - orphans who had been abandoned by their community - as an illustration of the narrow-mindedness.

''Later, they were adopted by a North American family. The son is now studying in a top Texas college, while the daughter has just finished university and is working in a medical company,'' he said.

The punch line: ''To see how happy they are, I forgot to ask about their religion.''

Colonial ruler

Interestingly, another concern came from Gen Endriartono Sutarto, the chief of the Indonesian military, whose 40,000 soldiers practically control Aceh. Sutarto revealed the Indonesian military only has five cargo airplanes and seven helicopters.

''What can we do with these five Hercules and seven choppers? Do you think we could bring the cargo from (Aceh's provincial capital) Banda Aceh to Meulaboh (the worst hit area) by bicycle?" he was quoted by Tempo magazine as saying.

Banda Aceh has the longest airstrip in the area and Meulaboh is the on the province's western coast. It takes only 30 minutes to reach Meulaboh by helicopter but nearly 20 hours by motor-boat.

US troops are using 17 Black Hawk, six Chinhook and two Super Puma helicopters to deliver emergency relief supplies inland. These helicopters are backed up by four Hercules transport aircraft.

From the Australian side, four Hercules transport carriers and four helicopters are in action. In total, there are more than 50 helicopters and 20 cargo planes used by international troops in the global relief effort.

Ironically, if the logic of the ''foreign'' and ''non-foreign'' presence is used in Aceh, many Acehnese would consider the Javanese as the 'unwelcome guests'.

GAM rebels officially consider ''the nation of Java with the national capital Jakarta'' as the colonial ruler of Aceh. The separatists have even refused the Bahasa Indonesia spelling of Aceh, insisting instead on the use of the word 'Acheh' - as the region was known in 1873 when the 'Achehnese' sultanate fought against the Dutch colonisers.

The confusion over the disaster management in Aceh stepped into another sad phase when Yudhoyono on Jan 17, just five days after the cabinet meeting, held another meeting and criticised Kalla's disaster management body.

He ordered the establishment of an autonomous body to supervise the reconstruction of the province, saying that the disputed ''deadline'' - to get foreign troops out -- was only a ''timeline''.

That Yudhoyono went into damage control is understandable. Aceh, could be the new president's biggest test, and the barometer by which his entire five-year term will be judged. - IPS