I was introduced to two fairly dark-skinned gentlemen who said they'd just returned from a business trip to Aceh and had in their possession a VHS tape on the war there. They were keen to sell the tape to Channel NewsAsia. For the next 15 minutes I watched the horrors of the war replayed in front of me. What I saw impressed me. Since the 1980s, the Indonesian province of Aceh has been a tinderbox.
Every slight provocation has the potential of igniting a fresh cycle of violence.
The separatist Free Aceh Movement has been waging a bloody campaign against the Indonesian government. But it is a war that has not generated too much interest in the world. Aside from Asia Watch's occasional reports on human rights abuses in Aceh, stories and pictures out of the province have been few and far between. Like any bloodhound journalist, I was quite interested to tell the untold story, to show the rarely available pictures. What I saw impressed me.