David Fisher: Bribes out of sight as people wait to go

Flying out of Banda Aceh, the refugees around me would have paid anything to get a seat on the New Zealand Defence Force Hercules.

But, on a flight soon after aid began arriving in Indonesia's Sumatra, I doubt there were any paying for their seats. Since then, possibly.

Corruption in Indonesia is endemic, and it will find its way everywhere, given time and opportunity.

On my first visit to the country in 1997, I had to bribe an immigration official to get in.

Now there are claims bribes are being paid to get out, free of the tsunami-hit Aceh province, which is littered with bodies and rubble.

To get a seat on an aircraft out of Banda Aceh, refugees sat outside the military airbase main office and waited. Some waited hours, others waited days.

They arrived with little, just a small bag.

The Indonesian Army controls this part of airfield operations - it hangs on to as much control as it can anywhere. If money changes hands, this is where it would happen. Yet descriptions of bribes being paid by the smartly-dressed are farcical. This is a good Muslim country - everyone prays as often as possible, and they dress to meet their God.

When a plane arrives, the refugees are led out to the aircraft and troop aboard. It is usually on the landing strip where the flight crew meets the passengers for the first time. If money was paid, there is no way our people there would have any way of knowing.

The planes themselves are on the ground for as little time as possible. The landing strip at Banda Aceh, where most tsunami relief aid was arriving, can only accommodate five planes at once. The faster they leave, the faster more aid can be brought in.

It it were a race, the New Zealand Defence Force would have won. The United States would spend an hour or more - the Kiwis were in and out in half the time.

On the aircraft, with as many refugees as will fit aboard, boys need lessons on how to fasten seatbelts. In the rear of the aircraft, no one is wearing them. They sit on the floor.

"Where is New Zealand?" asked the boy sitting next to me. One of the crew found a map and I showed him. His friend opposite looked terrified. He had never flown before and the prospect of doing so was appalling. But he was out of the rubble and safe.

* David Fisher covered the Asian tsunami disaster for the Herald on Sunday.