Flexing Muscles
From the air Simeulue resembles a boat, lying at anchor in the vast Indian Ocean. Around its shores waves beat the island’s coast, some 150 kilometers from mainland Aceh.
Tempo
November 26, 2007

On this island, Khadafi decided to try his luck 20 years ago. Hailing from Sibreh, Greater Aceh, 20-year-old Khadafi could not withstand the lure of Simeulue’s cloves. In the early 1980s, Simeulue was king of cloves. The fragrance attracted mainland Aceh people to take up business ventures there. “I was prosperous in my clove business at that time,” he laughingly said last week.
But not for long. The business was ditched as the clove pric
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