You can deal with terror two ways: you can hunker down, retreat from the world and let paranoia rule you; or you can do what Cut Syamsurniati did—fight back and reclaim your life. In January 1999, when soldiers and police engaged separatist rebels around Cut's village of Pusong in Indonesia's war-torn Aceh province, security forces killed seven villagers and injured 30. The menfolk of her village dared not evacuate the victims for fear of being shot as suspected rebels. "When I saw the men so helpless," Syamsurniati recalls, "I thought, 'Why can't women do this?'" So she and other village women negotiated with the military and escorted the wounded to the nearby town of Lhokseumawe for treatment.

Syamsurniati's courage that day led to a job at an NGO, Rehabilitation Action for Victims of Torture in Aceh (RATA), which counsels and arranges medical treatment for casualties of the decades-long war between the military and the rebels. Syamsurniati—a 36-year-old trained counselor and mother of five—found herself back in dangerous company. In December 2000, three of Syamsurniati's RATA colleagues were murdered. Four army officers and four military informers were arrested for the atrocity, but they all went free. After the killings, Syamsurniati also received countless death threats. One anonymous caller told her children, "Mummy's going to die soon." Syamsurniati went into hiding, but not for long. "People can die at any time in Aceh," she explains. "If we do nothing, then these deaths are meaningless." So several times a week Syamsurniati talks her way through the formidable military checkpoints standing between her and her patients. Their stories—of beatings, electric shocks, near-drownings and rape—are heartbreaking. Today she visits a 24-year-old cigarette vendor named Dahlan who was so brutalized by soldiers that he fell mute and was too frightened to leave his house. These days he's talking again, and might one day return to work. "Cut is kind and very brave," says local journalist Nani Farida. "The Acehnese trust her hugely."

A fragile December ceasefire between the government and the rebels did for a while bring new hope to Aceh, but never justice. Nobody has been convicted for killing Syamsurniati's RATA colleagues. One suspect even lives openly in Lhokseumawe. "I see him almost every day," she says. Is she afraid? "Of course. But I don't let it get to me. Then what use would I be to anyone?"

Previous: Kim Sang Hun	Next: Mo Shaoping

	View all of TIME's Asian Heroes covers Reader's Choice: TIME's Online Asian Hero The Results are in! Find out who you said was the most inspirational person or persons of 2002 How well do you know your heroes? Take our quiz and find out!