Military reasserts power, casualties mount in Aceh

Both armies routinely steal from civilians and execute alleged informants and "traitors." The Legal Aid Institute's Rufriadi says 771 people were killed in the first six months of the year, up from 500 in the same period last year – most of them civilians. The military commonly kills civilians in reprisals for GAM attacks, reasoning that it will scare the population away from supporting GAM.

When President Megawati came to office last year, she was expected to pursue a peace process. But she has largely abandoned that plan, convinced, according to one aid, "that we can win this war by force." She has called GAM an enemy of the state and senior officials have taken to calling the rebels "terrorists."

Reports of abuses shouldn't surprise US officials. As the Bush administration began to lobby Congress to restore ties early this year, arguing that Indonesia's military has improved and that the country could become an Al Qaeda haven, the State Department issued a report that found "numerous credible reports that the Army and police continued routinely to torture detainees."

Torture methods detailed in the report include "pulling fingernails off with pliers, rape, electric shock, and whipping." So far in 2002, "the abuses are worse," according to Maimul Fidar, the executive director of the Aceh human rights coalition. Mr. Maimul, Rufriadi, and other lawyers in Aceh say there hasn't been a trial of any soldier in more than two years. "The effect of that is they do whatever they like,'' Rufriadi says.

The roots of the insurgency in Aceh go back 200 years to its sultans' legendary resistance to Dutch colonization. The province overlooks the Straits of Malacca, a vital conduit for trade between Asia and the Middle East for more than 600 years. Arab traders brought Islam to Aceh, before the rest of the archipelago, accounting for the relative fervor with which it's embraced here.

By the time the Dutch arrived to claim Indonesia for their empire in the 18th century, the Acehnese had grown wealthy and relatively sophisticated over hundreds of years of commerce with the rest of the world. They refused to submit, and were only really pacified by Dutch forces in the early 20th century.

"We're special,'' says Abu, a portly motorcycle taxi driver waiting behind the capital's stately grand mosque. "We never surrendered."

That feeling of difference was combined with growing dissatisfaction after Indonesian independence in 1945, particularly after the rise of Suharto in 1965. His highly centralized regime bled billions of dollars out of the rich province and gave little in return.

"We were so happy when Suharto fell," says Abu, whose uncle was killed by Indonesian soldiers a few years ago. "We thought the war was going to end. But it's only getting worse."

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