Chris McCall, Jakarta and Agencies in Banda Aceh – Almost 400,000 people converged on Banda Aceh, capital of Indonesia's Aceh province, for a two-day independence rally after President Abdurrahman Wahid urged troops to let it go ahead following the deaths of 26 people.

By late afternoon, 10,000 had assembled at the Baiturrahman mosque in the capital, the focal point of the rally marking the first anniversary of a popular call for a vote on self-rule for the region.

They shouted "freedom" as a woman, whose husband was killed by Indonesian soldiers, gave a fiery speech at the start of the rally. "It is time that Aceh got its independence. Our suffering is almost unbearable," Nurmasitah Ali told the crowd.

But the mood yesterday was tense and low-key, with no placards or separatist flags and hardly any banners. Many of those massing in and around the city were apparently waiting until today to stage a show of strength, encouraged by the President's message.

Aceh police spokesman Senior Superintendent Kusbini Imbar said an estimated 390,000 people had converged on Banda Aceh and surrounding areas. Last year's demonstration was attended by nearly a million people.

Organisers blamed the low turnout on security forces' violent attempts to stop residents joining the rally. A human rights activist said the security force operation was "shock therapy" to intimidate Aceh's four million people into keeping their mouths shut and accepting the province will remain part of Indonesia.

In one incident, a 14-year-old boy was killed when soldiers fired at a mosque packed with thousands of residents in the Tualang Cut area of East Aceh on Thursday, a witness said. Scores of others were wounded, the witness said. The residents were sheltering in the mosque after police barred them from heading to the rally in Banda Aceh, he added. Mr Imbar denied security forces had raided the mosque and shot randomly: "It is impossible that they have committed such an act because they are also religious people."

In a separate incident in East Aceh on Thursday, security forces shot dead two people who tried to resist their attempts to prevent them from going to the rally, a local journalist said. In Bireun district, four people were killed and dozens more injured by troops in a similar incident, and in Banda Aceh a body was found near the Baiturrahman mosque, residents said. On Tuesday and Wednesday, 16 people were killed province-wide.

Hundreds of people have been killed this year in violence involving separatist rebels and government forces in the resource-rich region. Military brutality and perceived exploitation of Aceh's oil and gas reserves by Jakarta has fed separatist sentiment.

Mr Wahid on Thursday night warned security forces against using violence in Aceh, saying it could wreck a truce between the Government and the Free Aceh Movement. "I will not let Acehnese ... be shot," Mr Wahid was quoted as saying. "I'm in charge of the military and police. Do they think I'm afraid to fire them?"

Chief rally organiser Muhammad Nazar has assured authorities the two-day gathering will be peaceful and criticised security forces for trying to stop people attending.

[According to a report by Agence France Presse, on November 10 some 300 Acehnese, some brandishing separatist flags, rallied outside the Dutch embassy to press demands for UN intervention to end the violence in Aceh - James Balowski.]