Chris McCall, Jakarta – Support for independence in troubled Aceh has reached fever pitch and separatists say the campaign's momentum now is almost unstoppable. Indonesia largely has its own security forces to blame, they say.

Backers of an independence referendum have vowed to continue peaceful rallies until the former sultanate's sovereignty is restored after bloody killings and a wave of mass protests marked by intimidation. The latest in the province last weekend drew 400,000 people to the capital, Banda Aceh, despite the efforts of security forces. Indonesia has consistently rejected the referendum demand, and has the full backing of the international community.

"Now about 95 per cent want full independence," claimed Nasrullah Dehlawy, political officer of the lobby group United People of Aceh, set up to campaign for independence through peaceful means. "People will do everything, even without international support."

Government representatives were due to meet with figures from the rebel Free Aceh Movement in Geneva today to resume talks about extending a truce which has failed to end more than a decade of bloodshed. But the rebels postponed the talks, saying Indonesia's security forces are killing too many people. The Foreign Ministry's director-general for politics, Wirayuda, said the rebels had indicated they would agree to fresh talks before the end of the month, "but we don't have a fixed date".

Hundreds of Acehnese have been killed since the truce began in June. Mr Dehlawy, who is also a member of a truce monitoring committee, put the number of dead at more than 1,000. Around two-thirds were civilians and most were killed by the police or military, he said.

However, some of the killings were probably spontaneous revenge attacks on officers by ordinary Acehnese, he said. "People cannot bear it. They feel they have been treated like animals," said Mr Dehlawy. Indonesian security forces blame the rebels for much of the violence, but independent monitors do not agree.

At a mass rally on Tuesday, the Information Centre for Aceh Referendum, (Sira), the main body campaigning for a vote for the province on self-determination, vowed to begin a new wave of strikes and protests this month if a series of demands were not met.

Sira's remit is to campaign for a vote on independence, not to second-guess its likely result. But the demands read out by co-ordinator Muhammad Nazar on Tuesday struck a strongly pro-independence note.

It demanded restoration of Aceh's sovereignty and for the Dutch Government to "revoke" a declaration of war from 1873 which led to its inclusion in the former Dutch East Indies, renamed Indonesia following independence.

Apart from this century-old war cry, it called on the Hague to be brought to book for "illegally" handing over control of Aceh to Jakarta in 1949. That year, a conference was held in the Dutch capital which finally gave Indonesia independence after a bloody four-year war.

Sira's other demands are equally unlikely to be met. It has demanded that Indonesia withdraw its security forces and that Jakarta be held responsible for more than a decade of human rights abuses in the province. Sira had also sought United Nations intervention. It promised a new wave of peaceful mass strikes if the demands were not met. That is unlikely in the extreme.

With the truce faltering, there are fears that a new, wider conflict could erupt. The Indonesian side has accused the rebels of using the truce to regroup. Their operations have become much more sophisticated in the two years since former president Suharto fell.

A rebel truce-monitoring delegation remains in place at Banda Aceh's upmarket Kuala Tripa hotel. Representative Amni bin Ahmad Marzuki said technically the truce remains in force until January 15, but the rebels would not resume talks with the Government side unless there was a halt to the violence.