Vaudine England in Jakarta – A Javanese militia has formed in Central Aceh and, with encouragement from security forces, is stoking conflict between Acehnese and other ethnic groups in the separatist province, human rights workers and analysts believe.

"My people have been there and found that these claims are true. Many Javanese transmigrants there have been armed by the TNI [Indonesian defence force]," a rights worker said.

The war between the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM) and the military has claimed more than 1,000 lives this year. Since a peace plan was announced in May, extra troops have been sent to Aceh and the death toll has risen significantly.

The reports of a new ethnic militia raise concerns that a broader conflict is being encouraged to justify further military intervention. Analysts said such a militia would fit the standard practice of the military in separatist-inclined provinces. But they also warned that the initial reports came from GAM-related groups and need further verification.

However, the claims that elements of the army were creating conflict between civilian groups were given extra weight by a range of informed observers. "The picture is of an East Timor-style divide-and-rule operation, going back over at least a year, carried out by military intelligence figures," one Western analyst said.

A 17-page statement from Sira, the Aceh-based pro-independence Centre for a Referendum, which is related to GAM, said the violence in Central Aceh was caused by groups with names such as "Sons of Java Born in Sumatra". Sira said animosity between ethnic groups were being exploited to spread tension in Aceh.

More than 100 bodies have been found by Red Cross volunteers and others this month, primarily in Central Aceh, home to many ethnic minorities. "We've been able to remove 94 bodies. We have been unable to reach hundreds more," Hajarul Aswad, head of the Indonesian Red Cross office in Takengon, Central Aceh, said a week ago.

He said the group found the bodies of 27 people who had been shot and burned in Simpang Meuderek. In one house, 16 bodies were stacked on top of each other. In Pepedang village, bodies were lying along the roadside, Mr Hajarul said. A journalist from Serambi, a newspaper based in Banda Aceh, found a number of deserted villages in the area.

Villagers in Simpang Lantang told Serambi they had seen troops dressed in camouflage clothes entering the village before four men were shot and houses burned.

Local media said yesterday that an exodus was under way from Central Aceh due to food shortages and a warning from GAM that it planned new attacks on soldiers and police.

Violence elsewhere in Aceh has seen many Javanese migrants flee to Java, and the minority communities of Bataks and Padang from other parts of Sumatra feel increasingly insecure. About 40 per cent of Central Aceh's 250,000 people are Javanese. Acehnese have lived aside migrants from other areas, including Javanese, for decades.

Central Aceh is home to coffee plantations dating back to Dutch times, when labour was brought in from Java. But Javanese who arrived more recently, through the central authorities' transmigration programme, have faced the strongest Acehnese resentment. The Sira statement referred to a history of tension between some Javanese migrants and the local Gayo people. It said indigenous groups had been marginalised by Jakarta's efforts to transfer large populations to outer areas such as Aceh.

Serambi quoted a village leader from Central Aceh as saying: "Since 1926, we have been living here, Acehnese, Gayo, Padang, Batak, Javanese, in harmony with each other. I don't understand why there is so much hostility now."