Only misery, not wealth, flows from the ExxonMobil gas pipeline that passes near this poor Aceh village, residents say.

They blame Indonesian security forces assigned to guard ExxonMobil's facilities for beatings, kidnappings, sexual assaults and other human rights abuses.

Abdullah, 56, a farmer, said his 25-year-old son, Muhammad, disappeared one month ago after making his regular morning journey to tap rubber trees.

Villagers later told Abdullah that soldiers who guard ExxonMobil had passed through the area on a search operation and taken his son away. Muhammad was already dead and buried, they told him.

"We finally dug him up and buried him in the Islamic way, in the family graveyard," Abdullah said. "His entire body had been sliced with something sharp. It's certain he was severely tortured." For the past four years Teungku Hasballah, 41, the head of a local Islamic boarding school, has been documenting cases like Muhammad's.

According to Hasballah (not his real name) at least 85 civilians from villages around ExxonMobil have been shot dead by Indonesian forces since 1999. He said most of them died during government searches after clashes with rebels of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), which has been fighting for an independent Aceh since 1976.

An estimated 10,000 people have died in the conflict since then, and an Acehnese rights body has said 845 civilians have been killed this year alone.

Apart from those killed near ExxonMobil since 1999, Hasballah's records show more than 250 others were beaten, tortured or sexually abused. Dozens of other civilians were arrested and remain missing, Hasballah said.

He blames all the abuses on Indonesian security forces guarding ExxonMobil facilities. The company denies involvment in any abuses.

"We are disturbed by any suggestion that ExxonMobil is in any way involved with alleged human rights abuses by security forces in Aceh and categorically deny the allegations," says ExxonMobil's human rights policy, posted on its website.

Alue NGOm is one of 160 communities around the North Aceh Arun gas field, Indonesia's largest.

Classified by the Jakarta government as a vital national institution, the facilities are heavily guarded by soldiers. Despite that, GAM rebels have been blamed for attacks on company personnel and facilities.

Residents in Alue NGOm said they fear the almost daily searches for GAM carried out by troops based in the ExxonMobil complex and surrounding villages.

The Aceh military spokesman, Major Zaenal Mutaqin, said Indonesian troops have been sent to Aceh to secure the people against GAM terror. At the same time Mutaqin admitted some soldiers have acted outside regulations and had been punished by, for example, being sent back to their home units.