Rendi A. Witular and Hotli Simanjuntak – His sharp eyes shoot out a jittery feeling of rage, while his posture speaks of a once mighty former combatant of the now disbanded Free Aceh Movement (GAM) rebel group.

The ex-fighter who goes only by the name Dahlan now finds daily civilian life much harder than expected, after leaving his forest hideout promptly after GAM leaders and the government inked a peace accord in August 2005, ending 29 years of fighting that left around 15,000 people dead.

Speaking in the local Acehnese dialect, Dahlan explains how he makes ends meet by relying on the mercy of his former commander, Teungku Abe, who regularly supplies him and his colleagues with food and money.

Dahlan, now living with his parents-in-law in Teungah Seulemak village, Matang Kuli district, North Aceh, says he has no hope for the future, let alone for tomorrow's meal.

Despite praising the peace, Dahlan and other residents of Teungah Seulemak village, a former hotbed of the insurgency movement, believe they have been shortchanged by the Acehnese elites and former high-ranking GAM commanders.

Dahlan, who served as a mere foot soldier since joining the GAM in 1998, is just one of hundreds of former combatants now seemingly lost in the wake of the euphoria that followed the signing of the peace accord and Aceh's special autonomy designation. It is common knowledge here that people like Dahlan have been used by former GAM commanders to secure development projects and to wring out "security fees" from businesses and NGOs working in the province.

Efforts to empower the former combatants have already been tabled, but have proven stubbornly ineffective thus far.

The central government, for instance, has provided Rp 25 million to each of 3,000 former GAM combatants. It has also disbursed funds to 5,726 conflict-affected villages, ranging from Rp 60 million to Rp 170 million. But in reality, the schemes have for the most part soured.

According to Dahlan, his Rp 25 million was taken by his commander and pooled, along with the money given to the other combatants, to set up a motorcycle workshop, in the hopes that they could generate an assured future income.

"But the business only lasted a year, because most of the combatants and their friends regularly refused to pay for services when bringing their motorcycles there to be fixed," Dahlan says.

Another former combatant, Rajudin, who lives in Matang Mlinye village in Syamtalira Aron district, a few meters from ExxonMobil's Arun cluster II production area, said he was not fortunate enough to receive the government handout.

Like Dahlan, he also relies heavily on financial support from his former commander, Sago Asmuni.

With the former foot soldiers mired in hardship, and perhaps falling into desperation, it has become a growing concern in Aceh that someday the combatants will pick up their weapons still stashed in the jungle and resort to crimes, out of hunger or out of political dissatisfaction.

While there are no official links yet on their involvement in the recent slew of armed violence in Aceh, suspicion is heavily skewed against them.

A recent joint report from the Aceh Reintegration Board (BRA) and the World Bank revealed that at least 16 people were killed in a series of attacks by unidentified gunmen between December 2008 and February 2009. The attacks also left at least 47 people seriously injured.

The security situation is likely to further batter the Aceh economy, with investors already wary about setting foot in the province, thus igniting an explosion of unemployment and social unrest.

With the former foot soldiers fair game for easy manipulation by other people and various factions of the former GAM, the security situation in Aceh will be strikingly frail.

Pledges made by Dahlan and Rajudin that they would neither hesitate nor hold back should their commanders order them back to fight are an indication that things will only get worse should the government fail to immediately address these problems.

"If you asked me whether I would go back and retrieve the gun that I've hidden in the jungle, to fight again like in the old days, due to this hardship, I would leave that up to my commander to decide," Dahlan says.