Susan Sim, Banda Aceh – Pressure is mounting on Jakarta to hold peace talks with a belligerent separatist group it is trying to crush and make a policy shift that could amount to an admission that it has lost political and moral authority in the country's westernmost province.

The alternative to talks, civic leaders in the provincial capital fear, could be massive bloodshed, with the ordinary Acehnese a victim once again.

"The patience of the Acehnese people is running out," Professor Abdullah Ali, a member of the Presidential Advisory team on Aceh, told The Straits Times. "It's getting bewildering trying to find a solution. The government's inaction and the military's bloodbath will simply turn the province into a recruiting ground for the Free Aceh Movement. That is the logical outcome of escalating the violence. More and more people will start arming themselves."

A local source estimated that up to half the villagers in the three districts where rebels and soldiers hunt each other down – Pidie, North and East Aceh – might already have acquired weapons and some arms training. A number might also have joined the estimated 400,000 refugees who fled military sweeps in recent weeks, burying arms caches to await their return.

Human rights activists whose work put them in contact with victims of military atrocities are also alarmed. "We're on the brink of a general rebellion," said Mr Humam Hamid of the Care Human Rights Forum. "The military's behaviour is forcing Acehnese to stand up against it. If the conflict escalates, we have no place to go. We're surrounded by sea and mountains."

The pressure to find a political solution to Aceh's pent-up frustration with Jakarta's economic exploitation and failure to live up to founding President Sukarno's pledge to allow it to develop according to Islamic values, as well as a recent military occupation claiming over 7,000 victims of unlawful killing, torture, rape and disappearances, is coming not just from Acehnese but political leaders in Jakarta.

The National Human Rights Commission last week proposed that President B.J. Habibie recognise the Free Aceh Movement or Gerakan Aceh Merdeka (GAM) "as a fact in the field" and initiate a dialogue with it. His own 17-strong advisory team backs the idea.

But government ministers have ruled out talks with GAM while promising a comprehensive solution beyond the use of military force. At the same time, a martial-law option is being explored and an offensive against GAM is likely to go into full swing when more troops arrive, local organisers note.

"This does not build trust. The immediate demand of the people is to pull the riot troops out, not have more," said one community leader who asked not to be named.

He said GAM leaders in Sweden had indicated to him that a pre-condition for peace talks with Jakarta would be the withdrawal of all troops from the province.

But such a vacuum would only allow the GAM to grow even faster than it had in the one year since Indonesian military chief General Wiranto withdrew most of his men in a spurt of reformasi, a "mistake" he was not likely to want to repeat.

Seeking to bridge such an impasse, civic leaders are lobbying Western diplomats and international bodies to intercede on their behalf. Student groups have been less subtle, staging a two-day strike in the province and hunger strikes in front of the Dutch embassy in Jakarta last week to draw international attention to Aceh.

"What is the international community waiting for?" asked Prof Abdullah. "Doesn't the UN Charter on Human Rights apply to us too?"