Jakarta – Indonesia's President Abdurrahman Wahid is expected to come under mounting pressure from the country's largest political party to impose a state of civil emergency in restive Aceh province when he meets parliament this week, a report said Monday.

The Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) believed the emergency status was needed in at least three of the eight regencies in the oil-rich province at the northern tip of Sumatra island, the Jakarta Post reported. "PDI-P will press the government to impose a state of civilian emergency," PDI-P parliamentary secretary Heri Achmadi was quoted as saying on the eve of a planned meeting between Wahid and parliament.

Achmadi named East Aceh, North Aceh and Pidie as the regencies where violence betweeh government and rebel forces had been on the rise. "The tension will mount unless a state of civilian emergency is imposed and security personnel given a legal basis to act in restoring security and order in the region," Achmadi said.

An official truce between the Indonesian government and the Aceh Merdeka (Free Aceh) separatist movement (GAM), is now in its fifth month in Aceh. More than 181 people have been killed since it began on June 2.

As Jakarta was considering whether to extend the truce, officially labelled as a "humanitarian pause", some military commanders have called for a state of civil emergency instead, alleging that the truce had only allowed separatist rebels to strengthen their forces.

In mid-September, Jakarta went ahead and signed an agreement with rebel representatives in Europe to prolong the truce by another three months, this time with unprecedented political dialogue on the future of the province.

The second largest party in Indonesia's parliament, Golkar, also expressed opposition to the truce at the weekend, alleging that GAM had turned the truce to its advantage. "We worry that GAM has used the humanitarian pause to continue the violence in an effort to draw international attention and discredit the Indonesian government," Golkar's parliamentary secretary Syamsul Muarif told the Jakarta Post.

The Free Aceh has been fighting for a free Islamic state in Aceh since 1976. Military brutality during a nine-year long government operation there that ended in 1998, and the perceived exploitation of Aceh's oil and gas reserves by Jakarta has fed separatist sentiment.