John Martinkus, Banda Aceh – Handing out gruesome photographs of Acehnese shot point-blank in the head in recent violence, Free Aceh Movement (GAM) representative Zulfani saw nothing positive in the visit today of Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid to Aceh. He said Mr Wahid's visit, to implement Islamic sharia law in the separatist province, would do nothing to stem the violence in the province.

The photographs show victims of a security force operation last month which, according to GAM, led to the deaths of at least 72 people, the wounding of 109 and the torture and beating of 562 people in an attempt to prevent Acehnese attending a rally for independence in the capital, Banda Aceh.

Other photographs show the bodies of three humanitarian workers shot dead on December 6. The three, who worked for a Danish-funded organisation, were killed as they tried to assist victims of the violence. A fourth worker escaped and is now in the care of the Danish Embassy in Jakarta, from where he identified those responsible for the killing as military personnel.

After initially denying involvement in the killing, the Aceh police chief, Brigadier-General Rasjudi, announced on Friday that three security personnel and one civilian had been detained in connection with the deaths. Two more civilians were held on Sunday in connection with the case.

Local human rights activists do not hold much hope for justice in the current environment, where security personnel out of uniform routinely carry out killings and blame GAM rebels.

The latest report by non-government organisation Kontras describes a pattern of similar death-squad style killings. On Monday last week in East Aceh, Bari Bin Bahkri answered the door of his home to two plain-clothes men: they shot him in the face and he died immediately. In North Aceh two days earlier, Iskander Hamden was grabbed by four men and taken away. The next day his body was found nearby, with gunshot wounds to the head.

In other incidents, uniformed police are directly involved. Feisal Hamdi, of the Coalition for Human Rights, described how police in South Aceh responded last Tuesday to a grenade attack on their post. "They called for back-up and then surrounded a house. They start shooting and they arrest a man and beat him after dragging him out. They grab the other two in the house and beat them. They deny they are members of GAM. After half an hour of beating they don't confess and the police shoot them dead."

Mr Hamdi said the perpetrators of such violence "cannot be identified because they don't wear uniforms and often wear face masks – but the villagers note their dialects, from Java or north Sumatra. The people know no GAM activists are Javanese."

In June a "humanitarian pause" was negotiated to try to stop the violence in Aceh. A committee including representatives from GAM, the Indonesian security forces and aid groups was formed and a timeframe of six months was put in place to deliver aid and stop the violence.

The head of the Indonesian security committee, Police Colonel Ridhwan Karim, is pessimistic about the future of negotiations. "There is no longer any trust," he said. "There are so many violations committed by GAM." He accuses GAM of using the civilian population as a shield to operate behind, and of using the humanitarian pause to strengthen their position.

Colonel Ridhwan believes that after the January 15 expiry of the humanitarian pause, GAM should be disarmed and excluded from further talks. "If they still want independence it has to be solved by military force," he said.

Mr Zulfani, the GAM representative to the security committee, surrounded by the photographs of the military victims, says the military and the police are actively hunting their people and killing civilians in the process.

"There are clashes and the military and police burn down shops and houses and every time the military moves they frighten the civilians and they run. The police say they are GAM and open fire. But in reality they are just afraid of the police."

He says an offensive in January to seize GAM's weapons would fail, just as the decade-long military operation to wipe out GAM failed in the 1980s and early 1990s, adding: "GAM will attack only if the TNI [Indonesian military] attack, but if they have an operation there will be violence."