Terry Friel, Lhokseumawe – Rebels in Indonesia's battered Aceh province said on Sunday they could not work with new nationalist President Megawati Sukarnoputri and demanded foreign intervention to help end the bloodshed.

The Free Aceh Movement's (GAM) deputy military commander, Sofyan Daud, told Reuters in an interview at a secret location near here that the separatists did not trust the daughter of Indonesia's founding father, Sukarno.

Ending a long-running rebellion that has killed more than 1,500 people, most of them civilians, since January alone and threatens Indonesia's unity is one of Megawati's toughest and most urgent tasks.

"The policies of Megawati and her father only harm the people of Aceh and bear no fruit," said Daud, a pistol tucked into his jeans and surrounded by dozens of fighters carrying a motley collection of guns, some home-made, and rocket launchers. "We will have no relations with Megawati."

Peace talks

However, Daud said GAM would press ahead with its so far fruitless peace talks with the Indonesian government – due to resume in September – despite Megawati's rise to power last month and the arrest of the rebels' chief peace negotiator.

But he demanded international monitors to police any future ceasefire after the failure of previous agreements. The industrial town of Lhokseumawe lies to the east of the provincial capital Banda Aceh on the northwestern tip of Sumatra island.

"Of course we still want to continue the peace dialogue," he said, speaking in Acehnese. "But we need an international forum to watch what the Indonesian soldiers do. We need an international body that can control and punish the Indonesian troops. They [Jakarta] talk peace, but their troops in the field don't follow the agreement." Daud denied allegations his own men had committed human rights abuses.

"That is an irrational accusation," he said. But some Acehnese say the rebels are guilty of such abuses and the respected Banda Aceh-based Serambi newspaper was closed for a few days last week by threats from an enraged GAM commander until his superiors stepped in. "They [GAM] are just as brutal," said an academic in Banda Aceh, who said he was too afraid of both sides to be named.

The size of the rag-tag band of rebels, some of whom serve Indonesian troops or police in coffee shops or markets by day and take up arms at night, is estimated as high as 10,000. They are far from skilled. But they have the numbers and the popular support to cause serious problems for the 40,000 Indonesian police and soldiers in the province of four million.

At night, the rebels control the countryside outside the towns and villages and beyond the outskirts of Banda Aceh. They are even able to block the road to the golf course where Indonesian officers play, minutes from the centre of the capital.

One of Megawati's first public announcements as president was to formally apologise to Aceh for past abuses that have killed thousands. And she is taking personal charge of bringing peace.

Many Indonesians fear that if Indonesia's western-most province, rich in gas and other natural resources, breaks away, it will create a domino effect in other disgruntled regions that could tear apart the world's fourth most populous nation. The other main separatist hotspot is Irian Jaya in the far east.

Autonomy

But Megawati, like her father a staunch nationalist, has firmly rejected an independence vote similar to that which saw East Timor overwhelmingly reject Jakarta's rule in 1999.

The cornerstone of her solution is to push ahead with her ousted predecessor Abdurrahman Wahid's policy to give Aceh more control over its own affairs and resources.

But many in Aceh say Jakarta has failed to deliver on too many such promises in the past and only independence will do. They also doubt Megawati has enough control over her unruly, poorly-trained and under-resourced soldiers and police to make good on her pledge.

And they reject Jakarta's retitling of the province as The Peaceful Land of Aceh, its renaming of schools and other institutions with more Islamic terms and the introduction of Islamic Shariah law as mere window dressing.

"Autonomy is not enough," said a farmer in the small village of Jeunieb. "We want independence," he whispered before quickly moving away from foreigners to another table at a roadside coffee stall as soon as a police patrol appeared in the distance.