Washington – Amnesty International Wednesday urged Indonesian President-elect Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to give top priority to ending human rights violations in the restive province of Aceh.

"This is the first test for Mr Yudhoyono when he takes office and the steps he will take on the situation in Aceh will define his presidency," said T. Kumar, the rights group's Washington-based advocacy director for Asia and Pacific.

He was speaking in conjunction with Amnesty's release of a damning report on human rights abuses committed largely by the military in the small oil-rich province in the northern tip of the Indonesian island of Sumatra.

It came a week after another group, Human Rights Watch, released findings that electric shocks, cigarette burns, beatings and other tortures were routinely used by Indonesian security forces on detainees suspected of supporting the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM). Indonesia's military and police have denied the torture allegations.

Amnesty said in its report that young men, even non-GAM members, were killed, tortured, ill-treated and arbitrarily detained, while women and girls were raped and subjected to other forms of sexual violence.

Trials of hundreds of individuals suspected of being members of or supporting GAM were flawed, it said, adding that some of those imprisoned may be "prisoners of conscience."

Security forces say more than 2,200 rebels have been killed since the military launched an all-out offensive against GAM in May 2003. Rights groups say many of the dead were civilians.