BANDA ACEH, Indonesia — Red and white Indonesian flags have gone up outside nearly every home in Aceh province, from modern villas behind high fences to simple wood-plank dwellings on stilts nestled in the banana groves. It is a display of loyalty newly ordered by the government and enforced by fear.

When Indonesian marines recently spied a home without a flag, they raided it. They discovered three men asleep and a stash of identity cards, raising suspicions that the occupants were in league with Acehnese separatists, according to a village chief. The marines shuttled the suspects among several villages to see if anyone would identify them. No one did. A little later, villagers heard several gunshots. Soon after, the village chief recounted, they found the men’s discarded bodies.

Three months into a military campaign against the separatists, President Megawati Sukarnoputri’s government is sowing dread across this westernmost province. She called off a faltering truce, declared martial law and vowed to wipe out the rebels who have been fighting since 1976 for an independent homeland on Sumatra island in Southeast Asia’s longest-running conflict.

At least 40,000 Indonesian soldiers and police officers were ordered into action in the largest offensive since the 1975 invasion of East Timor. And the Acehnese, storied in Indonesian history for their ferocious resistance to Dutch colonialism, have been reaping a gruesome harvest as scores of bodies have begun appearing in rivers, ponds and fields, along roadsides and under bridges.

A weeklong trip through Aceh province revealed a widespread climate of fear. Some of the most respected civic leaders refused to speak out after police interrogations, and dozens of human rights workers and humanitarian activists, part of the province’s once vibrant network of civic groups, have gone into hiding, fearing arrest. More than 50 others have fled for the relative anonymity and security of Jakarta, the Indonesian capital. Almost no one would be quoted by name.

“There is no law in Aceh now,’’ said the village chief, a distinguished-looking man with graying hair, salt-and-pepper mustache and a pressed white shirt with embroidered trim. Surrounded by local residents, many in sweaty work shirts unbuttoned to their stomachs, he said many villages in the Bireun region of Aceh, about 100 miles east of here, can offer similar accounts of unarmed men being shot dead by Indonesian security forces.

Indonesian military officials say they have killed no more than four civilians, and these were by mistake. Lt. Col. Firdaus Komarno, a military spokesman, said the security forces were not responsible for the discarded corpses, stressing that officers follow strict rules including one requiring them to turn their victims over to relatives.

But villagers offered a different account. “They don’t need proof to call someone a member of GAM,’’ said a fruit seller in North Aceh, referring to the separatist Free Aceh Movement by its Indonesian initials. He spoke softly, pausing in mid-sentence whenever a customer approached his cart of mangoes and avocados, or at the frequent sightof helmeted soldiers passing with their assault rifles drawn.

“They can do whatever they want,’’ he said.

Indonesian troops forcibly evacuated about 40,000 people from their villages as they advanced on rebel positions, according to official Indonesian government figures. Wardi, a peasant from North Aceh, recounted with a scowl how in early July soldiers had given his entire village of 1,500 people less than two hours to leave their homes. Theyfled on foot with only the clothes they were wearing, abandoning their chickens, goats and cattle.

The soldiers eventually directed them to a vacant hilltop where government relief workers had hurriedly erected a camp of long shelters with thatched roofs and blue tarpaulin sides. Wardi sat on a raised wooden platform that now serves as bed, living room and kitchen table.

As the battle lines shifted in recent weeks, thousands of refugees have been allowed to return home. But many have told local reporters that they found their homes looted and livestock stolen. According to these reports, the villagers said they did not know whether they were robbed by rebels or Indonesian security forces.

The military campaign has succeeded in pushing the guerrillas away from the main coastal road and out of the primary towns, including the key industrial city of Lhokseumawe.

They are now pursuing the separatist force, initially estimated at about 5,500 fighters, into the lush mountains that rise above Aceh’s glistening green rice paddies and forests of coconut palms.

Military officials report that as of last weekend, security forces had suffered 35 fatalities while 704 rebels had been killed and more than 900 captured. The independent watchdog group Kontras, or Commission for the Disappeared and Victims of Violence, has been informed of 301 civilian deaths through the end of July, many after being taken into custody by security forces.

- Arab News Features 21 August 2003