Jonathan Head reports from Aceh

It might have been the most peaceful scene on earth, and yet the air was heavy with the possibility of violence.

Just five minutes before the road had been lined with people, buying and selling fruit, chatting in animated groups, the usual bustle of any Indonesian village.

Even young children are vocal in their opposition to Indonesian rule

Suddenly they were no longer there, as the soldiers walked quickly past, eyes darting from side to side, fingers gripping their weapons.

These are the two worlds of Aceh: The frightened young men who have been sent from other islands to subdue this rebellious; and the Acehnese people, hardened and embittered by years of harsh repression.

In a region where nation states are so new and so fragile, the Acehnese think they have history on their side.

Aceh's flags of freedom continue to fly high

This was a powerful independent state, dominating the Straits of Malacca when Marco Polo first arrived in East Asia in the 13th century.

Right up until this century, it resisted attempts by outsiders to control it - the 2,000 graves filling the old Christian cemetery in the provincial capital testify to the trouble the Dutch had in trying to drag Aceh into its colonial empire.

Now, in the chaos and uncertainty following the collapse of the Suharto regime, the Acehnese are having another stab at breaking free.

History is clearly on Teunku Abdullah Syafei's mind as he bounds up the steps of the little mosque where he's agreed to meet me.

Many Achenese have known only years of violence

It has proved unexpectedly easy to find this rebel commander, who is being hunted down by several thousand Indonesian troops.

When he realises I'm English he grasps me in a suffocating embrace.

"The English are our friends", he proclaims to his armed bodyguards who have taken up positions beside the doors and windows of the mosque.

"They signed a treaty back in 1873 recognising us as a state."

Tradition of resistance

It's a piece of history I know almost nothing about, but I don't let on. Teunku Syafei is passionate about his country's tradition of resistance.

Hundreds of soldiers have been sent to subdue the rebels

"We Acehnese understand the meaning of war", he says. "We'll beat the Indonesians, just as we beat the Dutch."

There is a struggle going on to redefine the new Indonesia and it's being conducted at two levels.

On the ground it's a raw and bloody battle for supremacy, pitting different ethnic and religious groups against each other, with an increasingly demoralised army trying to position itself somewhere in the middle.

But at another level, it is about what kind of country Indonesia should be - or whether this amazingly diverse string of islands should be a country at all.

The Acehnese already appear to have made up their minds.

Dreams of independence

Hundreds have been made homeless by the lates upsurge

In the refugee camps which have sprung up around the mosques to shelter the tens of thousands fleeing from the army, life revolves around the dreams of an independent state

The people use only their own Acehnese language and in the evening, before prayers, they sing rousing national songs and fly the black-and-red Acehnese flag.

They refuse to have anything to do with the local Indonesian administration, which operates in a vacuum behind barbed wire and sandbags.

The soldiers are hated, and they know it. Years of indiscriminate brutality have robbed them of any prospect of winning hearts and minds.

Yet for the government in Jakarta, this is still a life or death contest it cannot afford to lose.

An abstract state

"Indonesia is an abstract concept", explains Dewi Fortuna Anwar, President Habibie's spokeswoman. "it is either the whole of the former Dutch East Indies, or it's nothing."

In her view, to let the Acehnese go would be to invite the dismemberment of the whole archipelago into dozens of potentially unstable little republics. And she is convinced the international community, bruised by its experience in the former Yugoslavia, wouldn't want that.

Maybe not.