BANDA ACEH, Indonesia, July 24, Reuter - A rebellion in the Indonesian province of Aceh, probably initiated by vengeful ex-soldiers, is gathering support from local people hostile to central government and the military, analysts say.

"We took a survey and found eight out of 10 Acehnese support the movement, if only passively," said a civil-rights worker from the troubled province at the northern tip of Sumatra.

In the past four months at least 40 civilians have been shot or beheaded and local people watching the movement of troops and coffins say military casualties are almost certainly higher.

Jakarta, clearly worried by what observers say is the worst violence in over a decade, has vowed to crush the movement by the end of this year and has sent in five Javanese batallions to do the job.

It gives no death-toll for the action by the group it calls the GPK, or security disturbing movement, but says it is made up of common criminals linked to the local cannabis trade.

"If these people were just criminals, how would they be able just to fade away into the countryside?" remarked one foreign analyst. "The Acehnese have no cause to harbour criminals."

Security sources say many soldiers are out of uniform but the uniformed forces keep up a high profile, barrelling down the main highway in broad daylight with headlights flashing, advertising to local people the fate of captured insurgents.

Arrested GPK suspects cower in the back of open trucks, semi-automatic weapons thrust under their noses by soldiers.

Local intellectuals and street-vendors alike say more troops will just aggravate the resentment that has dissolved the government's information network and fertilised the movement.

"We Acehnese are very proud and very tempermental. The harder you stamp on an Acehnese the harder he will fight back," said a local lawyer.

In a letter circulated to the local press, a group calling itself the National Liberation Front Aceh Sumatra said it had killed Indonesian soldiers and their spies as part of a fight for independence from Indonesia.

The language echos that used 13 years ago by Aceh Merdeka (Free Aceh), a group that declared independence for the province in 1977 but which lacked popular support.

Its members were arrested or fled the country, but many believe they are the brains behind the current unrest.

The brawn, analysts say, comes from ex-soldiers, 50 soldiers kicked out of the army by the North Sumatra Command Area, mostly for disciplinary offences.

They took with them a knowledge of local command posts, military training, some weapons and a grudge, local sources say. Some went into the cannabis trade. Then the military launched a big anti-cannabis offensive last year and the grudge grew.

"The ex-soldiers had arms but no cause and the true Aceh Merdeka separatists have a cause but no arms. They both saw the potential and there has been a kind of fusion," an analyst said.

Acehnese openly express their distain for the police and military, who they say do not respect the zealously Islamic character of Aceh.

"We are fed up with roadblocks, fed up with the Javanese stopping us all the time so arrogantly," said a local man who regularly travels the east coast road that runs past huge government-run industries at the heart of the trouble zone.

Aceh held Dutch colonial troops at bay long after the rest of Indonesia was colonised, and local people still talk with pride of giving up their gold to provide the newly declared republic with its first plane to break Dutch blockades in the 1940s.

"We feel that we sacrificed so much for Indonesia, and now Jakarta is taking it all from us and gives us no respect," said a local businesman.

A massive liquefied-natural-gas plant at Lhoksemauwe on the east coast of Aceh provides Jakarta with a large chunk of its foreign exchange. Nearby, private fertiliser and paper factories use local raw materials but provide few jobs.

Construction of the plants and smart housing estates for staff, mostly foreign and Javanese, kept locals employed for some years but as building slows the cracks are showing.

"They took our rice paddies and our fishing grounds for their big factories, put local prices up with their big salaries but gave us no jobs. People live there like Hollywood movie stars and we can't even make a living," said a local man.

But it has been poor people resettled in Aceh as part of a scheme to spread population away from Indonesia's overcrowded main island of Java who have been the victims of the resentment. Some of them have been killed out of "social jealousy," a local political analysts said.

Many here dismiss the rhetoric of Islamic seraratism as a ploy to fire up resentment in Aceh, but they say it is not clear where the violence is leading.

"What is their real goal? That is the big question mark," the local analyst said.