Our South East Asia correspondent Ginny Stein has just returned from Aceh, where she gained rare access to one of the rebel base camps. This is Aceh's highway to war - a single carriageway that winds through the picturesque rice fields of the coastland, and into the mountains beyond. In the capital Banda Aceh, it's almost possible that the conflict that's raged for 25 years, exacting thousands of lives, does not exist. But that changes the moment you leave the relative calm of the city. Never-ending roadblocks are the first indication.
Soldiers conducting sweeps through villages are another.
In this village, a new company of soldiers has arrived from Jakarta, their rucksacks as yet unpacked. Trained in the art of guerrilla warfare, they're part of a new eleven hundred strong force sent into Aceh, with the aim of assisting the military's attempt to crush the separatist movement. Although they are on Indonesian soil, this is hostile territory. Not far down this road in this most unremarkable small village, the unexpected presence of a foreign journalist causes a burst of activity. Within minutes I'm surrounded.