500,000 Indonesians in Separatist March

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia — As many as 500,000 marchers in Aceh province protested today in the biggest rally yet in favor of an East Timor-style vote on whether to break away from Indonesia.

The demonstrators, many of them villagers who converged on Banda Aceh, the provincial capital, packed streets around the main mosque, along a river and outside the local parliament.

Police Maj. Saedul Saini said there were 500,000 marchers, one-eighth of Aceh’s population. There were no reports of violence. Only a few police and soldiers were on hand.

The separatist cause here has been buoyed by East Timor’s U.N.-supervised vote on Aug. 30 to part from Indonesia, but the government in Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, says the case of Aceh, in northern Sumatra, is different.