Singapore – A noted Southeast Asian political scientist warned Thursday that Indonesia's military may overthrow the democratically-elected government of President Abdurrahman Wahid if he stumbled on the future of strife-torn Aceh province.

Armed separatists are fighting for an independent Islamic state in the oil-rich province in the north of Indonesia's large Sumatra island.

Michael Leifer, director of the Asia research centre at the London School of Economics and Political Science, singled out Indonesia's future as "the overriding problem" of Southeast Asia at a forum on the region's political and security outlook for 2000.

"Indeed, should Gus Dur [Wahid's popular name] stumble over Aceh, there is a danger that the Armed Forces, which have closed ranks over civilian attempts to hold them to account for human righs abuses, will seize on the issue of the integrity of the Indonesian state as a pretext for usurping political power," he said.

Leifer noted that former military chief General Wiranto had maintained his active service status in his new office as coordinating minister for political affairs and security, "which would seem a platform for a future bid for the presidency."

Leifer criticised Indonesian policy in Aceh, saying it "has consistently been a matter of too little too late with shades of Kosovo about the conflict.

"By way of exaggerated analogy, Indonesia's army has taken on the role of the Serbs, while the Achenese resistance would seem to have learned from the example of the KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army)," he said.

He said that Indonesia in one sense was facing a "crisis of national identity because of a rationale for nationhood based on empire."

He said his inclination was that Indonesia would remain intact after East Timor but that would depend very much on the "cohesion and unity of purpose" of the diversely-constituted government of ailing President Wahid.

This, he said, could not be taken for granted because the Armed Forces, apparently determined to hold on to the "prerequisites of power," still insisted on operating as a state within a state.

"Indonesia continues to live under the Damocles sword of military intervention, which is a double-edged weapon capable of doing incalculable damage to political order and economic recovery," said Professor Leifer, who has held visiting positions at universities in Australia, the Philippines and Singapore.