Jakarta – The chairman of Indonesia's People's Consultative Assembly, Mr Amien Rais, said yesterday that lawmakers would block a plan by President Abdurrahman Wahid to end a 34-year-old ban against communists.

"I give a 100-per-cent guarantee that the decree will not be revoked," the official Antara news agency quoted Mr Amien as having said in an interview with a Jakarta radio station.

He said most Indonesians did not want communism to reappear as it contravened the national philosophy of Pancasila, which called for a belief in God. "Communism has no place in Indonesia because it is based on atheism," he said.

Indonesia's Communist Party, once the world's largest in membership, was stamped out and outlawed by the nation's armed forces under former President Suharto after it was accused of staging an abortive coup in 1965. Thousands of communists and leftist supporters were killed and many more were imprisoned.