Jakarta – Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid on Wednesday defended his policy of leniency towards the country's military generals and former leaders found guilty of gross misdeeds in the past.

"If proven guilty we will pardon them," Wahid said, in an apparent warning to anyone expecting drastic punishment for any generals implicated in last year's Timor violence, or for former president Suharto if he is found guilty of corruption.

Addressing an international seminar in Jakarta on the problems facing Indonesia in its quest for democratization after 32 years of authoritarian rule under Suharto, Wahid said reconcilation was now a global trend.

"The need is for reconciliation, not confrontation," he said, citing Nelson Mandela's Truth and Justice Commission, dealing with past human rights abuses in South Africa, Corazon Aquino's dealings with the Marcos family in the Philippines and South Korea's Kim Dae-Jung's overtures to North Korea.

All took the "non-confrontational" approach in dealing with old foes as "other human beings," Wahid said. "Here in Indonesia I deal openly with former president Suharto, former president Habibie, with the generals and ex-commanders."

Indonesia's Attorney General's Office is preparing to bring Suharto to court on charges of abuse of power and corruption and is interrogating 32 people, including former armed forces chief Wiranto, in connection with the Timor violence.

Wahid has said repeatedly in the past that he would pardon Suharto if he were found guilty, but only after he has been brought to trial, despite calls by militant students that the former president be given harsh punishment.

He has also stated that he would pardon Wiranto, his former coordinating minister for politics and security, if he too was found guilty of the Timor charges, despite a threat by the UN Commissioner for Human Rights to convene an an international war crimes tribunal if it sees the Indonesian justice process as unsatisfactory.

The Wahid government has pledged to push on with the trials of those implicated in the post-ballot Timor violence, which left much of the territory destroyed. But it has said it would not consider itself bound by any UN move to initiate prosecution proceedings through an international court.