Jakarta – Indonesia's disgraced former military chief General Wiranto Friday accused the country's political leadership of driving the nation to the edge of an abyss and mobilizing personal militias.

Delivering a speech entitled "Lessons from the Past" before businessmen and diplomats here, Wiranto also accused President Abdurrahman Wahid of falling back into Suharto-style one-man rule. "Today we find the mobilization of seas of people which could lead to a flood of radicalism," he said.

"Our politicians, who have called their followers to form ranks, have driven us to the edge of a cliff. Such manoeuvres have made it nearly impossible to form a consensus concerning how to solve the many problems we face."

The retired general, who rose to power under former dicator Suharto, and has been named by a United Nations probe as one of those responsible for the militia violence in East Timor in 1999, said post-Suharto politicians had failed to learn the lessons of the past.

"The reform movement, which should have provided us with a means of greater democracy, is instead, though justifying itself with righteous rhetoric, in fact despoiling our democracy."

He said Indonesia was entering a new phase of history "... that of the mobilization of vast masses of people who force one opinion [on others] and the forming of paramilitary groups and militias that openly prepare for civil war. This is something that could prove dangerous, not only for our democracy but for the new life of our republic," he said.

He compared the current situation to Indonesia's first years after independence in the 1940s and 1950s when, he said, under founding president Sukarno, political parties held mass demonstrations "to build an image of power." Political parties at that time also formed militias, he said.

He also accused President Wahid, who is currently battling efforts by parliament to oust him, of perpetuating the "personal rule" style of Suharto.

Wiranto, who once served as a military aide to Suharto, himself a retired army general, reeled off a list of mistakes during the former dictator's three-decade-long rule.

"One was the centralization of power, which enhanced a form of personal rule by the president which in turn led to the decline of the rule of law and the rise of corruption."

Such shortcomings, he said, had "not been dealt with in a signifcant way by the [Wahid] government that was elected in 1999." In his speech, Wiranto made no mention of East Timor, nor of the military's controversial rule over the past 30 years or in the post-Suharto era.