Associated Press in Jakarta – President Megawati Sukarnoputri yesterday urged Indonesia's powerful military to stop meddling in politics and instead concentrate on defending the sprawling union from threats of national disintegration.

"The [armed forces] should leave politics and concentrate on the defence of the country," Ms Megawati said. "Internal security is the responsibility of the police."

Ms Megawati's statement, delivered at a ceremony to mark the 56th anniversary of the founding of the armed forces, indicates she may gradually try to reduce the political influence generals have enjoyed since 1966, when the army ousted her father, Sukarno, as president and set up a military dictatorship.

Almost half of the country's 200,000-strong army forms part of the force's "territorial function", which represents a parallel administration that rivals the civilian Government. The armed services also hold 38 seats in the 500-member national Parliament and control a vast business empire that effectively renders them independent of governmental budgetary controls.

Ms Megawati herself is said to have relied heavily on the support of the military brass in her campaign to replace former president Abdurrahman Wahid, who was removed from office by the legislature in July.

The military has been heavily engaged in anti-separatist operations in the rebellious provinces of Aceh and Irian Jaya. Human rights groups have accused it of committing numerous abuses there and in other regions where religious or inter-communal conflicts have flared since the fall of president Suharto's dictatorship in 1998.

"It is not that easy to keep the unitary state of the Republic of Indonesia intact because there are numerous internal and external factors which may try to break up this country," Ms Megawati said. "You have to avoid all violations of human rights," she told about 7,000 soldiers, Marines, sailors and airmen, who staged a march-past during the ceremony held at Jakarta's Halim air base. "I call on all commanders to understand international law. Every military operation has to guarantee the rights of civilians and other non-combatants."

In response to a rampage by Indonesian troops in East Timor in 1999, when hundreds of people were killed and much of the territory devastated, the United States – Indonesia's traditional arms supplier – froze military ties and weapons sales. Although Washington has moved to restore some military contacts, it has insisted that Indonesia clean up its human rights record before equipment sales are resumed.