The New York Times

September 15, 1999

U.N. Authorizes Multinational Force to Restore Peace in East Timor

By BARBARA CROSSETTE

UNITED NATIONS -- After a marathon of negotiations and debate on Tuesday, the Security Council gave the go-ahead early Wednesday to send an international military force into East Timor to restore order after nearly two weeks of violence. A force of up to 7,000 troops could begin landing this week.

Pressure to complete work on the resolution was intense in the light of continuing reports of attacks on East Timorese by militias opposed to independence for the territory. "Lives are leaking away in East Timor while they wait for the Council," said Sir Jeremy Greenstock, the British representative, who introduced the resolution.

A direct reference to Australia as the designated leader of the international force was dropped from the resolution, but Indonesia will not oppose an Australian commander, Foreign Minister Ali A. Alatas said on Tuesday.

Indonesian and Australian military officials met on Tuesday afternoon to begin discussing how the force will be deployed.

Alexander Downer, Australia's Foreign Minister, met with Mr. Alatas and told reporters later that he had assured him of significant participation by Asian nations. "This is a sensitive issue for Indonesia, and we understand that," he said. "This is not an Australian force."

A more fundamental longterm question concerns the role of the Indonesian Army. The Indonesians say they expect to work with the international force, and the Council resolution demands their cooperation. But how many Indonesians, and for how long, remains unclear.

"The question of the withdrawal of Indonesian troops from East Timor is a matter which is not resolved," Mr. Downer said on Tuesday. "Indonesian troops will certainly be there in the initial stages of the deployment of the multinational force. There will have to be a mechanism for cooperation between the multinational force and Indonesian military. There are, after all, quite a large number of Indonesian troops in East Timor."

The duration of the peace keeping operation was not specified.

Under the May 5 agreement that led to the referendum last month on East Timor's independence, Indonesian troops would be gone by the end of the year, when the United Nations would move in with its own peacekeeping force and administration to run the new country until its first election.

It was overwhelming approval of independence in the referendum two weeks ago that set off the current violence.

Some diplomats and officials here say they no longer trust Indonesian pledges because of the failure of the Indonesian Army to stop attacks on East Timorese and international aid workers over the last two weeks when, under the May agreement, the army was responsible for law and order. Had the troops performed that duty, there would be no need for the international force.

Moreover, no one is certain whether the Indonesian Army commander, Gen. Wiranto, is in full control of his troops, or conversely, whether he had a hand in fomenting violence. There is also concern that soldiers will protect the militias or even side with them against a foreign force.

Political pressures continue to mount on President B. J. Habibie as the deployment of an international force gets closer. In Jakarta on Tuesday, hundreds of students tried to march on Parliament to demand his resignation. He is already under fire from within his own party, Golkar, for allowing the East Timorese to vote on their future and then conceding that he needs international military assistance to end the violence that followed their choice of a break with Indonesia.

Evidence has piled up of the army's complicity in the violence in East Timor, where Lieut. Gen. Prabowo Subianto, a former special forces commander and son-in-law of the deposed President, Suharto, has considerable influence. He is considered by some experts to be a threat to General Wiranto.

United Nations officials said Indonesian Army regulars were seen looting the deserted compound of the United Nations mission in East Timor on Monday and Tuesday after staff members and refugees taking shelter there were evacuated. Soldiers in uniform appear to have stolen or destroyed millions in computers, photocopiers, office equipment and vehicles, according to reports from the remaining handful of United Nations security officers, now in the Australian Consulate.

There was also some debate over whether the resolution should authorize military force beyond routine self-defense and the protection of refugees. Such essentially war-making powers fall under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, which some Security Council members seemed reluctant to approve. But by the end of the debate those reservations had been overcome after a meeting of experts from Council member countries.

It is apparent to military planners that even providing aid to refugees could require a considerable use of force, since pro-Indonesian militias rampaging through the territory will have to be disarmed. Looting of aid goods will have to be prevented.

Several hundred thousand East Timorese may have been driven from their homes. The United Nations says 600,000 of the territory's 870,000 people are in need of emergency aid. Australia is awaiting permission to begin airdrops of food and other supplies, which are being stockpiled in Darwin, the northern port nearest Timor.

Violence is continuing in both East Timor and West Timor, where there were reports that some displaced people are being singled out and taken away in boats to an unknown fate. No one has a firm estimate of how many people have already died, but at least one United Nations agency, the Food and Agricultural Organization in Rome, puts the figure at 7,000. The agency did not say how it arrived at that number.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said on Tuesday that "an atmosphere of total intimidation" prevails in Dili, the East Timor capital. The commissioner "is gravely alarmed by persistent reports and indeed mounting evidence of deportation of East Timorese to West Timor and cases of separation of men from women and children," the spokesman, Kris Janowski, said in Geneva.