The New York Times

Thursday, October 22, 1999

Council Ready to Approve Transfer of East Timor to U.N.

By BARBARA CROSSETTE

UNITED NATIONS -- An international administration for East Timor, backed by 10,000 troops, is widely expected to be approved by the Security Council in the next few days. That would open the way for a formal transfer of authority in the territory from Indonesia to the United Nations, officially ending a quarter-century of Indonesian rule.

A new national assembly in Jakarta decided by consensus on Wednesday to relinquish Indonesian claims to the territory, which it seized after colonial Portugal pulled out in 1975.

One last-minute delay was averted when other major powers agreed to a Chinese demand to remove language in the resolution supporting an investigation in East Timor by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. But some other matters still have to be resolved.

Secretary General Kofi Annan is expected to name Sergio Vieira de Mello as administrator for the territory, at least for an initial period of up to six months. Differences of opinion persist here about the nationality of the long-term administrator, known as the special representative of the Secretary General, who may be in the territory for two or three years and will enjoy wide powers.

Vieira de Mello, a Brazilian, is an Under Secretary General who coordinates relief and refugee affairs. He also set up the civilian administration in Kosovo after the NATO bombing.

With the approval of forces for East Timor and Sierra Leone, the number of United Nations peacekeeping troops will double, with a sizable force for Congo in planning.

Annan was asked on Thursday how the United Nations, short of cash and other resources, would manage several large new operations.

"Once a crisis has broken out and we have been given the mandate, we have to be given the resources to make it viable," he said.

"I encourage all the member states to bear that very much in mind.

"When I talk of resources, I talk of resources being given to us promptly, because it is the early stages which can make or break a mission."

The United Nations is still far behind in raising the money to reconstruct civilian life and institutions in Kosovo. The head of the United Nations peacekeeping department, Bernard Miyet, said recently that the reconstruction of East Timor could be even more difficult and costly.

East Timor will literally have to be rebuilt because militias opposed to independence destroyed most of its towns. The United Nations will have to introduce and reintroduce services like sanitation, education and judicial systems, and without a trained corps of local civil servants to draw on. Other fundamental issues like language and legal codes will have to be decided.

Vieira de Mello speaks Portuguese, the language favored by independence leaders, who would like to reintroduce it as a national language. But most people in East Timor no longer speak it or never did.