Governor Abilio Soares yawned, looked at his watch, examined his brown batik shirt, and at one point formed his lips into a silent "Oh!" on hearing the East Timor guerrilla leader, Xanana Gusmao, described as "a man of peace".
It was evident that he did not agree with much of what the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Andrews, had to say about the political way forward in East Timor, which has been told by Jakarta in so many words to agree to autonomy or become independent.
The governor in any event had other things on his mind. He had just given his blessing before meeting Mr Andrews at his home on Saturday to a parade of pro-Indonesia militia groups whose members were at that present moment shooting dead several people a few blocks away.
Most East Timorese support independence as a way of getting rid of the Indonesian army, which has come to symbolise repression since it invaded the former Portuguese colony in 1975.
Since January 27th this year, when they were promised a consultative process to decide on autonomy, several paramilitary groups, with names like Red Dragon, Thorn, Life or Death for Integration and Red and White Iron, backed by the army, have become steadily more brazen. They have attacked pro-independence villages in a campaign of intimidation.
Governor Soares himself does not place much store by the consultative process, which the Indonesian Foreign Minister, Mr Ali Alatas, promises will be conducted on a one-person-one-vote basis. "Don't ask the baby what it wants, feed it," he said with a wave of a hand weighed down by a heavy gold ring. "Don't ask people what they want. Do it! Then after some time ask them what they think."
Mr Andrews, who was accompanied by the Irish Ambassador, Mr Brendan Lyons, his political director, Mr Richard Townsend, and other officials, and also Mr Tom Hyland of the East Timor Ireland Solidarity Campaign, was taken aback to hear the governor's dismissal of democratic methods, and of his intentions if autonomy were rejected.
"In that case we would struggle for integration," said Mr Soares. "And that would mean dividing East Timor because it we don't divide it there would be a war. If they want all of East Timor, it means war."
Rumours of the eventual partition of East Timor have been gaining strength in Dili in recent weeks. Many foreign observers here believe that this is behind the attacks on pro-independence areas in the west which have resulted in an upsurge of villagers fleeing the violence.
Certainly the realities which the Irish party encountered on their dramatic one-day visit to Dili shattered any illusion that the ground was being prepared in East Timor for a serious and democratic decision process.
The governor had only contempt for Mr Gusmao, who has been released into house arrest in Jakarta to enable him to take part in the political process. "Xanana has declared a state of war," he said, referring to Gusmao's call to arms after dozens of people were massacred by the militias at Liquica. "He is tricky enough. To you he said he wanted peace. To us here he wanted war."
Mr Andrews found the same attitude to Gusmao when he visited Gen Tono Suratman in his air-conditioned bungalow shaded by oleander and acacia trees. "He does not want to follow the peaceful way," said the slightly built officer, sipping sweet black tea and showing little urgency at the events unfolding in the streets outside.
He denied that the Indonesian army (ABRI) armed the militias and displayed for his visitors two home-made guns with crude metal barrels to support his claim that they made their own weapons. As he spoke trucks carrying armed paramilitaries sped past the window. The weapons of these pro-integration fighters, I was able to ascertain later that day, included handmade guns, but also SKS Russian rifles, M16s and old Portuguese G3 guns.
A sizeable proportion of East Timor's population genuinely supports the link with Indonesia, but few doubt that militias are the creation of the Indonesian army intelligence unit, KOPASSUS. (Documents released in Jakarta in October showed a direct link between ABRI and earlier militias which waged a dirty war in East Timor.)
"There is no plan for free elections here," Bishop Carlos Belo told Mr Andrews at his final meeting in Dili before the Irish group made the three-hour journey back to Jakarta by charter jet. "The paramilitaries are going every place, obliging people to show Indonesian flags. They are provided with weapons. Many people ran away into the jungle. The military did not protect them," he said.
"The proof is here; one hour ago they were shooting, burning houses." He added that food supplies were running short in Dili and the message was: "You like to be independent? You will have nothing!"
Bishop Belo, whose gold-framed Nobel Peace Prize hangs on the wall of his receiving rooms, is in an impossible situation and clearly despairs of the future. He believes that the campaign of intimidation can only be switched off by Jakarta.
After the meeting was dramatically interrupted by his neighbour, Mr Manuel Carrascalao, leader of the Council for National Timorese Resistance, to say his son was being killed nearby, the bishop said simply to Mr Andrews: "In this situation how can you organise a ballot?"
Bishop Belo provided the Minister with a list of 32 people allegedly killed in the Liquica massacre. The youngest was named as 14-year-old Mau-Nuku, the oldest as 90-year-old Rosa Boe. Just an hour earlier Gen Suratman had insisted only five had died.
Everywhere one heard the same despairing voices. "Here there is no law," said a nun at the clinic where wounded people were being treated. (She asked that her name not be used as she was frightened). Villagers will be terrified to vote for independence, said a doctor. "They think the militias will know how each village voted and attack those they regard as the enemy. You can't blame them, they only want the right to live."
The deep pessimism of this tragic weekend in Dili contrasted with the optimism I heard expressed widely in the East Timor capital in November. Then students were travelling around the countryside engaging in a dialogue on autonomy and independence.
Was the dialogue continuing, I asked Gen Suratman. "No," he replied. "What the students did was not correct. They conducted propaganda for one side only." The leader of the Students' Union of Dili University, Mr Antero Da Silva, is lying low for the present.
"Something that creates more chaos, that's what the military want. . . ," he told me. "We have to face the situation with more patience. They want action and reaction but so far people are not reacting, they will remain passive."