The UN said yesterday that Indonesia had failed to restore order in East Timor and that it was forced to withdraw most of its remaining staff from the besieged compound of the UN mission in East Timor (UNAMET) - the last symbol of a hope for the people who voted for independence 11 days ago.
However, the decision was delayed for 24 hours in an 11th-hour decision last night when around 70 of the UN's 210 foreign staff staged what amounted to a revolt, saying they would stay behind to protect the refugees. Journalists in the compound also signed a petition demanding the evacuation be postponed.
The decision to evacuate came after the failure of a special Security Council mission to Jakarta to secure agreement from the Indonesian government for the introduction of a peacekeeping force in East Timor, where pro-Indonesian militias have been attacking independence sympathisers with increasing ferocity for the past week. After meeting the five-member delegation, Indonesia's Foreign Minister, Mr Ali Alatas, turned down the idea in blunt terms. "Don't talk about peacekeeping force," he said. "You can't get peacekeeping on the ground in a week, unless you are to shoot your way in, God forbid."
Mr Alatas said an international peacekeeping force could not enter East Timor until after the Indonesian parliament meets to ratify the independence vote in November.
Yesterday, President B.J. Habibie cancelled his planned trip to the Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) forum in New Zealand. Diplomats said this was to avoid the barrage of criticism he would be likely to receive in Auckland from world leaders, but there were also rumours that the Indonesian President did not want to leave because an international intervention in East Timor while he was away could spark a coup in Jakarta.
The crisis is spilling across the border of East Timor into West Timor. An estimated 200,000 refugees, a quarter of the East Timor population, is now believed to have been forced into the mountains, onto boats going to outlying islands of Indonesia or into West Timor, according to the Indonesian news agency.
The unfolding East Timor catastrophe was the subject of a special Security Council briefing in New York yesterday and was discussed among foreign ministers at the start of the APEC forum and at a crisis meeting of the Australian Government in Canberra yesterday, but the prospect of a multinational force being deployed in East Timor remained remote in the near future.
Indonesia on Monday declared martial law in Jakarta, but the violence has continued.
Last night, the chief of the Indonesian armed forces, Gen Wiranto, appointed as commander of the former Portuguese colony a senior officer with a close association with the pro-Jakarta militias. Maj Gen Kiki Syahnakri will take over public installations and create a safe atmosphere, he said. Tensions are rising on Jakarta streets over the East Timor crisis.
Over 100 youths, many of them the children of Indonesian soldiers killed in East Timor, stormed through the gates of the Australian embassy, burned the Australian flag, destroyed a video security camera and hurled stones at the building. They hoisted the Indonesian flag and banners saying: "We are ready to fight." Others hurled stones and eggs at the UN office in the city centre complaining about foreign meddling in Indonesia's affairs. "F--k off, Australia! F--k off, America!" they yelled.
Relations between Australia and Indonesia are at their lowest ebb ever and Australian aid workers and journalists have been threatened and attacked in Kupang, the capital of West Timor.
The UN mission was due to remain for years to oversee East Timor's transition to independence. UN officials said they could not at this point evacuate the Timorese men, women and children who had taken refuge to escape militia killings.
The UN said it was investigating reports that 100 people had been massacred in a church at Suai, on the south coast of East Timor. A witness said a priest had begged on his knees for mercy for people in the church being slashed to death.
The 48-hour deadline imposed by Mr Kofi Anan on Indonesia to stop the violence which has left hundreds of men, women and children dead expired yesterday, but the armed forces spokesman, Maj Gen Sudrajat, said it was unrealistic.
"This is not like flushing the toilet," he said.
The militias, backed by the army, have gone on a rampage of killing and burning to try to overturn their defeat at the polls, when 78.5 per cent of East Timorese voted for independence.
The Australian Foreign Minister, Mr Alexander Downer, said Dili resembled Phnom Penh when the Khmer Rouge took the Cambodian capital in 1975. "There are almost no local people around at all, buildings are burning and there are troops around and there are militia still running around, but there are no local people," he said.
Telephone and satellite communications with Dili were severed and the UN said snipers fired on its compound.