Drunken militants on a spree

U.N. compound raided

Compiled from wire reports

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- Drunk on stolen beer, pro-Indonesian militiamen looted the U.N. compound in East Timor yesterday, smashing equipment and terrifying East Timorese still inside after most of the U.N. staff were evacuated.

As Indonesian troops fired guns to intimidate the 80 remaining U.N. workers, several journalists and hundreds of refugees, militia extremists chanted for them to be burned out. Gunfire sent two elderly women scrambling over the wall into the compound, shredding their arms on barbed wire.

Estimates of the death toll in East Timor has ranged from 600 to 7,000.

In New York, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said martial law has failed to restore order in East Timor and urged Indonesia to accept foreign military help.

"The time has clearly come for Indonesia to seek help from the international community to fulfill its responsibility to bring order and security to the people of East Timor," he told a news conference.

Even though Australia, New Zealand, France and many other countries have offered troops to a peacekeeping force, Annan said all governments "have made it clear that it's too dangerous for them to go in without the consent of Indonesia."

In Jakarta, the defense minister, Gen. Wiranto, said: "We do not reject the U.N. peacekeeping force, but it is not the appropriate time."

Protesters in Jakarta, Indonesia's capital, protested the international pressure on their country by urinating and smearing chicken dung on U.S. and Australian flags before burning them.

Meanwhile, President Clinton accused the Indonesian military yesterday of "aiding and abetting" the mayhem that has engulfed East Timor, and U.S. officials suggested President B.J. Habibie was not in control of the situation.

Headed to an Asia-Pacific summit in New Zealand, Clinton spent much of a long flight from Washington talking with U.S. military and political leaders about the chaos in the former Portuguese colony.

"It is now clear that the Indonesian military is aiding and abetting the militia violence," Clinton said in a statement issued aboard Air Force One. He had just been briefed by the chief U.S. military commander in the Pacific region during a refueling stop in Hawaii. "This is simply unacceptable."

In a sign of the attention Clinton is giving the unfolding crisis, the White House arranged two conference calls from Air Force One to release comments from Clinton and national security adviser Sandy Berger.

Berger made it clear the United States doesn't think Habibie holds enough authority to reverse the violence. Responding to a question about why Clinton has not called Habibie since the crisis began, Berger said: "We have focused on where we believe the decisions are being made, which is the Indonesian military."

Instead, Gen. Henry Shelton, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, has been talking with Gen. Wiranto, the head of Indonesia's military.

The Clinton administration is ruling nothing out as it contemplates what role to play in East Timor, Berger said, but still hasn't offered any U.S. troops.

Australia has volunteered to send troops to help restore order if the Indonesian government reverses course and accepts a proposed U.N. peacekeeping mission, which Clinton supports. U.S. officials have repeatedly said the Indonesian government must either take control or invite outsiders to do so.

Comparisons to Kosovo and Cambodia have increasingly been made as television footage shows men, women and children, their hands raised, being herded at gunpoint from burning homes.

Indonesia calls the claims of forcible deportation "nonsense," but U.N. officials report that an estimated quarter of the 850,000 East Timorese have fled their homes.

East Timor's people voted in a landslide for independence from Indonesia in a peaceful, U.N.-organized ballot Aug. 30. The vote triggered an orgy of violence by machete-swinging militias opposed to independence for the impoverished, half-island province.

The Indonesian military was charged with guaranteeing security, but has provided little, standing by and at times joining in the reign of terror.

At least four U.N. staffers were killed by militiamen in the past week. About 350 staffers were evacuated yesterday from the compound in Dili and flown to Darwin, Australia.

Those who stayed behind were awaiting a visit today by a team of ambassadors from the U.N. Security Council.

"Morale is actually pretty high," a U.N. information officer said in a telephone interview. "We're all happy we were able to stay."

But the conditions around the compound could not be described as cheerful.

Militiamen drunk on looted beer entered the parking lot outside the walls and demanded several U.N. vehicles, U.N. officials said. The militiamen were refused, so they smashed up the vehicles and looted whatever they could.

A U.N. official said some of the refugees left the compound and fled into the surrounding hills. As they were climbing uphill, shots were fired at them.

The government has acknowledged the existence of rogue army elements and claims the problems can be solved through martial law imposed earlier this week.

However, the thoroughness of the savagery and depopulation in the past week suggests complicity at a very high level.

Refugees who have been forcibly shipped to neighboring West Timor remain under the control of the Indonesian military and the militias. Foreign journalists and aid workers have been threatened and attacked if they try to enter.

Meanwhile, Bishop Carlos Belo, the spiritual leader of East Timor, arrived in Lisbon on his way to Rome for an audience with Pope John Paul II. He called for a war crimes tribunal.

"We can verify that there is a genocide, a cleansing," said Belo, co-winner of the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize.

The crisis has threatened the stability of this country of 216 million people scattered across 13,000 islands, simmering in turmoil since longtime dictator Suharto was toppled in street protests last year.

Indonesia invaded East Timor in 1975 as it was gaining independence from Portugal.

Vigil set for tomorrow

The Immigrants' Assistance Center is organizing a candlelight vigil for tomorrow to bring awareness to the plight of the people of East Timor.

The vigil will start at 7 p.m. from Popes Island (in front of the Prince Henry statue) to the Federal Building in downtown New Bedford.

The Immigrants' Assistance Center asks SouthCoast residents to join in this expression of solidarity.

Those who wish to attend the vigil are asked to bring their own candles and to be at Popes Island by 6:45 p.m.

Photos by The Associated Press
Top: Demonstrators protesting the possibility of foreign intervention tear at a U.S. flag as security personnel look on yesterday in front of the Australian Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia. Bottom: East Timorese refugees comfort each other as they arrive at a transit center in Darwin, Australia, following their evacuation from their homeland.