United Nations Indonesia

Indonesia's armed forces chief, Gen. Wiranto, conceded for the first time Saturday that he might not have full control of his soldiers in East Timor, and he hinted that he might soon accept the help of international peacekeeping troops to restore order here.

Indonesia has set out a timetable for disarming gangs terrorizing East Timorese refugees, aid workers and U.N. peacekeepers, but it has rejected a Security Council mission to Jakarta to discuss the crisis. Gen.

The Security Council early this morning authorized an Australian-led interim peacekeeping force to stop the violence that has ravaged East Timor since its people voted for independence from Indonesia on Aug. 30. A multinational force of 5,000 to 7,000 troops, including soldiers from neighboring Asian nations specially requested by Indonesia, could be on the ground as early as this weekend.

U.N. human rights chief Mary Robinson said Friday that she is ready to launch an international inquiry into atrocities in East Timor and help bring those responsible to justice. In a report issued after her trip last week to the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, Robinson accused pro-Indonesian militias in East Timor of carrying out mass killings in the capital, Dili, and at a church in Suai. Women have been raped in both East and West Timor, she said.

Indonesia and Portugal signed landmark accords Wednesday to enable the people of violence-plagued East Timor to choose wide-ranging autonomy under continued Indonesian rule or move toward independence. If they reject autonomy, as has been widely predicted, Indonesia promises to reverse its annexation of the former Portuguese colony and allow the United Nations to put it on the path to independence.

The people of violence-torn East Timor have overwhelmingly voted to end 24 years of Indonesian rule and become an independent state, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Friday. The announcement, made simultaneously in Indonesia and at U.N. headquarters in New York, said 78.5% of the province's voters had opted for independence rather than autonomy within Indonesia in the U.N.-sponsored referendum held Monday under largely peaceful conditions.

In the first attack against the growing United Nations presence in East Timor, more than 100 pro-Indonesian militiamen surrounded a newly opened U.N. outpost in the town of Maliana, showering the building with stones and injuring a diplomat from South Africa. At least a dozen Timorese were also injured in the attack, which could jeopardize the peace plan for East Timor.

With peacekeepers extending their mission, control of East Timor's second-largest city passed, without a shot being fired, from the Indonesian military to 100 Australian and Philippine soldiers of the U.N.-sanctioned force. "It was tense for a few minutes when we came in two days ago," Philippine Capt. James Balaino said Monday. "They stared us down with cocked rifles at the ready. But the hostility didn't last long. I think they were happy to leave."

An Indonesian mob, angry over the death of a notorious militia leader, stormed a U.N. building in West Timor on Wednesday and killed at least three foreign aid workers, authorities said. Pro-Indonesian militia members and their supporters hauled the bodies into the street and set them on fire before a crowd of thousands of people armed with machetes and homemade rifles, witnesses said. Four U.N.

Worried by escalating militia violence, the United Nations has granted its peacekeepers in East Timor the right to shoot at armed militiamen without warning, a U.N. official said. U.N. peacekeeper Capt. Isabelito Sanchez of the Philippine army said the world body had changed its rules of engagement in the troubled territory because of an increase in militia sightings.