Odds of Curbing E. Timor Violence Seen as Slim : Asia: U.N. envoy pleads with Indonesian officials to stop attacks by anti-independence groups. Some are calling for a peacekeeping force.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s personal envoy shuttled among top military and political leaders Thursday, attempting to halt East Timor’s slide toward anarchy. It was, many thought, a mission against all odds.

“Everyone realizes the need to get the situation under control, and I think we can accomplish that,” Ambassador Jamsheed Marker said in an interview before meeting with Foreign Minister Ali Abdullah Alatas, Defense Minister Gen. Wiranto and other key Indonesian decision-makers.

Marker said he thought security could be restored without the presence of a U.N. peacekeeping force in the province, which voted Monday on whether to remain part of Indonesia or gain independence. Results of the vote are expected next Monday.

At the United Nations, spokesman Fred Eckhard said Thursday that he knew of no plans within the world body’s Department of Peacekeeping Operations to send international troops to the region.

But Ian Martin, chief of the U.N. mission in East Timor, said violence Wednesday outside a U.N. compound in the provincial capital, Dili, showed the dangers facing the East Timorese public--and the world body’s own staff. Two U.N. workers were killed Thursday in Maliana, 33 miles southwest of Dili, Eckhard said. He had no other details.

Martin appealed Thursday to the Indonesian government to wrest control of security from bands of anti-independence militiamen, whose murderous rampages have been largely ignored by government soldiers and police officers.

Despite Marker’s comments, some diplomats, including Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, said Thursday that foreign troops might be needed to restore security to the traumatized territory. Indonesian officials said Thursday for the first time that they might be willing to accept such a force.

The violence outside the U.N. compound in Dili, in which three people were killed and U.N. staffers had to seek safety in an auditorium, was initiated by the anti-independence militias that have carried out a campaign of terror against those seeking East Timor’s break from Indonesia. Although government security forces have made little attempt to check the savagery, they deny any involvement with the militias.

“Most people recognize the fact that Monday’s election will go heavily in favor of independence,” said prominent Indonesian political analyst Wimar Witoelar. “The concern is how the military and the militias will react, and the problem is that the army in East Timor is run by intelligence officers, and they don’t answer to the military chain of command.”

Anti-independence militias, whose members are now believed to number about 30,000, appeared in East Timor in substantial numbers after Indonesian President B.J. Habibie made a surprise offer in January to allow the province to choose between independence or wide-ranging autonomy. The militia members, badly disciplined and armed with crude weapons, have targeted mostly civilians and are responsible for as many as 1,000 deaths, human rights organizations say.

“We talk about the militias, but they are really just a mask for the Indonesian military,” said pro-independence activist David Ximenes. “So it is only the military who can stop the violence and hostility, and they haven’t shown any interest in that.”

Diplomats say it is no coincidence that two of the men directing military affairs in East Timor are intelligence officers with vast experience in covert operations. They are Brig. Gen. Mahidin Simbolon, chief of staff of the military region that includes the territory, and Maj. Gen. Zacky Anwar Makarim, head of military intelligence.

Both are members of the generation that thinks it would sully the military’s honor to walk away from a territory its soldiers seized in 1975 and shed blood to subdue, and that also believes that the army’s dual constitutional role in military and political affairs should not be tampered with.

Because of this role and the clout the military has in choosing an Indonesian president, Habibie does not have the power to control its activities in East Timor, diplomats say. If Habibie defies the generals, he risks losing their support in his bid for another term. The military controls an influential bloc of 38 seats in the 700-member parliament that will choose a president in November.

No matter much how Habibie and his senior ministers assure the international community that the army and police will safeguard the well-being of the East Timorese people, it is the military that will decide what, if any, role the murderous militias will play, Western diplomats say.

Pro-independence guerrillas, who have been fighting the Indonesian army for 24 years, have taken up a largely defensive stance. They do not have the strength to stand up to the 18,000-strong Indonesian military force in East Timor; many of the guerrillas remain in the mountains where they have lived for years.

If the election results show a vote for independence, the guerrillas’ presence is a major worry for the province’s pro-autonomy minority. Its concern: The Indonesian military would leave an independent East Timor, and the ragtag militias that have terrorized unarmed civilians would be no match for battle-tested pro-independence guerrillas.

Indonesian State Secretary H. Muladi estimates that as many of 200,000 people--or one of every four East Timorese--might flee the territory if the final vote tally favors independence. Many presumably would be Indonesian loyalists fearing retaliation.

For its part, the international community has condemned Indonesia’s inability to provide security in East Timor. But fearing that the province’s separation could inspire other secessionist movements in Indonesia, and believing that the nation’s disintegration would destabilize Southeast Asia, it has not backed its words with action.

East Timor, a former Portuguese colony, was annexed as a province by Indonesia in 1976. Warfare between the Indonesian military and the mountain guerrillas has claimed an estimated 200,000 lives, including about 10,000 Indonesian soldiers.

*

Times staff writer John J. Goldman at the United Nations contributed to this report.