U.N. Evacuates Its Compound in East Timor

The United Nations evacuated its besieged compound in East Timor today, flying 1,300 refugees and most of its staff to Australia.

U.N. spokesmen in Dili, East Timor’s provincial capital, said by phone that the evacuation had been negotiated with Indonesian authorities and that it was proceeding without incident. Among those leaving for Darwin, Australia, were 110 local and international U.N. staffers, including mission chief Ian Martin.

A U.N. official characterized the evacuation as a “temporary relocation” until the U.N. is able to return, under terms of an agreement being worked out at U.N. headquarters in New York that includes the dispatch of an international peacekeeping force to East Timor.

In New York, Indonesia’s foreign minister pledged Monday that his country would create no obstacles to deployment of such troops in East Timor, quelling fears that it would try to stall the force that the government in Jakarta reluctantly accepted two days ago.

“The only position I came with is that we want it as soon as possible,” said Ali Abdullah Alatas, who rushed to New York from Indonesia to meet with U.N. officials.

Although Indonesia has been pressing for a force with “Asian faces” to prevent an anti-Western backlash among the anti-independence militias blamed for most of the violence in East Timor, Alatas said the country would accept a multinational force endorsed by the U.N.

With international officials warning that thousands of refugees who fled into the mountains face an immediate threat of starvation, a core group of nations worked into the night Monday drafting a resolution for the Security Council to authorize the peacekeepers and precisely spell out their mandate. The first international soldiers could arrive later this week.

Diplomats at the U.N. were fine-tuning technical details, including rules of engagement to determine under what conditions the soldiers could fire their weapons, the actual composition of the force and when it would arrive. Other sensitive issues loom, such as the relationship between the peacekeepers and Indonesian army and pro-Indonesia militias.

The president of the Security Council, Dutch Ambassador Arnold Peter van Walsum, said: “There are no significant differences. . . . There is no really big problem [as far] as I can tell.”

Some council members said that the resolution may be endorsed as early as Wednesday and that peacekeeping operations could begin within a day after the vote.

The force would be a multinational mission that could act immediately, with troops and technical contributions from more than a dozen nations. It would be blessed by the U.N. but not paid for or led by it.

Despite Jakarta’s preference for Asian leadership, Australia is likely to head the multinational force and already has troops standing by in Darwin, 430 miles south of Dili. They could reach the territory within 10 hours.

Australian Defense Minister John Moore said his country is willing to provide the backbone of the peacekeeping force--4,500 of the 7,000 troops he estimates are needed. New Zealand has offered to contribute 2,000, and Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia and the Philippines have also offered troops.

In Washington, the Clinton administration said it is prepared to provide several hundred military specialists to assist with transportation, logistics, communications and intelligence, areas in which the United States is considered the world leader. Officials said no U.S. ground combat forces would take part.

“It would be a matter of a few hundred people,” President Clinton told reporters in New Zealand, where he was attending a summit of Pacific Rim leaders.

Indonesia’s declaration that it would cooperate with a peacekeeping force was a stunning turnaround from its rigid rejection of outside troops just 48 hours ago. The reversal came after a U.N. Security Council mission visited Dili. Gen. Wiranto, the leader of the military that is supposed to be keeping the peace there, accompanied the delegation and conceded during the trip that he had lost control of his soldiers.

British U.N. Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock presented a report Monday from the Security Council’s fact-finding mission in East Timor, with descriptions of people forced out of their homes, tortured and terrorized by militias sometimes helped by the Indonesian army.

The diplomats from five nations who traveled to East Timor told the council that the humanitarian situation was “extremely grave.” They said strong evidence exists of abuses of international humanitarian law. The delegation called for the Security Council to institute action to investigate the abuses.

The inhabitants of the U.N. compound in Dili had been held virtual hostage for the past two weeks by soldiers and militiamen outside its gates. The siege in effect had closed down the U.N. operation, reducing its role to that of protecting the 1,300 refugees who had sought safety in the complex.

All 110 U.N. workers who left the complex today had volunteered to stay behind when most of the staff was evacuated to Australia last week. They feared that if they left, the refugees would be killed--a sentiment shared by the refugees.

The U.N. was closing the Dili compound, and a dozen U.N. workers remaining behind will relocate to another undisclosed location in the city.

Relief workers said Monday that tens of thousands of refugees who fled into the mountains of East Timor to escape a bloody rampage by anti-independence militias are eating roots and leaves and facing imminent starvation.

Dili was largely quiet after a week of looting, burning and killing by militias who want to derail East Timor’s Aug. 30 vote to split from Indonesia and seek independence.

The U.N. also has received disturbing reports that other militias have been moving through refugee camps in West Timor, a neighboring Indonesian province, segregating young East Timorese men at gunpoint and moving them on trucks to an unknown destination.

Farley reported from the United Nations and Lamb from Jakarta. Times staff writers John J. Goldman at the United Nations and Norman Kempster in Washington contributed to this report.