The UN early today began airlifting all but a handful of staff out of Dili as Indonesia continued to defy international pressure for a peacekeeping force in East Timor, a UN spokesman in Darwin, Australia said.
The first of an expected five flights evacuating UN Mission in East Timor (UNAMET) staff to Australia would arrive before midday (3 a.m. Irish time). He did not indicate how many staff would remain in Dili to care for about 2,000 refugees packed in the UN compound.
Meanwhile the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mrs Mary Robinson, announced plans to visit East Timor to make a personal evaluation of rights abuses there. Mrs Robinson plans to meet UN staff in Darwin on Sunday, before travelling on to the Indonesian capital that night or Monday, and then visiting East Timor.
Earlier yesterday the Vatican issued reports of a massacre of some 100 people, including Catholic priests, in a church complex in the East Timorese town of Suai.
"The Holy See has taken diplomatic steps for a Security Council resolution for a peacekeeping force which can guarantee a minimum of peace," the Vatican said.
President Clinton yesterday demanded that Jakarta allow the international community to provide security in East Timor and he charged Indonesia with failing to stop "gross abuses".
"If Indonesia does not end the violence, it must invite the international community to assist in restoring security," he said in Washington. Speaking before leaving for Auckland for a summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum (APEC), Mr Clinton said Indonesia faced dire economic consequences if it failed to settle the violence. He added that he had made no decision about US involvement in an eventual peacekeeping force but was consulting Congress and the Australian government on the matter.
Earlier yesterday the United States announced that it was ending military co-operation with Indonesia as a way of putting pressure on Jakarta.
However, Indonesia yesterday rejected an offer from the UN of a multinational force, a spokesman for the UN Secretary General, Mr Kofi Annan, said. Indonesia's President Habibie told a mission from the Security Council "he would welcome any form of international assistance in East Timor except military".