The UN Human Rights Commission will go ahead with an inquiry into alleged atrocities in East Timor with or without co-operation from Indonesia, a spokesman said yesterday.
"We would hope for co-operation from Indonesia, but if they fail to give their co-operation, it will not deter us from going forward," Mr Fred Eckhard, a spokesman for the UN Secretary General Mr Kofi Annan, said.
In Jakarta earlier, State Secretary Muladi said the government rejected a UN Human Rights Commission resolution calling for the inquiry. "We reject the commission as well," Mr Muladi said after a limited cabinet meeting at the Bina Graha presidential office.
Meanwhile, the US Defence Secretary, Mr William Cohen, warned Indonesia to restrain its military in East Timor as the bodies of more victims of pro-Jakarta militia violence surfaced yesterday.
On the eve of talks with Indonesian President B.J. Habibie and other leaders, Mr Cohen urged Jakarta to stop troops supporting pro-Jakarta militias, which have been accused of killing thousands of East Timorese in an anti-independence rampage.
"The people of East Timor have voted for independence, and they [the government] have an obligation to control the military, to make sure the military does not support the militias who have been engaging in marauding activities and vicious assaults upon innocent civilians," Mr Cohen said in Darwin, Australia.
"I believe all of that is an obligation of the Indonesian government and I believe that a failure to measure up to their responsibilities will result in political isolation and certainly some economic consequences."
He said the US was boosting its participation in the East Timor UN force to more than 400 troops and sending a warship with four cargo helicopters. The UN was preparing yesterday to take up civilian duties in East Timor before it formally takes control. Indonesia had given the go-ahead for this role, UN representative Mr Jamsheed Marker said.
More bodies from mass killings surfaced yesterday. A Reuters television team found 10 charred bodies in a truck in the outer Dili suburb of Tasi Tolu. Mr Alberto Pereira (38) said he saw Indonesian police and militiamen execute the 10 with machetes about two weeks ago and set the truck and bodies on fire after dousing them with petrol.
"They were tied up in the back of the truck and the militiamen hacked them to death with machetes. I could hear their screams from where I was on the hill," he said. - (Reuters)
AFP adds: President Habibie said his predecessor, General Suharto, would be indicted for allegedly extorting public funds, in an interview to be published tomorrow in Germany. Mr Habibie told the German weekly Rheinischer Merkur that "from the reports I have, the prosecutor should indict [former] president Suharto."
He said it would become clearer over the next few days how advanced the inquiry into Gen Suharto was. Mr Habibie succeeded him in May 1998 after riots against Gen Suharto's allegedly corrupt rule, which allowed him to amass a fortune of $15 billion (£11.3 billion).