East Timor: Another Kosovo?

Expecting the Indonesian army to guarantee the security of East Timors move toward independence was rather like asking a fox to babysit a chicken. And so Indonesian troops watch while pro-Indonesia militias nurtured by elements in their own ranks vent a murderous rage on the almost 80 percent of East Timorese who voted for independence. The international community Tuesday faces an uncomfortable choice: To cross their fingers and accept Indonesias promise to rein in the militia even though theres little evidence so far to support such a leap of faith; or to strong-arm Jakarta into accepting a Kosovo-style international military force and risk plunging relations with Indonesia into a period of conflict with the West.

In Western capitals, as in Jakarta, opinion is divided over a peacekeeping mission. Despite Secretary of State Albrights warning that the international community will have to take over if Jakarta fails to deal with the problem, the U.S. remains averse to a peacekeeping intervention and prefers pressuring Indonesia to provide security. Jakarta declared martial law in the territory Tuesday, but international observers there fear that the Indonesian government may have lost control of its own forces in East Timor, in which case martial law may create a pretext for an anti-independence pogrom. Indonesian government spokesmen last week appeared to accept the idea of a peacekeeping force, but have since insisted that Jakarta maintain control until the independence vote is ratified by the Indonesian parliament, which could take months. Western patience, though, may be abbreviated by reports of bodies piling up in the streets of East Timors capital. After all, the lesson of Kosovo was supposedly that the international community cant sit on its hands in the face of slaughter.