By Barbara Crossette

United Nations - As many as 200,000 people, nearly a quarter of East Timor's population, have been driven from their homes within the last four days by militias opposed to independence for the territory, the secretary general's spokesman said here on Tuesday.

Many displaced people who had sought refuge in churches and aid agencies are being rounded up and forcibly moved across the border to Indonesian West Timor, and thousands of others have fled into hills and forests, said Fred Eckhard, the spokesman, citing a report from the U.N. mission in East Timor. Its figures are based on reports from refugees, the few remaining journalists (who say the capital city seems all but deserted), departing aid agencies, church officials and the International Committee of the Red Cross, which until Tuesday had officials on the border with West Timor. With most foreigners evacuated from East Timor and the remaining 335 U.N. staff trapped in a compound in Dili, the capital, virtually all relief aid has ended, almost no food is available for emergency distribution, and the fate of many refugees is unknown. U.N. officials in East Timor say they face an emergency "with potential catastrophic consequences."

But in the absence of a call for international military assistance from the Indonesian government, the Security Council continued to stand by, giving President B.J. Habibie and his military commander, Gen. Wiranto, at least another 24 hours to end a reign of terror. That terror seems to have been orchestrated by units of the military -- and the general may or may not be able to call a halt to it. The U.N. believes that the Indonesian army, as well as locally raised militias, have been involved in the violence. "I can assure you that the Security Council will not give the green light if there is no permission on the part of the Indonesian government," Peter van Walsum of the Netherlands, the Security Council president for September, said after a council meeting.

A five-member council delegation is due to arrive in Jakarta on Tuesday, overnight, to warn Indonesian authorities that they will have to stop the violence in East Timor or allow others to do it. In Washington, a Pentagon spokesman said that the United States still had hopes that the Indonesian military could restore order, and that there were no plans at this point for the United States to help an evacuation from East Timor or to send troops to a peacekeeping force. On Tuesday, the situation drove the territory's Nobel prize-winning religious leader, Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo, out of the country to refuge in Darwin, Australia.

Jose Ramos-Horta, an exiled East Timorese independence leader, said in an interview on Tuesday that through all the years of conflict in the territory, church buildings and convents had never before been attacked as they have been in recent days. Ramos-Horta, who shared the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize with Belo, is in the United States campaigning for immediate military intervention. Ramos-Horta and some diplomats here raised the question of why a military intervention has not been requested by Portugal, the former colonial power in East Timor and the country still recognized internationally -- if only technically -- as the administering authority. Indonesia's seizure of the territory in 1995, after Portugal withdrew, was never accepted. Antonio Monteiro, Portugal's representative at the United Nations, said in an interview that Portugal has been making this request, saying that Indonesia has broken the agreement signed in May with Portugal that allowed the East Timorese to vote on their future. Last week, they decisively chose not to remain part of Indonesia, and that vote set off the anti-independence violence that now engulfs the territory. "The U.N. has to go there because there is an emergency, because there is chaos," he said. His view met resistance in the council, he said.

David L. Phillips, executive director of Columbia University's Conflict Resolution Program, who visited East Timor earlier this year, said there is a real question whether the Habibie government can speak any longer for Indonesia on this issue because the military seems to have control over the situation in East Timor. But he agrees with diplomats that the United Nations cannot go in, for political reasons, unless the government, however weak, makes the request. "Gen. Wiranto is being given the chance to demonstrate his ability to re-establish law and order in East Timor," Phillips said. "If that fails, there will be need for an international force." With a request from the government, he said, no questions would be raised in the Security Council that would delay or impede its deployment. He said that Indonesia also would be pressured to seek help because it would not want to lose international aid.

Robert Fowler, Canada's representative on the Security Council, said that it is obviously painful for council members to see themselves portrayed as paralyzed in the face of this crisis. All around, there are cries of, Why can't the United Nations do something, he said. "Do they mean, why can't the U.N. go to war with the 4th-largest country in the world?" he asked. "Is that what that means?" "Indonesia has very specific commitments under the May 5 agreement that it will look after security," he added. "We have all, in a variety of different ways, been trying to cajole, convince, warn the Indonesians that they must do this, that their international reputation depends on it, and the whole world is watching. But up until now, they have made extremely clear that they will not allow a foreign presence into this part of their country. "There is no taste in the council or in the world for going to war with Indonesia."

Phillips, of Columbia University, said that Indonesia's international reputation may not be foremost in the minds of those military leaders responsible for the continuing violence in East Timor -- or in the minds of civilian politicians in the capital, Jakarta -- at this moment. But international opprobrium remains a useful weapon, he said, toward a country that is in political turmoil almost from one end to the other and that is trying to crawl out of a severe financial crisis at the same time. "This is turning into a huge embarrassment for Indonesia," he said. "They'll start to care when bilateral assistance and World Bank and IMF funds are jeopardized."

On Tuesday in Washington, the World Bank, jointly with the IMF, said that it is "deeply concerned" by the violence in East Timor and added that the situation had to improve if Indonesia expected continued help.

Jakarta, Indonesia - As international pressure mounted on Indonesia Tuesday to halt a continuing surge of violence in East Timor, analysts here were stumped by two fundamental questions: who is orchestrating the carnage and why?

The crisis in East Timor comes against the backdrop of a broader crisis of leadership in Indonesia. The central Government is weak and fragmented as politicians fight over the presidential succession, and the once-powerful military has become hesitant, angry and divided. All around the country feuds and fiefs are creating local policy. What is clear in East Timor is that irregular militias backed by the Indonesian military are carrying out an organized campaign of terror that involves widespread killings, arson and the forced evacuation of tens of thousands from the remote territory of 800,000 people. Less clear is what the campaign is meant to achieve and what degree of control the Government in Jakarta has over the people waging it. Those are key questions as the United Nations and a number of foreign countries seek to put pressure on Indonesia to bring the violence to an end.

Last week, the people of East Timor voted by 78.5 percent for independence from Indonesia, which invaded the former Portuguese colony in 1975 and has fought against separatist guerrillas there ever since. That vote, organized by the United Nations, is now, as one diplomat put it, "part of history." It is unclear whether the current violence is an attempt somehow to turn back history, to seek some sort of bargaining power in a new East Timor, to send a warning to other separatist movements or simply to wreak vengeance. Several of these elements may be involved, but none seem to explain fully what is going on.

It is also unclear whether the policy, whatever it is, was ordered by the armed forces chief, Gen. Wiranto, or whether it was the work of military elements in East Timor that have rampaged beyond his control. General Wiranto is in a tenuous position as he seeks to lead the military toward reforms that reduce its power and privileges at a time of dangerous instability in Indonesia. Some analysts say he may find it difficult to bring to heel the entrenched units that have had their way in East Timor for 24 years. If General Wiranto is in fact commanding the campaign of violence, he would be undermining the policy of President B. J. Habibie, who offered the East Timorese their freedom early this year. That sudden shift in policy was deeply unpopular among many in the military.

With an electoral assembly scheduled to choose the next President later this fall, Habibie's East Timor policy could cost him the potentially decisive political backing of the armed forces for a new term in office. Convinced that Jakarta does have the power to halt the violence if it is pressed hard enough, Australia announced today that it had dispatched two warships with 500 troops to the waters off East Timor with the intention of leading a peacekeeping force if Indonesia agrees to its presence.

On the diplomatic front, a five-member delegation from the Security Council was due to arrive here Wednesday to press for quick action. In New York, the United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan, said Indonesia had 48 hours to show that it could control the situation. If not, he said, "the international community will have to consider what other measures it can take to assist the Indonesian Government in meeting its obligations." Realistically, though, the options of the international community are extremely limited. It is most unlikely that any military action will be taken without Jakarta's consent -- and that consent is also most unlikely. And any economic sanctions would jeopardize hopes for the recovery here that foreign nations have worked so desperately to foster.

Though the carnage in East Timor arouses moral outrage, the territory is a tiny one with little international importance. Any intervention on its behalf must be weighed against the costs to relations with Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous nation, with more than 200 million people. In his warning, Annan was referring to Indonesia's announcement today that it was imposing martial law on East Timor, which has descended into chaos since it voted for independence. If the military cracks down now on the violence, it will be cracking down on a campaign that it instigated and that is being controlled now by at least some of its own elements. The militias that are carrying out the carnage were created by the military early this year in an evident attempt to skew or derail the vote through violence and intimidation. Until election day, that plan seemed straightforward enough.

But suddenly and inexplicably the militias backed off. On the day of the vote, East Timor became an island of peace, with virtually no attempt made to disrupt the vote. Once the voting was complete, no one tried to steal the ballot boxes. And during five days of vote counting in an unguarded building, no attempt was made to spoil the process. If this was a real attempt to derail the vote, one diplomat said, it seemed a rather halfhearted one. But as soon as the result was announced last Saturday, the militias took heart again, initiating a rampage of terror that has continued for four days. They have intimidated most foreign journalists, aid workers and election observers into fleeing the territory and today even the Roman Catholic Bishop, Carlos Belo, whose residence was burned on Monday, fled to Australia. They have been rounding up tens of thousands of residents and trucking them across the border into West Timor, which is part of Indonesia. The International Committee for the Red Cross said refugees were pouring across the border today at the rate of 3,000 an hour.

But why? This is not ethnic cleansing; ethnic conflicts are not a key part of the East Timorese dynamic. And with four out of five East Timorese voting for independence, it seemed futile to try to expel all independence supporters. There is speculation here that the anti-independence forces could be hoping to create an Indonesian enclave within a new East Timorese nation, but this theory too seemed inadequate to explain the tactics of the militias. Despite the declaration of martial law early this morning, residents of the capital, Dili, reported that the violence and terror were continuing. "The situation here in the United Nations compound is deteriorating very rapidly," said Tjitske Lingsma, a Dutch journalist who has remained in Dili, speaking by telephone this evening. "All day around Dili buildings have been set on fire. Just after dark we saw two huge fires not too far from the United Nations compound. The whole city is being destroyed and houses are being looted. The situation is getting worse and worse."

Last week, in a referendum with nearly 100 percent turnout, East Timor's voters overwhelmingly supported independence from Indonesia. Now rampaging militias, with the backing and apparent complicity of Indonesia's army, are taking revenge against the inhabitants of this unlucky territory. They have set East Timor on fire -- murdering residents and driving tens of thousands of people to neighboring West Timor. Unfortunately, the proposals coming from Jakarta to stop the terror are less than reassuring. The United Nations Security Council should immediately endorse Australia's attempts to assemble a quick-reaction international peacekeeping force, and countries with economic influence should use it to press Indonesia to end the violence now or let the peacekeepers in.

In 1975, after Portugal withdrew from its colony of East Timor, Indonesia brutally invaded. Its annexation, carried out with the acquiescence of the United States and Australia, led to the deaths of 200,000 Timorese, nearly one in three residents. But East Timor provided huge international headaches for the dictatorship of President Suharto. His successor, B. J. Habibie, decided to offer East Timor a plan for autonomy inside Indonesia.

If Timorese voters rejected it, then Indonesia would pull out and East Timor would become independent. Despite growing violence by anti-independence militias, the U.N. agreed in May that if East Timor chose independence, Indonesia would withdraw its troops and the U.N. would take over security in the region -- but only well after a referendum. Indonesia's military and millions of nationalists deeply resent the offer of independence, and worry that it could encourage separatist movements in other regions. What East Timor is suffering is not chaos but an organized rampage by the militias, as some of the more than 15,000 Indonesian troops there stand by and even participate. The violence is very likely being coordinated by military men in Jakarta. Indonesia's Government insists that it can solve the problem without international help, and has declared martial law.

But Indonesia's military is the problem, not the solution.

Although Australia is now rightly assembling a peacekeeping force, the U.N. Security Council has announced that it will not endorse it without Indonesia's agreement. Getting Jakarta's consent will require strong and immediate pressure, especially from the United States, Australia -- which has strong ties to Indonesia's military -- and Japan, a large donor of economic aid. All three nations should announce that they are cutting off all military aid and sales. They, and the international banks, should also stop all but humanitarian loans and economic aid. America should give the peacekeeping mission a strong endorsement. An international force is clearly the last resort, to be tried only if President Habibie and Indonesia's military leader, Gen. Wiranto, will not stop the violence.

But a united, powerful threat from abroad is likely needed to persuade them to end the killings.