The UN chief administrator in East Timor said on Tuesday that the territory should become independent next year, but will need UN protection and financial support long after that. Sergio Vieira de Mello said that, barely 12 months since the UN took over East Timor after it was laid waste by militias opposed to a break from Indonesia, "we are now well advanced on the transition to independence."

He told a public session of the Security Council that a general election would be held, "most likely in the middle of next year," for an assembly to draft a new constitution. The transitional cabinet, which was set up in July, will start drafting regulations for the registration of political parties this week or next, he said.

The UN Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) should be able to transfer power to a legitimately elected government in 2001, he said. "But there is much more to transition than handing over political power," he added.

He noted that, at a donors' conference last week, Australia and Portugal had made "generous commitments to play the lead role" in helping to set up and train an East Timor Defence Force.

Portugal, the former colonial power, abandoned East Timor in 1975, leaving a vacuum which Indonesia was quick to fill.

Australia is by far the largest contributor to UNTAET, with 1,580 of the 7,710 troops currently deployed by the UN in East Timor. The force also includes 1,420 civilian police and 167 military observers.

"The objective of having a fully trained first battalion of the defence force in place by late 2001 is now well on track," Vieira de Mello said. But the force was not expected to be at full strength until the end of 2003 and "clearly, a UN peacekeeping presence will be required in some form until at least that date," he said.

Vieira de Mello said he would go to Brussels next week to meet European Union and World Bank officials to drum up financial support for East Timor from international donors.

He said that UNTAET -- which has an annual budget of about 344 million dollars paid for from peacekeeping assessments -- should be given the flexibility to support the East Timorese budget. "It is frankly absurd, as a transitional administrator, to preside over a UN mission that spends 10 assessed dollars on itself for every voluntary dollar spent administering the country for which the council made us responsible," he said.

To see the UN press release with de Mello's and ambassadors' discussion, click here.