Global Policy Forum

By Christopher Wren

As the Security Council prepared to send a delegation to Indonesia and West Timor to look into the slayings of three United Nations refugee workers last week, the Indonesian government said today that it would refuse to meet the delegation.

The Indonesian defense minister, Mohammed Mafud, told journalists in Jakarta that the cabinet considered the incident an internal matter to be handled by Indonesians. "Today's cabinet meeting has decided that the Indonesian government will not meet that mission because we already have our own programs," Mr. Mafud said, according to the French news agency Agence France Presse. "We will reject the presence of that mission. We will negotiate on our own, we will settle this on our own," the defense minister said. "We are a sovereign nation."

Indonesia's chief security minister, Susili Mambang Yudhoyono, who also attended the cabinet meeting, told reporters that "the presence of the U.N. mission is inappropriate because the government is currently trying to find solutions" for its problems in East Timor.

The three workers for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees — Carlos Cacerea, Samson Aregehegn and Pero Simundsa — were killed last Wednesday in the West Timorese town of Atambua when a mob led by armed militia members stormed their office and battered and hacked the three unarmed men to death. The assailants had broken off from the emotional funeral of a militia leader who was killed the day

Today, the national police chief, General Rusdihardjo, who uses only one name, reported that five suspects had been arrested in the investigation into the death of the militia leader, Olivio Medonca, also known as Moruk. General Rusdihardjo, said the security forces were also looking for five more suspects in the rampage at the United Nations office.

President Abdurrahman Wahid of Indonesia, who was visiting the United Nations when its workers were killed in West Timor, blamed their murders on "criminals" who had infiltrated the militias. In a subsequent letter to Secretary General Kofi Annan, Mr. Wahid expressed his sorrow at the deaths and promised to bring the killers to justice. The Security Council, in a resolution adopted on Friday, called the killings "outrageous and contemptible" and demanded that the Indonesian government take immediate steps to disarm and disband the undisciplined militias, which oppose independence for East Timor. The Council said that United Nations workers, who were evacuated from West Timor following the killings, would not return until their security was guaranteed by the government.

The delegation was being dispatched to help the Council carry out its resolution by evaluating the situation on the ground. Its members reportedly planned to leave for Indonesia early next week.

The Secretary General's spokesman, Fred Eckhard, declined to comment on the Indonesian government's refusal to meet the delegation. "I think we would want to see the Security Council's reaction to that," he said The Council is scheduled to go into closed consultations on Wednesday, following a working meeting today of experts from member countries. It was unclear how long the delegation, which reportedly was planning to leave for Indonesia early next week, would postpone its departure, if at all. A year ago, the Indonesian government refused to meet another delegation from the Security Council, only to back down later.