As East Timor's rebel leader, Mr Xanana Gusmao, called for United Nations troops to protect his people from attack by paramilitaries, 45 refugees were yesterday reported killed in a paramilitary attack on a church. It followed reports that 17 had been killed in the same area on Monday.
Having grabbed the attention of diplomats in Washington and at the UN on Monday, with a call to his followers to resume armed struggle, Mr Gusmao yesterday qualified that position. If the UN stepped in to help protect his people against the Indonesian army then the order would be rescinded, he said.
Meanwhile, the Portuguese news agency Lusa quoted Bishop Carlos Ximines Belo as saying that 45 people had been killed in violence in the Liquisa area of East Timor yesterday afternoon, according to information he had received from the Indonesian military commander in the territory.
Bishop Belo said that more than 2,000 people were inside the church in Liquisa, which is in the west of East Timor, when gunmen fired indiscriminately, throwing several grenades.
"I will go tomorrow with the Indonesian military commander to evaluate the situation, and only then will we have more information," Lusa quoted Bishop Belo as saying.
The previous day's report of 17 killed is disputed. Military and other sources put the death toll at two and Mr Gusmao's lawyer said yesterday only four deaths had been confirmed.
Bishop Belo also called for UN help but in the form of a civilian team to monitor human rights.
Developments in recent days have dashed hope generated since January 27th by President B.J. Habibie of Indonesia that East Timor might get independence. And a report by a leading Timorese resistance leader of "a great number" of heavily armed troops disembarking yesterday in the Timorese capital, Dili, will do little to rekindle optimism about a settlement.
The Timorese resistance leadership believes it has been lied to by Jakarta about its commitment to the peace process. Portugal's representative to Indonesia had no hesitation yesterday in seeing continuing attacks on civilians as part of a dirty tricks campaign to spoil a proposed vote in July that could lead to independence for the former Portuguese colony.
"The objective of all this is to compromise the negotiations under way under the auspices of the United Nations in New York," said Ms Ana Gomes, whose recent assignment by Portugal to her post in Jakarta was itself part of a process to settle this almost 24-year-old issue.
The Indonesian author of the Habibie policy, Ms Dewi Fortuna Anwar, denied this.
She also brushed aside Mr Gusmao's call for a UN role, saying there was no need for an "outside party" in East Timor. On Monday Ms Fortuna, senior adviser to President Habibie, made the surprising statement that the army was fully behind the Habibie policy for settlement.
Yesterday's clarification - in apparent response to anxious reactions from Washington, Canberra, Lisbon, and even Tokyo to Gusmao's call to arms - came from his lawyer, Mr Johnson Panjaitan.
"If ABRI [the army] does not stop the violence and the United Nations does not take concrete steps to disarm [the factions], then the call for war will still continue," he said.
"If things are like this, a UN police force is no longer sufficient, but it should be a UN peacekeeping force," Mr Gusmao was quoted as saying by Mr Panjaitan.