A diplomatic effort has been launched to persuade Jakarta to accept some form of international intervention in East Timor, where it is feared that a week of killings since Monday's independence vote in the Indonesia territory could swell into massacres.
An informal coalition of foreign governments is hoping to find some formula for an armed contingent that would not offend Indonesian pride and could be put in place very quickly.
Nobody seems to be suggesting a large force. Diplomats insist that China would veto a fully fledged force and that Asian countries such as Malaysia would be unhappy. The same applies even more strongly to any scheme for "peace enforcement".
Australia said yesterday that even its proposal to the United Nations to send a small peackeeping force had drawn Indonesian objections.
"I can say at this stage," said the Foreign Minister, Mr Alexander Downer, "that the Indonesians are quite resistant to having any armed foreign presence in East Timor".
"We remain willing to participate in a constructive fashion in a peacekeeping operation," the Australian Prime Minister, Mr John Howard, said yesterday, "but you cannot go in. . . without that country 's approval".
In New York the UN spokesman, Mr Fred Eckhard, said a small unit could be put together quickly if the Security Council agreed. But it would not be practical, he said, to assemble "a peacekeeping force from scratch".
Diplomats in the territory's capital, Dili, reported back to their governments that the situation was one of "authorised anarchy", and called for urgent action to stop the excesses of the pro-Jakarta militias, operating under the patronage of the army.
"There is now a concerted effort to turn over as much territory as possible to the militias," said one observer, "and the only way we are going to stop that is by a peacekeeping force". Among the Jakarta public, concern at the effect on Indonesia's image is offset by resentment of foreign criticism.
Indonesian media reported some of the violence in Dili, but also reflected the popular ambivalence about the government's decision to hold the independence referendum. Many Indonesians resent the amount of state money spent over the years on East Timor, and feel Jakarta should not abandon its stake in the place.
The investment is not just economic but also human. The media have given prominent coverage to the views of army veterans of the 25-year campaign to pacify East Timor. "What do our medals mean if East Timor is independent?" asked one veteran. One television channel quoted the complaint of a widow whose husband had been killed.
"We should not have let East Timor go," she said. "Thousands have died. . . Of my husband, only his name remains."
The press reported that national politicians had accepted the ballot result with an air of despondency.
The pro-Muslim Republika newspaper said that the independence movement was a Western conspiracy against Indonesia, led by the US.