East Timorese need U.N. forces to act quickly to bring order

Yesterday Indonesian President B.J. Habibie said he would allow United Nations peacekeeping forces to enter East Timor, the Indonesian province that has been engulfed in chaos since voting overwhelmingly for independence in an Aug. 30 referendum. Habibie's announcement, in a nationally televised address, is a crucial step toward peace in East Timor and a welcome reversal of Indonesia's previous opposition to foreign intervention. What is most important now is that the UN and the international community quickly take Habibie up on his offer.

Indonesia's own attempts to restore order to East Timor, a small territory north of Australia it invaded in 1975, have failed dismally. The anti-independence militias behind most of the violence have close ties to the Indonesian military, and additional Indonesian soldiers sent to East Timor last week reportedly have turned a blind eye to militia violence. As a result, hundreds of East Timorese have been killed over the last week. Thousands have been driven from their homes. Dili, East Timor's capital, is a ghost town.

Now it will be up to UN peacekeepers to prevent East Timor from slipping further into anarchy. Australia, Indonesia's neighbor and one of the nations most actively pushing for a peacekeeping force, has said it can send 2,500 troops into East Timor. Several other Pacific countries, including Cambodia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand, also have volunteered for the peacekeeping mission.

The United States should do its part too. President Clinton's national security advisor, Sandy Berger, said yesterday that the U.S. would lend logistical support, communications and intelligence for the peacekeeping mission, but would leave the leadership on the ground to Australia. This is an appropriate role for the U.S. to play.

In the past, America's East Timor policy has been nothing to be proud of; President Ford tacitly condoned the 1975 invasion and succeeding administrations have pumped Indonesia with military aid in the years since. But thus far in the current crisis, the Clinton administration has done a good job prodding Indonesia along the road to peace in East Timor. Pressure from the U.S., Indonesia's second-largest trading partner after Japan, helped convince Habibie to agree to a referendum in the first place and to permit peacekeepers. It may again prove invaluable as the specifics of the UN mission are worked out.

Whatever the details of the peacekeeping mission, it must come quickly. By all accounts, the violence in East Timor is intensifying. Australia said yesterday its troops could be on the ground in three days. They can't land a day too soon.