Under strong international pressure, Indonesian President B.J. Hababie agreed Sept. 12 to permit a U.N. peacekeeping force to enter East Timor to halt a massacre by Indonesian death squads.
Thousands are likely dead.
Thousands of lives hang in the balance. Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo, a Nobel Peace Prize winner who survived when militiamen opened fire on his Dili residence, accused the Indonesian military of the massacre of as many as 10,000 Timorese. Speaking from Portugal where he has taken refuge, Belo urged a war crimes tribunal. ETAN called for a flood of messages to Congress. The U.S. must back the speedy deployment of an international force to support the U.N. in taking control of security, ending martial law, demanding Indonesian military withdrawal and disarming and arresting paramilitaries.