The first members of the International Force for East Timor (or Interfet, as UN lingo would have it) will arrive September 20 to a hostile and unstable East Timor. Xanana Gusmao, a leader of the East Timor independence drive and East Timor's putative first president, worried in a BBC interview that "rogue elements" of the Indonesian military will attack the peacekeepers. Some of the militia leaders have indeed pledged to attack UN forces upon arrival. Hasyim Muzadi, leader of a Muslim group, said, "The call for jihad against foreign intervention in East Timor should be understood as a spontaneous heroism. The anger of the Indonesian people is not only directed at Australia, but also especially at the United States."
The reason such anger is aimed at Australia is that Australia, the only major nation to recognize Indonesia's annexation of East Timor, has been among Indonesia's harshest critics regarding the recent violence. Indonesia regarded this seeming change of support as a betrayal, and at first declared that it would allow the peacekeepers to enter the region only if Australia was not leading the mission. (United Nations peacekeeping operation guidelines hold that troops can enter a country only if specifically invited by the recognized government of that country.) This attitude softened a bit, though, as Indonesia considered the only alternative: no peacekeepers, and a continuing crisis.
Why couldn't Indonesia end the unrest on its own? Even if the government had the will, the only way it could accomplish this goal would be to send its military to storm the streets and ruralities of East Timor. This effort would not be seen as an attempt to restore freedom, but as an attempt to restore order, Indonesian style. Indonesia cannot enforce the results of an election to be free of the Indonesian military by sending in the Indonesian military. It would be seen, at least by the Timorese, as a rejection of the election results, and a direct affront to Timorese democracy.
So, the best solution, among several poor solutions, seems to be the one upon which the United Nations and Indonesia have embarked. Some 2,000 foreign troops will enter the cities, and spread through the countryside, in an effort to keep the militia at bay, and make the region safe enough so that the refugees, an estimated 600,000 of them, can return to their homes.
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