Militias Attack a U.N. Compound in East Timor : Indonesia: About 100 staffers are evacuated to provincial capital. Nobel laureate seeking refuge nearby flees to Australia, blames violence on the military.

JAKARTA, Indonesia — Ignoring threats of international intervention, anti-independence militiamen in East Timor attacked the U.N. compound in Baukau on Tuesday, forcing the U.N. staff and a prominent Roman Catholic bishop to flee.

The attack on Baukau, a town previously spared militia violence, came as martial law was being imposed on East Timor by the Indonesian government. The approximately 100 U.N. staff members were evacuated 70 miles east to the provincial capital, Dili, the last place in East Timor where the United Nations still maintains a presence.

Dili’s Roman Catholic bishop, Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo, co-winner of the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize, had been staying at a bishop’s house near the compound, having fled Dili on Monday after his house there was set afire. On Tuesday, he fled again, this time to Darwin, Australia, where he said the violence in East Timor had been planned “around a table by the Indonesian military.”

Western diplomats viewed the declaration of martial law as a final desperate attempt by the Indonesian government to convince the world that it can control marauding gunmen who have brought terror to East Timor and who continued Tuesday to empty Dili of independence supporters at gunpoint, with at least the acquiescence of Indonesian military units in the province.

Martial law had no immediate effect in the provincial capital, U.N. workers said, but most added that it was too early to tell if the military intended to impartially obey orders to shoot on sight curfew violators, including pro-Indonesian militia, and get gunmen off the streets. Human rights activists say scores, maybe hundreds, of people have died in the militia rampage.

U.N. officials in New York said that all 13 regional offices in East Timor were evacuated and that 335 international and local staffers had taken shelter in the U.N. headquarters in Dili, along with about 2,000 people who had fled the terror. Three babies were born in the U.N. compound late Monday and early Tuesday.

U.N. staffers said that as many as 200,000 people were displaced in East Timor and that humanitarian agencies were unable to provide help because of the perilous security situation.

The widespread militia violence erupted after the people of East Timor, a former Portuguese colony invaded and annexed by Indonesia in the mid-1970s, voted overwhelmingly for independence in a U.N.-supervised Aug. 30 election. Since then, the anti-independence gunmen have rampaged unchecked through East Timor, killing, looting and attempting to rid the province of those who support breaking away from Indonesia.

Several countries have suggested that a U.N.-sanctioned “security assistance” force, presumably led by Australia, be sent to East Timor if the Indonesian government fails to fulfill pledges to end the violence. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Australian officials notified Indonesia late Monday that it had 48 hours to contain the military-backed militias.

Gen. Wiranto, Indonesia’s armed forces chief, on Tuesday reiterated his opposition to deploying foreign troops on Indonesian soil. “We have all the capability to handle the situation,” he said.

With the Indonesian military having apparently lost control of its East Timor commanders, Wiranto ordered to the province four battalions from the Kostrad strategic reserve, an elite unit whose loyalty he commands. The first battalion arrived Monday, and on Tuesday it replaced police officers guarding the U.N. compound in Dili.

Ian Martin, the U.N. mission chief, was startled--and heartened--when a Kostrad major introduced himself Tuesday, saying he had been assigned to provide security for the compound and hoped that the U.N. workers would stay.

“Maybe this is the beginning of a change,” said a Western ambassador in Jakarta, the Indonesian capital. “We’ll see.”

Other Kostrad units were said to have taken control of the Dili airport, a radio station and a hospital. Wiranto intends to have Kostrad soldiers replace other units that have fought independence supporters, but it was unclear if he has been able to rotate any units out of East Timor.

Meanwhile, discussions were underway at U.N. headquarters, in Washington and in other capitals about the composition of a peacekeeping force if Indonesia was unable to impose order in the province.

Plans called for a special mission of five Security Council representatives--who arrived in Jakarta early today--to urge Indonesian President B.J. Habibie to accept an outside military force if order could not be restored in 24 hours.

Arnold Peter van Walsum, the Dutch ambassador to the United Nations who is also Security Council president, said the council’s 15 members could act quickly to approve an outside force--but only if Indonesia requested soldiers.

“The council does not have much leverage in the present situation when we’re trying to convince Indonesia to go along,” he acknowledged.

It was unlikely, diplomats said, that peacekeepers would be willing to enter East Timor without the approval of the Habibie government, which has more than 14,000 soldiers and 8,000 police officers in the province. To do so would be tantamount to going to war with Indonesia, the world’s fourth-most-populous country.

Australian Defense Minister John Moore said at least 7,000 troops would be needed for any international force. Australia, which has a warship standing by near Indonesian waters, is said to be prepared to contribute at least 2,000 soldiers.

“Either Indonesia acts to take care of the situation itself, or the international community will have to come in,” said Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who arrived in Auckland, where New Zealand today or Thursday will host an emergency meeting on East Timor as part of the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.

In West Timor, a leading pro-Indonesian East Timorese said today that top commanders of East Timor’s pro-Jakarta militias met the regional armed forces chief and pledged to end the campaign of terror.

“They [the militias] agreed to stop their actions, and today they would start cleaning up the mess,” Basilio Araujo, a spokesman for several of the main pro-Jakarta organizations, told Reuters news agency.

However, past pledges to stop violence have not been honored by pro-Jakarta forces.

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Times staff writer John J. Goldman at the United Nations contributed to this report.