Jakarta – Indonesia's armed forces (TNI) appears to have organised the mass bloodshed that hit East Timor, after it voted overwhelmingly for independence, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson said yesterday.

[Dita Sari, the workers leader who was released from prison in July this year after serving three years of a five-year sentence, is now in the UK at the invitation of the TUC. She gave this interview to Tapol before departing for Brighton yesterday.]

Q. What was the impact in Indonesia of the result of the referendum in East Timor?

Kupang – A terror campaign by pro-Indonesian militia that started in East Timor has moved across the border to West Timor, where more than 100,000 refugees have fled, fearful sources said.

People, who have visited the border town of Atambua, described it as a lawless place of gunfire, murder and kidnapping.

Max Stahl, Dare – This once peaceful hill station overlooking Dili was turned into a death site at the weekend as Indonesian forces surrounded and fired on terrified refugees living rough in nearby plantations. Dare, once a popular resort for Portuguese colonists escaping the heat of the coastal capital six miles away, is today a scene of misery and terror.

By Michelle Grattan, Hamish McDonald, Bernard Lagan and Peter Cole-Adams.

Indonesia buckled last night and invited a United Nations peacekeeping force "from friendly nations" to enter East Timor.

Doug Struck, Kupang – A human rights organisation has documented atrocities in East Timor that implicate the Indonesian military and militias in at least seven mass killings and dozens of individual slayings.

Darwin – An East Timorese support group claimed here Monday to have received reports that tens of thousands of people had died in a deliberate genocidal campaign by Indonesia.

Indonesian soldiers used rape as a secret weapon, but their "orphans: bear silent witness. Louise Williams and Leonie Lamont report.

Sister Maria leaned forward and quietly confided the truth about the Catholic orphanage which lies along the lonely northern coastal road of East Timor: "Most of the children are mixed race, the babies of women raped by Indonesian soldiers."

Darwin – Indonesian troops and pro-Jakarta militiamen were Sunday attacking thousands of refugees massed in the East Timorese town of Dare, a spokesman for the UN Mission in East Timor (UNAMET) said here.

John Pilger – It had been a long night of waiting for the Indonesian troop convoy to pass.

Two of us then crossed the border into East Timor clandestinely, through a forest of petrified trees which appeared as silhouetted needles around which skeins of fine white sand drifted, like mist. As the sun rose, there stood the surreal crosses.

A. Lin Neumann, Bangkok – When machete-wielding thugs set upon journalists in East Timor after the territory's August 30 vote for independence, it looked like another gruesome case of the press caught between warring sides. Deplorable, yes, but it comes with the territory if you choose to cover the front lines in conflict zones.

Kupang, West Timor – The Reverend Dewanto was the first to die, said Sister Mary Barudero. The militiamen had lined up outside the old wooden church filled with refugees in the East Timorese town of Suai on Monday afternoon, and the young Indonesian priest stepped out dressed in his clerical robes to meet the trouble.

Lindsay Murdoch who arrived in Darwin from Dili – The destruction of the capital is greater than anybody could imagine. Hundreds of houses are blackened shells. The doors of government offices are ajar. Banks, cafes, hotels, boarding houses, service stations: all burnt or trashed.

Lindsay Murdoch Dili and Craig Skehan Kupang – Piles of bodies have been seen stacked in cells at the police headquarters in Dili, while East Timorese forced to flee into Indonesian West Timor have arrived with accounts of murder and continuing intimidation by Indonesian militias.

John Aglionby, Kupang – When Ano Loy saw five Indonesian soldiers walking towards his home in Dili on Monday he was sure they were going to kill him. "They were carrying guns and cans of petrol. All the houses around mine were already empty, so they could only have been coming to me."

Brendan Nicholson, Canberra – The United Nations and Australia encouraged the Timorese to vote even though intelligence services had warned that the Indonesian military was orchestrating a violent campaign to hold on to the territory.

Craig Skehan Kupang and Greg Roberts Brisbane – Aid and church groups are concerned that thousands of East Timorese refugees in camps in West Timor could be used as bargaining chips in Indonesia's stand-off with the international community.

Most of the East Timorese killed in the violence that has swept the capital, Dili, were left to die where they fell on the street, a French doctor who treated hundreds of wounded in a city clinic said yesterday.

The Medecins du Monde doctor, who fled the territory on Wednesday, said he had treated 200 wounded, including 30 children, in the past five weeks.

Barry Porter, Auckland – Resistance leader and Nobel peace laureate Jose Ramos Horta said yesterday he had received reports that pro-Jakarta forces had begun attacking East Timor hillsides where unarmed civilians had taken refuge.

Vorasit Satienlerk, Dili – A UN Security Council team toured the ruined capital of East Timor on Saturday as the world community drew up plans for a security force to restore peace to the bloodied territory.

Richard Lloyd Parry – It is a very long drive up the palm-lined, four-lane avenue to the monolithic headquarters of the Indonesia military just outside Jakarta, and the tension in our car is rising.

Vaudine England, Jakarta – Indonesia's Alliance of Independent Journalists has issued an "urgent action" statement listing several Indonesian journalists missing in East Timor, as concerns grow about the difficulty of finding out what is happening in the territory.

When Sister Margaret arrived in Kupang yesterday after a 30- minute flight from East Timor's capital Dili, she suddenly realised how lucky she was to be a nun. "I was able to go off with the other sisters and priests to the bishop's house. I was not herded into a truck like an animal and driven off to a camp. We managed to retain some dignity."

Patrick Mcdowell, Jakarta – Drunk on stolen beer, pro-Indonesian militiamen looted the UN compound in East Timor on Friday, smashing equipment and terrifying East Timorese still inside after most of the UN staff were evacuated.

Lindsay Murdoch, Dili – Pat Burgess wipes away the tears. He doesn't want to make the life-or-death decision. The Australian political officer working for the United Nations has just been told that staff and their dependants, including Timorese, are evacuating from the besieged UN compound in Dili.

Louise Williams – Catholic Church leaders were hiding in remote East Timor mountains last night after pro-Jakarta militia gangs went on a rampage of bloody retribution, murdering at least 14 priests and nuns and stabbing the Bishop of Baucau.

Kupang – The mayor of the East Timorese capital Dili warned Wednesday that the UN Mission in East Timor (UNAMET) had to leave the territory or the killing and destruction there would continue.

Sydney – Indonesian military were rounding up East Timorese on the main Indonesian island of Java, one of Australia's leading pro-Timor activists said Thursday.

Jakarta – Antiforeigner sentiments marked a series of demonstrations which took place across the capital on Wednesday.

Lindsay Murdoch, Dili – The looting never stops. It's brazen now: soldiers, police and militia are stealing whatever they can carry.

Compere: Rafael Epstein has also been speaking to Inga Lemp, who was based in Baukau for the past month. She's been telling Rafael Epstein of conversations that she followed on a radio scanner.

Lindsay Murdoch, Dili – There are not many of us left, here in the United Nations' besieged compound. It seems the military's operation, to terrify the UN and media out of Dili, is running right on schedule.

Bernard Lagan, Darwin – Eyewitnesses have told how the Indonesian military combined with militias in Dili to storm Catholic Church and Red Cross compounds, forcing out thousands of East Timorese people sheltering there.

Jakarta – Enforcing a state of emergency in East Timor will not improve the situation because the military is unlikely to be neutral, said a former military commander in the province.

Darwin – An American UN worker recovering in an Australian hospital after being wounded in East Timor said Wednesday that he was shot by an Indonesian soldier.

Earl Candler was airlifted to the northern Australian city of Darwin after being shot twice in the abdomen while driving in an unmarked UN vehicle through the town of Liquica four days ago.

The Indonesian military – presented to the world as providing security while East Timor prepares for independence – is in fact orchestrating the brutal campaign of killings and intimidation, according to secret United Nations assessments.

The Democratic Socialist Party calls on all supporters of democracy to mobilise to demand that the Australian government insist that the United Nations authorise the immediate dispatch of Australian troops to East Timor.

At least 20 people have been killed and the western East Timorese town of Maliana set ablaze and all but destroyed.

An Australian observer who left the town early this afternoon in an armed convoy of Indonesian police said over 200 houses were burning in the town and over 100 people had taken refuge in the Indonesian police compound.

Lindsay Murdoch, Dili – East Timorese have voted overwhelmingly to end Indonesia's rule of their territory and become one of the world's newest, and smallest, independent countries. But violent pro-Indonesia militias gave the pro-independence majority little chance to celebrate.

Lindsay Murdoch, Dili – It was the birth of a nation, the victorious end to a 24-year struggle for independence. But in Dili today no champagne was flowing, few people were rejoicing.

Dili – There were no smiles of celebration on the faces of the East Timorese in the capital Dili today when the results of the historic independence ballot were announced.

Paul Daley – The resounding pro-independence result of East Timor's autonomy ballot yesterday allowed Alexander Downer to say what has been on the minds of foreign ministers since Indonesia invaded, then annexed, the territory 24 years ago.

Dili – Hundreds of pro-Indonesian militiamen roamed through the East Timorese capital Dili early Saturday as fear gripped the territory with the United Nations announcing an overwhelming vote in favour of independence.

Ian Timberlake, Dili – Furious United Nations staff – evacuated from Maliana following the murders of two UN poll workers in the district – yesterday blasted Indonesian police for doing nothing while anti-independence militiamen rampaged.

Lindsay Murdoch, Dili – A skinny boy in filthy threadbare clothes hangs around my hotel. Ameu, 10, is a good kid, keeping an eye on my room when I am out. He has suffered a great deal; both his mother and father are dead. This morning he was running his finger along the blade of a sharp dagger. I asked him where he got it but he just shrugged. "I will not be killed," he said.

Jakarta – Indonesian opposition leader and presidential candidate Megawati Sukarnoputri said Saturday she was "very sad" East Timor had voted overwhelmingly for independence.

Megawati, who had opposed the separation of East Timor, said she was "very concerned and very sad about the autonomy ballot's result," the Suara Pembaruan evening daily reported.

Jakarta – Leader of the National Council for East Timorese Resistance (CNRT) Xanana Gusmao hails the Aug. 30 ballot results as a victory for all East Timorese and calls for an immediate presence of an international force in East Timor to protect the people from the Indonesian Military (TNI).

Jakarta – President B.J. Habibie pledged Saturday to honor East Timor's decision to reject Indonesia's offer for a special autonomy and ordered the military and police to maintain law and order in the territory until the United Nations assumes transitional authority pending elections for a new government.

New York, Friday: East Timor voted overwhelmingly to break its ties with Indonesia in favour of independence, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan announced here tonight.

More than 23 years after Indonesia invaded the former Portuguese colony, the voters rejected wide-ranging autonomy within Indonesia by 78.5 percent, he said.

Craig Skehan, Jakarta – Differences have emerged within the Indonesian Government over whether international peacekeepers could be needed in East Timor after tomorrow's announcement of results from the self-determination ballot.