Jakarta – Indonesia's Foreign Minister Ali Alatas on Tuesday accused pro-independence East Timorese of a disinformation campaign to portray Jakarta as destroying moves to peacefully resolve the territory's future.

His remarks came a day after rebel leader Xanana Gusmao, angered by growing pro-Jakarta violence, told East Timorese to take up arms again against Indonesian rule in the former Portuguese colony, abruptly abandoning his ceasefire.

"I hope that his statement was made in a burst of emotionalism and that maybe when cooler heads prevail in the following days he will see that it is not helpful at all," Alatas said.

"It really endangers the whole process in which we are all engaged and in which we all have a vital interest," he told reporters.

"We really regret that even after we have shown so much goodwill ... whereas Portugal has not moved one inch, whereas our detractors have not moved one inch, still we are pictured as if we are the ones destroying the possibilities for a peaceful solution," Alatas said. "These are all disinformations," Alatas added. "What else can be expected from Indonesia?"

He said Gusmao, who is under house arrest in Jakarta, was repeating information from unreliable sources. Alatas denied an account of an incident in East Timor's Liquisa district on Monday, which said 17 people were killed by pro-Jakarta forces.

He suggested that pro-independence groups were getting worried that a planned vote by East Timorese on broad autonomy, scheduled for July, would not produce the result they wanted.

Negotiations resume between Portugal and Indonesia in New York later this month focusing on the question of allowing East Timorese to choose their own future. Jakarta has said that if East Timorese chose to reject proposed autonomy, it would consider independence for the territory.