Lindsay Murdoch, Dili Armed militias massing in East Timor near the western border plan to go to war to stop the territory they hold becoming independent, United Nations officials have warned.
The officials told visiting US politicians in the town of Maliana at the weekend that the ballot to decide East Timor's future, scheduled for next Monday, should be called off in the militia-dominated district because "too many people will die".
After the confidential briefing, Senator Tom Harkin told reporters in the capital, Dili, that he would make an urgent call to President Clinton asking him to support the sending of armed UN peacekeeping troops to the former Portuguese territory.
"As one of the UN officials said, this could be a bloodbath down here," Senator Harkin said before flying to Jakarta to meet President Habibie.
The call for peacekeepers comes ahead of a visit to Canberra this week by the US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific Affairs, Mr Stanley Roth.
In February, Mr Roth told the head of Australia's Foreign Affairs Department, Dr Ashton Calvert, that he believed a full-scale peacekeeping operation would be necessary in East Timor.
Senator Harkin said there was strong evidence that Indonesia's military had worked with militia groups to sabotage the vote. "I am going to recommend to the President [Clinton] that he recommends to the Security Council that they get some peacekeeping forces down here in a hurry."
Meanwhile, UN sources said senior Indonesian military officers in Dili were making secret contingency plans to evacuate 50,000 civilians from areas near the border with West Timor.
The plans indicate that Indonesia's police and army will allow the militias they have armed and trained to seize control of large areas of the militias' heartland either before or after the ballot.
The delegation of three MPs led by Senator Harkin was shocked to hear how the militias were terrorising independence supporters and taking away voter registration cards.
Led by Mr Joao Tavares, a 68-year-old warlord with close links to Indonesia's armed forces, the militias had access to sophisticated weapons, they were told. Mr Tavares told the Herald last week that "if I want war, there will be war".
UN officials told the senators that civilians were being kidnapped from their homes and not seen again. One of the latest victims had had his head and arms chopped off.
The officials outlined to the senators preparations by the militias to go to war, including moving their relatives across the border to the town of Atambua. They said hundreds of independence supporters expecting violence were fleeing to forests and the mountains.
One Australian assigned to the UN contingent in Maliana said the situation was a "powderkeg". He and other UN officials in Maliana were ready to leave in a convoy for West Timor.
In Suai, a port on Timor's south coast, the US delegation saw 2,500 mostly pro-independence supporters being held as virtual hostages in a church compound.
Senator Harkin told the people: "We're going to be asking our Government and the United Nations to be providing some peacekeeping forces here. From what we've seen it's necessary to have somebody here to stop the intimidation."
The Indonesian Government has refused to consider allowing armed international peacekeepers to be sent to East Timor for the ballot, in which 450,000 people will get a choice between broad autonomy within Indonesia or independence.