It is hard to see how worse bloodshed can be avoided without much stronger international pressure on Jakarta to pull its troops into line, writes Brian Toohey.

Alexander Downer could be excused for wondering whatever happened to the famed special relationship between the Australian military and the Indonesian military now that it is needed.

As Foreign Minister, Downer has the unenviable job of helping bring about something resembling a peaceful act of self-determination in East Timor. The biggest barrier he faces is the Indonesian military's defiance of President Habibie's desire that they should stop arming paramilitary groups currently terrorising East Timorese who favour independence.

Ideally, Downer should be able to play a trump card inherited from the Keating era. Relying on a process dubbed "Velcro diplomacy", he should be able to ask senior members of the Australian Defence Force (ADF) to have a word in the ear of their opposite numbers in Indonesia, and the militia would be disarmed.

Velcro diplomacy has been hailed as one of the great successes of the Keating Government's policy of building closer ties with the Indonesian military (ABRI), particularly its Special Forces (Kopassus). The basic idea entailed Australian soldiers establishing close personal relations with their Indonesian counterparts.

One of the alleged benefits was that Australia would be able to exercise much greater influence over ABRI's behaviour. The claim was never really tested during the Keating era because there was no serious disagreement with ABRI's role of suppressing dissent on behalf of the former dictator, President Soeharto.

But this has changed since John Howard took over as Australian Prime Minister, and Habibie became Indonesian President. Both governments are officially committed to a ballot in which the East Timorese will indirectly vote on whether they want to become an autonomous part of Indonesia. If they reject autonomy – which most observers expect to be the clear outcome of a genuinely free choice – Habibie has said they can have independence.

Downer accepts that Habibie wants a peaceful outcome. But he has complained that "rogue elements" in the military are refusing to go along with Habibie's wishes. However, it is now plain that the top levels of the Indonesian military are making no real effort to get Kopassus units to obey orders and stop funding and arming the anti-independence paramilitary groups in East Timor.

As recently as Tuesday, at least 25 unarmed villagers were massacred in Liquica by members of the Red and White Iron paramilitary group with the support of Indonesian soldiers.

The massacre was basically no different to the atrocities that have brought the wrath of NATO down on the heads of Serbian paramilitary groups in Kosovo. Yet the special lines of communication supposedly established as a result of the ADF's venture into Velcro diplomacy have obviously proved worthless in terms of stopping similar atrocities in East Timor.

No-one is suggesting that there be a NATO-style response in which downtown Jakarta is repeatedly bombed. But Downer is likely to find little public sympathy if he stands by and lets the situation deteriorate further. Yet it is hard to see how worse bloodshed can be avoided without much stronger international pressure on Jakarta to pull its troops into line.

At present, the July ballot is supposed to take place under ABRI's supervision. UN observers will be given no separate protection. Unless all sides agree to lay down their arms before the ballot – and ABRI steps away from its current policy of intimidation – the chances of a genuine act of self-determination look slim.

Downer's problem is that a rigged ballot will not end the determined resistance to Indonesia's brutal occupation of East Timor. This resistance has never really wavered since the 1975 invasion. Armed action only ceased with the promise of a genuine act of self-determination. If that promise is snatched away by Kopassus's terror campaign, a new level of violent resistance is likely.

According to Labor's shadow Foreign Minister, Laurie Brereton, who is due to arrive in Jakarta on Tuesday, the most productive response at this stage would be to help organise a peacekeeping force to ensure a relatively clean ballot in July. The difficulty is how to get the necessary agreement on all sides before there is a peace to be kept.

A US Assistant Secretary of State, Stanley Roth, is also due in the Indonesian capital to reportedly hammer home a "hard message" on the need for an end to the bloodshed in East Timor. On Friday, a State Department spokesperson said that the US supported an "enhanced international presence" in East Timor. Australia will clearly be expected to be part of that presence – most likely with peacekeeping troops.

One of Downer's predecessors as Foreign Minister, Bill Hayden, warned on Friday that this would result in "numerous body bags" coming back to Australia.

Senior members of the ADF believe that Hayden underestimates just how well Australian troops are trained and equipped. Australian peacekeepers in Somalia in 1991 persuaded local militia to disarm, without suffering any casualties themselves. Accordingly, the ADF is confident that it would not have a lot of trouble convincing ill-trained militia groups in East Timor that shooting unarmed civilians is a lot easier than killing members of a well-armed international peacekeeping force.

Contrary to some impressions, the ADF is not reluctant to participate in a peacekeeping force. Nor are some senior policy makers in the Defence Department, who now see a peaceful transition to East Timorese independence as removing a crucial impediment to good long-term relations between Australia and Indonesia.

This is essentially the same view as Defence unsuccessfully put to the Whitlam Government before the 1975 invasion. Defence was subsequently persuaded during the Keating era that Velcro diplomacy based on warm personal ties between ABRI and the ADF would bolster the relationship – so long as no-one criticised the invasion.

Now there seems to be a return to the view that diplomacy is better left to diplomats – that Indonesian generals who won't listen to their own President are unlikely to take much notice of the same message delivered by an Australian general with whom they once shared a beer in the officers' mess in Darwin. All of which puts the ball firmly in Downer's court.

Voters in Western countries are not baulking at tough action to prevent massacres in Kosovo. There is no reason to expect they will be happy to tolerate similar massacres occurring in East Timor because countries on the diplomatic front-line, such as Australia, can't apply enough pressure to make Indonesia's military forces stop imitating their Serbian counterparts.