Jakarta – UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan Saturday downplayed the likelihood that an international tribunal would be established to try those responsible for violence that swept East Timor after it voted for independence in 1999.

"At this stage we have not discussed an international tribunal [for those responsible]," said Annan, who is on a two-day stopover to Indonesia en route to independence celebrations in East Timor on Sunday night.

Up to 1,000 people were killed in a rampage by sections of the Indonesian military and their militia proxies after East Timor voted overwhelmingly to end 24 years of Jakarta rule in a UN-sponsored ballot.

Local and foreign rights groups have demanded an international war crimes court similar to those for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia be established to try the suspects.

However, Annan said the Indonesian government should proceed with its own trial of 18 suspects – among them several high-ranking military and government officials – in a specially convened human rights court in Jakarta.

Critics have doubted the defendants – many of whom have influential civilian and military backers – will face justice in Indonesia's notoriously corrupt legal system.

"There is widespread skepticism that trials underway in Jakarta before Indonesian ad hoc tribunals will bring accountability," said New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a statement.

The United Nations ) has been administering East Timor since shortly after 1999's independence vote. The world body will officially hand over its authority to an East Timorese government on midnight Sunday.