A rising tide of violence during the past week in East Timor delayed the UN-backed peace process between Indonesia and Portugal and UN officials feared it could derail plans for the territory’s autonomy.

The killing of dozens of Timorese inside and near the Catholic church at Liquica last Tuesday prompted UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to warn against the increase in violence at what the United Nations believed was the crucial phase of Timorese peace talks.

On Friday, special UN envoy Jamsheed Marker met pro- independence Timorese leader and Nobel laureate Jose Ramos Horta to discuss the violence.

Marker said later that the United Nations had appealed for calm from all sides and had warned that the effort to determine East Timor’s status could be detailed by the killings.

“Certainly it’s not possible to hold these consultations in an atmosphere charged by fighting,” Marker said. But he added that the violence “hasn’t come as a surprise…I think it will continue. This always happens in situations like this.”

Ramos Horta said that he had assured Marker and Indonesian officials that pro-independence forces would do all they could to avoid any escalation of violence, or any loss of face for Jakarta that could provoke a further crackdown.

Indonesia is widely expected to lose any vote on East Timor’s status to the pro-independence movement, after its 24 years of military occupation.

“We are prepared to be creative, to be flexible, to let them disengage from Timor with honour and integrity,” Ramos Horta said of the Indonesian forces.

UN spokesman Fred Eckhard also announced that the United Nations was derailing a “tripartite” meeting between Portuguese, Indonesian and UN envoys – to discuss autonomy proposals for East Timor – by a week, to Apr. 21, at Jakarta’s request.

The Indonesian and Portuguese foreign ministers were due to meet Annan on Apr. 22 in a bid to finalise an autonomy package on which the Timorese people would vote this summer – either to accept or to reject it in favour of independence.

An earlier autonomy package was pulled by Indonesia when some officials in President Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie’s government deemed it to be too generous.

UN officials have also been pressing the Jakarta government to allow “an impartial inquiry” into the Liquica killings, believed to have been committed by Timorese paramilitary groups in favour of Indonesia’s 1976 annexation of the island state.

“We feel it’s very important that some form of inquiry be set up,” Marker said Friday. “The guilty should be determined and punished.” Indonesia, he added, already had informed him of their plans to conduct an investigation into the Liquica shootings.

The Liquica killings – which, according to the US-based East Timor Action Network, resulted in at least 56 deaths – have thrown a wrench in the works of the Timorese peace process.

Xanana Gusmao, the detained leader of the Timorese independence movement, called for the rebel Timorese army, called FALINTIL, to take up arms one day before the Liquica massacre, citing allegations that Indonesia has been arming paramilitary groups.

He insisted that his side would resume a cease-fire only if UN peacekeepers could be sent to East Timor.

The next day, paramilitaries opened fire on Timorese civilians who had taken shelter in Liquica’s Catholic church. Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo, co-winner with Ramos Horta of the Nobel Peace Prize, said the ensuing massacre “made me ashamed to be Indonesian”.

“(Indonesia’s) paramilitary proxies have shattered any semblance of peace,” argued ETAN’s national coordinator, Charles Scheiner, and Washington representative, Lynn Fredriksson, in a letter to US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

“When the tripartite talks resume, Indonesia must commit to disarm the paramilitaries and pull their troops out of East Timor – and take concrete steps to do it. Otherwise, there is no peace process to derail,” they wrote.

Annan told reporters last month that Indonesian officials have denied arming pro-Indonesia paramilitaries and that he has no evidence that they are doing it. But one paramilitary leader, Kansio Lopez, told the BBC in February that he had received automatic weapons, used in an attack on FALINTIL, by the Indonesian Army (or ABRI).

Lopez also claimed he had worked previously for Indonesia’s Justice Department.

Amid the mood of rising violence, Gusmao and others have stepped up calls for the United Nations to step in with a peacekeeping force or diplomatic mission that could monitor events in East Timor.

Marker said Friday that he was exploring the mechanics of sending a mission, perhaps including diplomats and monitors, to East Timor but insisted that there would be no peacekeeping force. In any case, a UN presence would be unlikely within the next two weeks because of planning considerations, he added..

Despite the snags, the Timorese movement has been optimistic about the chances for independence one year after longtime Indonesian dictator Suharto’s downfall.

“I have not lost confidence in this process,” Ramos Horta said. “There is no turning back.”