The hostility of some Asian countries to Australia’s peace-keeping efforts in East Timor sharpened here Wednesday with Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad declaring the Australian troops were belligerent.

Mahathir met UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to discuss a possible scaling back of the Australians in the multinational International Force for East Timor (Interfet) and argued for a greater role by Asian troops .

“I think it is necessary that Australia scale down its peacekeeping force,” he said. “There are other ways of solving problems besides pointing guns at people.”

Mahathir contended that Annan had agreed that, as more Asian troops participated in peacekeeping in East Timor, some Australian soldiers – who were to comprise some 4,500 of about 7,500 Interfet troops – ccould be pulled out.

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer agreed that Annan and Canberra both wanted to scale back the Australian presence eventually and include more troops from the Association of South- east Asian Nations (ASEAN).

But he defended Australia’s role so far as “successful” and said the Australian soldiers had shown great restraint in east Timor.

For now, there is no serious plan to reduce the number of Australian troops, with many soldiers from ASEAN countries still weeks away from deployment and cash-strapped Asian nations unwilling to foot the bill for a lengthy involvement.

The costs of Interfet, unlike UN operations, are met by participating governments.

Mahathir’s comments, however, underscored the suspicions of some of Indonesia’s Asian allies about Australia’s role in East Timor.

Last week, Thailand advocated restraint from the Australian troops, withthe Thai foreign ministry suggesting that Asian troops would be more “gentle” than the Australians.

Thai troops were due to form the second-largest contingent in Interfet, of about 1,500 soldiers, and will include the force’s deputy commander.

Mahathir echoed the argument that the troops need to behave with restraint, claiming that in recent media reports on East Timor, “I had seen pictures of Australian troops pointing guns at just about everybody.”

Downer retorted that “they haven’t shot anybody” and argued Interfet had shown restraint even though it was authorised, under Chapter Seven of the UN Charter, to use force to restore peace to East Timor.

He noted that Malaysia – a member of the 15-nation UN Security Council – had voted along with the other nations to allow Interfet to use force.

Despite that mandate and the actions of pro-Indonesia militias who had “acted with the greatest of violence,” Downer said the operation so far had been peaceful.

In recent days, the troops have arrested and disarmed a few dozen suspected militia members.

Mahatir’s attitude infuriated Jose Ramos Horta, Nobel laureate and Timorese pro-independence activist, who said that Asian troops should not be involved in East Timor peacekeeping if they doubted the need for the operation.

“We don’t need them,” he said of the Asian troops.

Mahathir, for his part, has shown little fondness for Ramos Horta or the pro-independence cause in East Timor, declaring that it was now “almost standard that all those who oppose governments should be given Nobel Peace Prizes.”

In many ways, the dispute was not about whether Australian troops had done too much and all sides conceded there had been no fighting between Interfet and the pro-Indonesia militias – blamed for the destruction in East Timor.

It was about whether the United Nations and outside nations were right to intervene in East Timor at all.

For Mahathir, the problem started when the United Nations organised the Aug. 30 self-determination ballot in East Timor, when 78.5 percent of Timorese voters opted for independence from Indonesia.

“Indonesia should not have been forced to hold a referendum,” he argued, claiming that there had been “no killings” before the ballot – in contrast to accounts by rights groups which claim that some 200,000 East Timorese had been killed after Indonesia’s 1975 invasion.

Mahathir added that pro-Indonesia Timorese had felt “cheated” by the quick vote and “responded in the only way they knew how.”

Even after the displacement of some 500,000 of East Timor’s 850,000 people in recent weeks, and the killings of at least thousands of independence supporters, many Asian governments clearly sympathise with that argument.

Even though the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva voted Monday for an independent inquiry into East Timor’s violence, and urged Asian representation on the inquiry panel, most Asian nations either voted against or abstained from the resolution.

Yet greater Asian participation in East Timor peacekeeping is expected to occur only after Interfet gives way to a UN military operation, which is expected to be deployed once Indonesia’s legislature has formally accepted the Aug. 30 ballot results.

Officials here believe the UN force will not be deployed until at least four months from now.