Dita Alangkara/ASSOCIATED PRESS An Indonesian youth kicks a burned out police vehicle near Borobudur University in East Jakarta after students had set it on fire during a protest Tuesday in Jakarta. Anti-government protesters demanded the resignation of President B. J. Habibie and the end of military involvement in politics blaming both for the bloodshed in East Timor.

DILI, Indonesia - Indonesian soldiers looted the abandoned U.N. mission in East Timor Monday just hours after 110 U.N. personnel and 1,300 East Timorese were evacuated and flown to safety to end a 10-day siege.

Office equipment and computers were carted away and vehicles were trashed by the soldiers - "the very people we asked to secure the compound when U.N. staff moved to the Australian consulate," U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said in New York.

There were reports that the compound was torched, but Eckhard said he was told it was not the compound but a small house nearby that had been burned.

The remaining U.N. staff members, holed up in the Australian consulate, reported a black plume of smoke was rising from the direction of the compound in the provincial capital of Dili, said Fernando del Mundo, spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in Jakarta.

The staff feared their headquarters had been set ablaze by pro-Indonesia militiamen, he said.

The dozen U.N. personnel who stayed behind in Dili were to prepare the way for an international peacekeeping force, the makeup of which was being negotiated by Indonesian and U.N. officials yesterday.

But time appeared to be running out, with more than 200,000 East Timorese risking starvation because they are cut off from food supplies and drinking water, a U.N. agency said yesterday.

About 7,000 people have been killed and 100,000 have been forcibly relocated to West Timor since anti-independence militias and Indonesian soldiers began a rampage of violence following the province's vote Aug. 30 to break away from Indonesia, the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organization said.

While it is impossible to confirm the number killed in the past week, previous estimates have ranged from 600 to 7,000.

In the Indonesian capital of Jakarta, nearly 1,000 students tried to march on parliament yesterday, demanding the resignation of President B.J. Habibie and the end of military involvement in politics - and blaming both for the bloodshed in East Timor.

Two students were wounded by plastic bullets after the crowd damaged two police cars and set fire to an army vehicle.

In New York, the U.N. Security Council and Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas worked yesterday to resolve differences in the makeup of a peacekeeping force intended to halt the violence in East Timor.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said peacekeepers could be on the ground by the weekend, and Australian aid could start as soon as Thursday.

The Atlanta-based Carter Center, which monitors international political crises, said militiamen, backed by the Indonesian military, continue to terrorize and kill refugees in camps set up in West Timor.

In Rome, East Timor's spiritual leader said he had asked Pope John Paul II to pressure President Clinton for quick action.

Bishop Carlos Belo, co-winner of the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize and the Roman Catholic leader of most of the territory's 850,000 people, said peacekeepers and humanitarian aid must be dispatched as soon as possible.

Church officials fear dozens of priests and nuns have been slaughtered.

While almost 90 percent of Indonesia's 210 million people are Muslim, East Timor's population was overwhelmingly Catholic.

Poor and largely uneducated, East Timorese were renowned for their devotion to their faith, introduced by Portuguese colonizers four centuries ago.

Despite Vatican accusations of oppression, some commentators say the role religion played in the conflict has been overstated.

"The violence is due more to a power struggle within the military," said Kusnanto Anggoro, a political analyst at the Center of Strategic and International Studies, a Jakarta think tank.

The Indonesian military started its pullout from the province Monday, with laughing soldiers and marines clambering onto a navy landing ship in Dili's harbor as thousands of desperate refugees looked on.

The U.N. staff and East Timorese staying at the U.N. compound were evacuated under the guard of Indonesian troops through burned-out and looted streets to the airport. They were flown to the northern Australian city of Darwin.

The U.N. compound had become a symbol of international resolve to shepherd East Timor to independence and protect its people after 78.5 percent of voters chose to break away from Indonesia, which invaded in 1975.

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said yesterday the peacekeeping operation should be made up of Southeast Asian forces and accused Australia of trying to "run down" its neighbor.

There has been no official word on the size of the peacekeeping force.