>The Globe and Mail, Tuesday, August 29, 2000
>
>Did we learn anything in East Timor?
> The lesson of Kosovo applies: Canada and the UN shouldn't get involved
>unless they help rebuild
>By David Wurfel
>
>
>Tomorrow, it will be one year since the East Timorese people voted
>overwhelmingly for independence, after which the island was torched by the
>Indonesian army (TNI) and its militias. Had Security Council members,
>especially the United States, heeded the July, 1999, appeal from UN
>officials in East Timor for armed peacekeepers, the tragedy could have been
>avoided.
>
>A recent UN report emphasizes the importance of more preventive action by
>peacekeepers, which, in East Timor's case, included Canadian supply and
>policing personnel. For the Timorese, the recommendation comes too late.
>Nearly 80 per cent of permanent structures -- including hospitals and
>schools -- have not been rebuilt. In Dili, the capital, one still sees
>block after block of burnt-out shells. Ponderous UN bureaucracy is a major
>cause of this shocking delay.
>
>But East Timor, which shares half of an island with Indonesia, has more
>difficult problems than physical reconstruction. Unlike the pattern in
>Kosovo, East Timorese nationalist leaders, supported by the Roman Catholic
>Church, have repeatedly warned their followers against revenge and called
>for reconciliation with pro-Indonesian forces, even militia members.
>However, achieving this goal is a complex task. Ordinary people whose
>houses were burned and family members killed by the army and militias must
>be persuaded that, if they offer forgiveness to the rank and file, justice
>will be done to the commanders, those criminally responsible.
>
>None has yet been tried, even within East Timor, though trials there will
>probably begin soon. Trials within Indonesia, despite good work by some
>fearless investigators, were always problematical and now seem even more
>remote with a recent amendment to the constitution. The UN Human Rights
>Commission's undertaking to proceed with an international tribunal, if
>Indonesia is unable to render justice, may never be fulfilled.
>
>It's not surprising, therefore, that in some villages returnees from West
>Timor who had militia connections have been mistreated, though no one has
>been killed. More impressive is the fact that in most villages,
>reintegration has proceeded smoothly. Yet with 80-per-cent unemployment,
>frustrations are on the rise, and we may yet see acts of revenge.
>
>Reconciliation is further undermined by the recently escalated violence of
>the Indonesian army and militia. Despite conciliatory gestures by
>Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid at the beginning of the year, it's
>now clear that he cannot control his own military. His Minister of Defence,
>Juwono Sudarsono, admitted as much when he conceded that "rogue military
>personnel" were supporting militia in cross-border attacks on UN forces.
>
>Within the last six weeks, two UN peacekeepers have been killed by militia
>infiltrators along the border with West Timor, and several militia bands
>have penetrated deep into the mountains of East Timor. Last week
>militiamen, with the Indonesian army's acquiescence, seized complete
>control of the border area and drove out international agencies trying to
>help the nearly 100,000 refugees still remaining in West Timor.
>
>Clearly, for some years yet, the UN must play an important role in assuring
>East Timor's security. Verbal assurances to this end have been made by
>Sergio de Mello, head of the UN Transitional Administration of East Timor
>(UNTAET), but a commitment is needed from the Security Council. The
>belated, limited steps recently taken toward creating an East Timorese army
>are not enough. Canada should take the lead in New York to get Security
>Council action, but so far seems more concerned about trying to avoid
>displeasing Indonesia, where Canada has more than $4-billion in
>investments.
>
>The UN's task in East Timor encompasses even more than rebuilding,
>rendering justice and preserving the security of the border. It has, for
>the first time anywhere, taken on the role of sovereign in order to guide
>East Timor toward independence and democracy.
>
>Here the problems seem to be even greater. The UN faces a fundamental
>dilemma: If the UN responds to the insistent Timorese demands for a greater
>political role now -- as it has to a considerable degree -- the
>institution-building process may be frustrated. Even the best leaders in
>East Timor, who offer support in principle, are unaccustomed to the
>constraints of free and fair elections, an independent judiciary or a
>merit-based bureaucracy; such institutions never before existed on the
>island. Nor can such institutions be firmly established overnight; their
>creation has only recently begun.
>
>Yet UNTAET seems committed to terminating its role in little more than a
>year from now. Budgetary constraints are powerful, and Sergio de Mello
>apparently hopes to move on to bigger things in New York. The
>understandable ambition of East Timorese nationalists to determine their
>own affairs, after a generation of struggle, may be satisfied by a quick
>withdrawal. But within a few years the consequences for political stability
>and good governance could constitute another East Timorese tragedy.
>
>If the UN is not to get another black eye for an operation that has so far
>been regarded as relatively successful (when compared with some in Africa
>or the former Yugoslavia), then it must recognize that its responsibility
>to prepare East Timorese for independence cannot be completed in another
>year.
>
>Land rights, for instance, are a total jumble, since the Indonesian
>military systematically destroyed ownership records. Reconstructing those
>records is at an early stage, exacerbating tensions both among East
>Timorese and with Indonesians.
>
>It may be inevitable to proceed with the formal transfer of sovereignty
>before the end of 2001 (Nov. 28, the date on which the East Timorese first
>declared independence in 1975, would be richly symbolic). But there also
>must be a continuing commitment to institution-building, perhaps including
>agreements not unlike those which accompanied Malayan independence in 1957,
>where certain British officers were retained in the higher civil service
>for some time after. UN appointees in the East Timor court of appeals, in
>the public service commission, or in the electoral tribunal for a few more
>years would be valuable.
>
>Undergirding a successful political transition must be a firm UN commitment
>to completion of reconstruction and the rehabilitation of the East Timorese
>economy. The failure of some pledges by member states to be honoured, even
>in the first year, does not bode well for the future. Canada's effort has
>certainly been slim: only $7.4-million this year from all sources to all
>purposes within East Timor, compared with more than $104-million committed
>to Kosovo, where the population is greater but the destruction less. The
>outpouring of sympathy in Canada last year for the plight of the East
>Timorese people has not been adequately translated into government action.
>We can still play a bigger role.
>
> David Wurfel is senior research associate with the Joint Centre for
>Asia Pacific Studies at York University and the University of Toronto, and
>professor emeritus of political science at the University of Windsor. He
>was a referendum observer in East Timor in 1999, and visited Dili in July
>for research.
>
>
>
>
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