Panel on Peacekeeping-Peacebuilding Interface

By Shepard Forman
Beijing, March 26-27, 2007

(For Panel on International Peace Operations: Trends and Challenges, click here)

I am going to try to do something somewhat provocative this morning in order to test several of the assumptions we heard yesterday about the importance of integrated missions to the establishment of a lasting peace. First, I will make a couple of assumptions about the relationship between peacekeeping and peacebuilding. I will then use the case of Timor-Leste, by way of lessons learned, to exemplify several points about integrated missions that I believe are important to stress. In doing so, I will be highlighting the fault lines that I believe led to the reversion to conflict while acknowledging that the UN successfully led Timor-Leste to independence but has to rethink its strategies if it is to truly help the fledgling nation transition to full and effective statehood.  Because Timor-Leste is situated in the Asian region, I hope that the countries gathered here will give some thought to how they might best help to achieve that goal.

In making this presentation, and in light of my firmly held view that nation-building needs to be a national enterprise, I have asked our two Timorese colleagues, Adaljiza and Calisto to please weigh in with their comments and corrections.

Let me begin with the assumptions:

Assumption 1:  Peacekeeping is one central and critical component of a broader mix of activities necessary to build a lasting peace.  Establishing a secure, non-violent environment is essential to peacebuilding, but so is justice, rule of law, legitimate and effective governance, and equitable economic and social development.

Assumption 2: The most certain guarantor of a sustainable peace is a legitimate and effective state capable of providing security and the opportunity for well-being to its citizens and residents. This thesis was advanced by the High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change and endorsed by Secretary-General Kofi Annan in his recommendations to the Summit which established the Peacebuilding Commission, Peacebuilding Support Office and Peacebuilding Fund. I will return to this new architecture presently.

Assumption 3: To avoid the 50% chance of a reversion to conflict within 5 years, a continuous external security presence is necessary, as is sustained attention to economic development and social welfare. In this regard, the Security Council has been short-sighted, perhaps even remiss, in its insistence on six-month or one year mission mandates.

Assumption 4: States cannot be built from outside in, but require the best efforts of national leadership supported where necessary by external actors. The international community can best serve the interests of a sustainable peace by acting in a supporting role to national actors, never by supplanting them.

Let me now exemplify these points by examining the case of Timor-Leste. Timor-Leste makes an excellent case because the explicit goal of the UNTAET mission was to lead the country to independence, and to facilitate statehood. There has been no ambiguity about the desired political outcome.

Let’s begin our examination with the question of mission planning, and the principle, as posited by Ross Mountain yesterday, that the planning process is best undertaken co-jointly with national actors.  I should note, by the way, that Ross himself played an extremely positive role in organizing a highly coordinated initial humanitarian response in Timor –Leste after marauding militias devastated the country in the aftermath of the 1999 referendum on autonomy.  But the post-referendum planning process was externally driven, both by the World Bank’s Joint Assessment Mission, with its smattering of Timorese participants, and the UN’s mission planning team which drew on the UN’s immediate past experience in Kosovo to design UNTAET. The mission plan was further hampered by a transfer of responsibility for East Timor from DPA to DPKO, which foreswore 20 plus years of experience and virtually no consultation with the East Timorese diaspora community which was seen as clients of DPA. 

Principle #2.  Empower local actors and do not substitute for them.  In lieu of the dual desk system proposed by Xanana Gusmao, the UN chose to establish UNTAET as the sovereign governing authority in East Timor, assuming full and sole responsibility for the conduct of East Timor’s internal and foreign affairs. There was a prevailing assumption that no capacity existed within the Timorese community for self-governing, despite the fact that the East Timorese had maintained an unflinching internal and external support system for its resistance movement for more than 20 years.  Those professionals who might have participated in the dual desk system of governance proposed by Xanana were instead drawn into high paying service jobs for the expatriate community.

Principle #3.  Get the politics right.  In my view the initial DPKO political analysis, drawn from the Kosovo experience, was faulty, leading to a rejection of CNRT, the governing coalition of the resistance movement, as the legitimate indigenous authority.
That international position resulted in the premature break-up of the CNRT and a return to the pre-occupation political alliances that gave rise to the short-lived civil war in 1975, after the Portuguese abandoned their last colony.  FALINTIL, the extremely well-disciplined if militarily-sapped resistance force, was simultaneously disarmed and voluntarily cantoned.  In this way the two most respected and trusted institutions in East Timor were sidelined.

Principle #4.  Establish credible and legitimate national security forces, defense and police, to replace external security forces as soon as it becomes feasible. As mentioned, the FALINTIL was sidelined with virtually no role to play in the new security structure, and the police, despite large amounts of bilateral aid, were placed on duty with little training and often under the command of officials who previously served under Indonesian occupation. Decommissioned soldiers and furloughed police were left adrift with no alternative employment or livelihood prospects, ready fodder for the political manipulation which subsequently took place, resulting in the violence of May/June last year.

Principle #5. Build the institutions required for the implementation of rule of law and the provision of justice. An appropriate focus on human rights and transitional justice was not accompanied with adequate levels of financial or human resources, resulting in a sense of continuing injustice for crimes committed both during the 1975 civil war, the Indonesian invasion and occupation, and the violence that followed the 1999 referendum. In the end, efforts at reconciliation are no substitute for the provision of real justice.

Principle #6. Invest in economic and social development. Apart from a concerted effort to negotiate satisfactory terms for oil and natural gas revenues with Australia and to establish a petroleum trust fund, both of which are uncommon success stories, little attention was paid to development in other sectors of the economy.  Most egregiously, of the approximately $2billion dollars spent in East Timor since 2000, making it one of the costliest per capita missions, only about 3% of foreign assistance went to the agricultural sector, despite the fact that that sector represented 90% of the country’s economic production. With no incentive to return to their native districts, returning refugees moved to Dili, for proximity to the protections afforded by the international force and the potential for wages in service to the expatriate community.  The seeds were set for the competition for urban housing and market stalls that are at the root of the recent wave of violence, exacerbated of course by the anti-social actions of disaffected and unemployed youth.

Principle #7.  Contribute to and do not distort the local economy.  The thousands of expatriates that settled largely in Dili helped establish a parallel, luxury goods economy that failed to jump start indigenous economic growth. Many jobs, especially in the construction trades, went to imported labor. The Peace Dividend Trust recently completed an excellent set of comparative studies in Timor-Leste and Afghanistan demonstrating how carefully targeted procurement and employment policies could have enabled the international community to establish the building blocks for indigenous economic development and growth.  Our own Center studies of public finance in six post-conflict countries demonstrate how national revenue generation and budgeting can begin to substitute for foreign assistance, especially for recurrent expenses, including through such measures as luxury goods taxes on expatriate purchases, including rents.

Principle #8.  Again as Ross Mountain stipulated for the DRC and Afghanistan made evident, an indigenous national development plan, facilitated where necessary by external advice, is the best way to ensure buy-in from both national and international stakeholders.  In the case of Timor-Leste, the national development plan was by and large drafted by World Bank staff who, along with the IMF, set stringent requirements for making public expenditures. As a result, there is no incentive for the Ministries to execute the strategic sectoral plans, nor is their any expenditure capacity for public works, health or education, despite the fact that the Petroleum fund has now swelled to nearly $1 billion. The Prime Minister’s office itself has a nearly 6 month waiting period for approved expenditures. 

As I hope is evident, a mission that served as a surrogate for indigenous self-government, that focused almost exclusively on security and transitional justice with haphazard efforts at security sector reform and the provision of real justice, that neglected social and economic development and, particularly, provisions for reintegration of laid off soldiers and police, and that was inattentive to the needs, aspirations and frustrations of youth, laid bare the potential for a return to violence that occurred, curiously to everyone’s surprise, just 6 months after the Security Council had declared success and terminated the international security force.

In June of last year, it became necessary to organize yet a third fact-finding and planning mission to Timor-Leste in the five years since independence and statehood was determined as the end-game. And rather than learn the lessons of the past, this most recent mission focused again almost exclusively on security sector, principally police reform, and justice issues paying only lip service to the essential elements of economic and social development that are at the root of continuing discontent and violence there. There was in the course of this most recent mission, extensive consultation with the Government of Timor-Leste, but again the mission, now UNMIT, was modeled in New York with staffing patterns that bear little resemblance to the critical needs and priorities of the Timorese beyond security, elections and judicial reform. As an aside, the Integrated Mission Policy Process issued by the S-G last year only mentions local participation on page 19 of the document and, then, with a simple reference to consultations.

Even as regards security sector reform, the UN currently appears to be behind the curve. Security per se is in the hands of Australia, with an assist from New Zealand, with a few military advisors assigned to the new mission. Increased efforts at peace enforcement, particularly to apprehend the renegade soldier Alfredo Reinado, have subjected the Australian force to political criticism. In the meantime, the Timorese Parliament has approved a universal conscription law that envisions universal registration of some 20,000 eligible youth each year, but the induction of only 200, leaving 19,800 young people per year with further expectations and few prospects. 

What is needed is a comprehensive national economic development and employment program to help jumpstart the economy and provide a demonstration effect for private investment, but the World Bank and bilateral donors insist on micro-development through private enterprise, imagining Timor-Leste as a nation of shopkeepers and service providers.

What then does the future hold? I recall Jose Ramos Horta once saying that success for Timor-Leste can be claimed if the country is transformed into a functioning democracy based on human rights, gender equality, human dignity and public well-being. I believe the opportunity still exists to achieve that status, but it will require a renewal by the Security Council of the UN mandate, soon to expire again, and a commitment by the UN, the Bank and bilateral donors to rethink their strategies in ways that more closely respond to Timorese needs and priorities. 

Referring Timor-Leste to the Peacebuilding Commission and the Peacebuilding Support Office might help,  if those bodies begin to realize the potential for which they were designed, that is: to keep the Security Council’s focus on a country for a necessary period of time; to mobilize adequate resources to meet recovery, reconstruction and peacebuilding needs (although again, money is not Timor-Leste’s problem), and to integrate social, economic and political elements into a common peacebuilding strategy. It is this integration that needs urgent action, and the economic growth experience in Asia could serve as a valuable asset if appropriately applied to Timor-Leste.