UNITED NATIONS MISSION IN TIMOR-LESTE:Great expectation to leave “good memories” and “positive legacies” before ending itsmandate in 2012 A Local Perspective

By Rui Manuel Hanjam, M.philA former local staff of UNAMET and UNTAET (1999/2000).The United Nations, as an institution, has devoted extraordinary efforts to resolve conflictsaround the world. The world needs a strong, neutral institution to perform an important rolein conflict prevention and resolution. Timor-Leste is part of this global institution’s mandateto maintain its presence in order to guarantee the country self determination, stability, asmooth transition towards independence and the development of democratic state institutions.This mandate has progressed through various missions, namely: UNAMET, UNTAET,UNOTIL, UNMISET and UNMIT. For each mission in Timor-Leste, the UN headquarter has assigned Special Representativesof the Secretary General,of different nationalities (with the exception of Kamalesh Sharmanand Athul Khare who both hold Indian nationality) each with different characters and stylesof leadership:

Ian Martin,

for UNAMET’s popular consultation in 1999; the late

SergioViera de Melo

for the United Nations Transitional Administration (UNTAET),

KamaleshSharman

for the United Nations Office in Timor-Leste (UNOTIL), later replaced by

Sukehiro Hasegawa

for the United Nations Mission in East Timor (UNMISET), and

AthulKhare

for the United Nations Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste (UNMIT). The successor of Athul Khare is

Ameerah Haq

from Bangladesh, who is presently serving for the UNMITmission, (until now, there is no further information on whether the UN headquarters willreview and change the name of the current mission UNMIT, based on Ian Martin’s TechnicalAssessment Mission) This article is a contribution, from a local perspective, that intends to discuss the successesand failures of these successive UN missions and provide recommendations for improvingfuture missions, specifically in terms of communication and capacity building with the localcounterparts.. This will allow the UN, as an institution, to make adjustments or changes based on these recommendations. Until now, in Timor-Leste, there is a wide-shared belief and high expectations that by the end of the mission in 2012, the UN will leave “goodmemories” or “positive legacies” rather than negative ones. It is hoped in the future thesenegative examples may be avoided so that other host countries will smoothly deliver efficientand effective administrations.

UNAMET and its impossible mission

The UNAMET mission, of which I was a part , was considered to be a very successfulmission from its inception with the signing of the May 5th agreement in 1999 until the popular consultation, carried out on August 30, 1999 and the announcement of the result onSeptember 4, 1999.

The success of the mission can not be separated from the “strong leadership” that wasexercised by Ian Martin as a capable diplomat with vast experiences dealing with humanrights matters in Amnesty International and as Deputy of the UN mission in Haiti. Bothexperiences enriched his career allowing him to control elements inside the mission itself,such as UNPOL, Military Liaison Officers, Military Observers, as well as the UN Voluntarystaff, who supported the popular consultation on the ground upon their deployment.The mission, in a short time, under the guidance of high caliber professionals in the medialike David Wimhurst and his team, was able to disseminate educational information about ballot papers, how to vote etc. by using various channels of information such as TV, radioand other printed information like pamphlets and leaflets, so that people were educated in ashort time and were able to absorb information about the voting process.As a result, the popular consultation was carried out professionally with an excellent turnoutand minimum irregularities by which the majority of the voters confirmed their position of self determination by casting their votes leading to independence. Therefore, many Timoresewhom I have met regard this mission as an “impossible mission”. Many people who were impressed by the victory expected a peaceful hand over, such as;Macao (from Portugal to China) or HongKong (from Great Britain to China).Unfortunately,there was no “happy ending” of the UNAMET mission due to the premeditated Indonesian“scorth earthed policy” in 1999 to burn down and to destroy the 27th Province. Timor’sinfrastructure and thousands of homes were reduced to smoke and ashes in only two weeksand the violence resulted in massacres and deaths, injuries and forced deportations.

The UN could have handled the Timorese refugees within the siege of the UN compound more competently and compassionately. The Timorese civilians in the compound were thereonly because, out of desperation, they threw their children over the razor wire and then stormed the compound after being harassed and threatened by armed Polri in the school grounds who said when the UN left they would kill them- These threats had been earlier reported to JOC nevertheless they were left helplessly in the school yard until they took their safety in their own hands.

With UN personnel and 1500 Timorese refugees in UNAMET HQ under siege, we knew, for sure, that Ian was under pressure to communicate the reality on the ground to theheadquarters in New York so that the headquarters would accept the evacuation of theTimorese staff and refugees with UN staff in 1999. As Timorese local staff, who worked for this mission, we clearly understood that the negotiation was very tough. Ian Martin wasstruggling to convey the message through the mission’s political section to convince KofiAnnan in NY to influence the Security Council to take urgent action to address the criticalcondition in 1999. Meanwhile as part of “bargaining power” to allow local staff and civilians who residedtemporarily in UNAMET compound to be evacuated to Darwin , local staff had gatheredtogether with the civilians to lay down on the ground at the main gate of UNAMET

compound prepared to let the UN vehicles pass over them if the UNAMET only evacuatedinternational staff. This action was also a statement to show the international community thatTimor was not under the control of the Indonesian security forces as spelt out in theagreement. Furthermore, most UN staff and remaining journalists within the compound alsorefused to leave without the Timorese.

If it was not for the mutiny within the compound, theUN would have abandoned the Timorese families to a horrific fate. After the evacuation theUNHQ was moved to the Australian consulate because the walls were high and Timoreserefugees would not be an issue.

The final decision took longer than expected which is whythe process of evacuation was executed only on the 12 September, eight days after theviolence erupted on the 4th after the announcement of the result in 1999.The tragic violence in September 1999 was beyond the unarmed UNAMET mission’scontrol; however, it maintained continuity of mission by moving its operation temporarily toDarwin. The successful evacuation of the civilians and local staff was intended to justify theintervention of the International Force for East Timor (INTERFET). UNAMET waited untilthe INTERFET was able to restore and normalize the chaotic situation before deployinghumanitarian assistance and handing over to UNTAET.

UNTAET and its preparation of Timorese Administration

The United Nations Transitional Administration was established in July 2000, under theSecurity Council Resolution 1272. . The UNTAET mission was to support a greater autonomy of decision making and the progressive transfer of governance to a full Timoresegovernment. In a meeting held in Tibar, the then SRSG, Sergio Viera de Mello proposed theconcept of a joint government, which gave rise to the East Timor Transitional Administration(ETTA) combining International staff and Timorese to fill the nine portofolios of thetransitional government structure The UNTAET also created the first Council of Ministerswith its thirteen portofolios to make important decisions and carry out a democratic electionto form Constituent Assembly which was considered to be the embryo of the TimoreseParliament.

Initially the lack of crucial resources was debilitating for the huge task at hand. Whiledepartments tried to function with one or two computers. It appeared that the procurement of some resources was badly mismanaged by an Indian who was appionted to be the procurement advisor, eg the choice of Tata vehicles which were generally useless in thedistricts because of perpetual mechanical problems and low quality of the vehicles. The presence of the ship-hotels was another sign of mismanagement..It would have been cheaper to construct dormitories and leave the Timorese with infrastructure than use the ships whichwere also a blatant symbol of inequality and decadence in the shattered little nation

. There is no doubt that the establishment of the Transitional Administration encountered manychallenges both from the Timorese side to reach “common consensus” and from the UN sideto efficiently manage its multi agencies and multi-nationalities under the UNTAET umbrellain order to lead the country to move ahead. In this regard, Sergio Viera de Mello played an