Current UN Peacekeeping Mission in East Timor

Abstract

This study finds Current UN Peacekeeping Mission in East Timor. One of the primary localities of concern is the function of democratisation as a procedure of moving possibly brutal factional confrontation into a tranquil rule-governed institutional setting. Also advised is the function of administrative and political decentralisation as a procedure of consolidating post-conflict calm by reinforcing the legitimacy of a new state from the "bottom upwards". Timor extends to face reconstruction trials peculiar to its annals of occupation and opposition, which intimidate to destabilise the achievements of state-building. Nevertheless, this thesis contends that state-building under the tutelage of the UN was a marvellous success. The outcome drawn offer precious political reconstruction courses for Timor, as well as other post-conflict societies, that will help to consolidate transitions from confrontation to peace. The United Nations peacekeeping intervention into Timor following September 1999 indicated a triumph for the 24-year Timorese labour for independence. To designated day most evaluations of this intervention have taken "problem-solving" advances, which have mainly advised how to advance the effectiveness of UN peacekeeping operations. This has left a gap about the influence of the UN's general strategic approach to political reconstruction in transitional societies retrieving from chaos. In alignment to load up this gap this study sketches upon the courses of intrastate confrontation and state-failure in post-colonial states throughout the 1990s and values an institutional peace-building structure to assess the influence of the UN's political reconstruction efforts in Timor.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents4

Introduction5

UN Operational Phases8

UNMIT.8

State Orchestrated Terror and "Black September9

Peace Enforcement Phase - INTERFET and Humanitarian Relief10

Key Points of Thesis11

Brief history of E. Timor11

The Portuguese colonize Timor12

1960s-a new era of colonialism.14

The Indonesian occupation16

Previous United Nations missions22

Political, humanitarian, and security crisis23

Request for a new mission25

Recommendations25

Establishment of UNMIT28

The Security Council mandate instructs UNMIT:28

Renewal of UNMIT's mandate32

Summary and Discussion33

Introduction

At the beginning of 2005 Timor Leste was a fragile state facing social and political postconflict recovery challenges peculiar to its history of resistance and occupation. Like other developing countries, it was confronted with a weak economy and widespread poverty. More than two in five people (41 percent) lived below a monetary poverty line of US$ . cents per day and were unable to meet food, clothing, education or housing costs; women mostly remained subordinate to male-dominated social hierarchies; illiteracy was estimated at 66 percent; approximately 80 percent of the population lived in rural areas and were engaged in subsistence agricultural production; private business and cash employment was limited with little prospect of rapid expansion over the short-term; and the country's infrastructure was in shambles. Moreover, the country faced systemic weaknesses with its political and institutional structures. These weaknesses fuelled government from community alienation and claims of a one-party dominated state.

Nevertheless, by 2005 the country appeared to be far removed from the post-conflict conditions of 1999 to 2000. In August 1999, the East Timorese endured widespread violence to vote overwhelmingly for independence in one of the final acts of a 24-year liberation struggle. United Nations Security Council Resolution 1272 ...