Abstract
United Nations (UN) peacekeeping mission in Timor-Leste began on a sad note in 1999 with the United Nations Assistance Mission (UNAMET) that was set up to conduct referendum to determine whether East Timorese prefer special autonomy within Indonesia or full independence. UNAMET failed due to inadequate UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) which was alarmingly short in its response to the imminent threat to peace. However, subsequent UN peace missions in Timor-Leste such as United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) and International Force East Timor (INTERFET) were successful in spite of numerous challenges encountered. The success of these missions was built on comprehensive and coherent UNSCR, supported by broad-based and durable consent. These pillars strengthened the intricate coordination and cooperation among the integrated group, made of specialists from different UN agencies, the military, civilian police, politicians, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and local actors to achieve unity of effort required for successful peace missions. This paper concludes that the success of peace missions in Timor-Leste is important in formulating a new vision for future peace missions that would be based on: (1) Careful balance between primacy of politics (POP) and protection of civilians (POC). (2) Utilization of complete gamut of peace operations. (3) Cultivation of stronger regional and international partnerships; and (4) a careful balance between state and people-centered approaches.
Keywords: Peace missions; Timor-Leste; UNAMET; UNTAET; New vision.
Introduction
The UN through the Security Council (SC) has a responsibility to maintain global peace and security. Article 24, Chapter 5 of the UN Charter explicitly confers on the SC the responsibility for maintenance of international peace and security. This is the legal foundation for UN peacekeeping missions around the world as UN Member States concur that in carrying out its duties under this provision the SC acts on their behalf.
The UNSC performs this duty through the issuing of resolutions which have their roots in Chapter VII of the UN Charter. Particularly, Article 41 authorizes the UNSC to call on Member States to apply diplomatic or economic sanctions. However, where Article 41 proves to be insufficient, Article 42 further provides for the UNSC to authorize military action for maintenance and restoration of international peace and security. Furthermore, Article 103 of Chapter XVI stipulates that the obligations of Member States under the UN Charter is superior to obligations under other international treaties (Acosta, 2015). These are the legal foundations that provide legitimacy for UN peacekeeping missions around the world.
UN first peace mission was authorized by the SC through Resolution 50 of 1948. The peace mission known as United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) allowed the first troops of “blue helmets” to be deployed as military observers of the UNSC-brokered truce between Israel and its Arab neighbors. Since 1948, the UNSC has authorized more than 70 peace missions with varying degrees of success and failure. Notably, the failure of some peace missions have promoted anti-UN sentiments within the host states and around the world.
However, the failure of many peace missions does not dilute the importance of the noble objective of maintaining and restoring peace in an increasingly conflict-ridden world. According to Lacroix (2024), research conducted by political scientists Barbara Walter, Lise Marje Howard and Page Fortna proved that peacekeeping not only works at halting conflicts but works better than any other options and at relatively reduced cost. This is the reason all stakeholders connected to global peace operations continue to reflect, critically evaluate and envision better designs and executions for peace missions.
The UN Secretariat led by UN Secretary Generals, has been at the forefronts of the process to continuously improve the outcomes of peacekeeping missions. For instance, at the beginning of the millennium, specifically on March 7, 2000, former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan set up a panel of seasoned administrators and military commanders to comprehensively reassess UN peace operations and produce a set of focused, tangible and practical recommendations to improve future peace operations. The outcome of this process was the Brahimi Report, which takes its name from the leader of the panel, Lekhdar Brahimi, former minister of foreign affairs in Algeria. While adopting the report of the panel in November, 2000, the UNSC resolved to provide peace missions with clear, credible and achievable mandates, (United Nations, 2000). The promise of providing clear, credible and achievable mandate by the UNSC when fulfilled, is the bedrock of many successful peace missions upon which unity of effort is built. The case study of peace missions in Timor-Leste will demonstrate this.
Background to Peace Missions in Timor-Leste
Timor-Leste was a Portuguese colony until 1974 when Portugal was compelled to relinquish its colonies after the Carnation Revolution of April 25, 1974 that sacked the authoritarian regime of Estavo Novo (Kammen, 2015). The sudden decolonization opened the door for party politics in Timor-Leste in preparation to full independence that was short lived. Three political parties emerged: (1) Democratic Union of Timorese (União Democrática Timorese, UDT). (2) Timorese Social Democratic Association (Associação Social Democrática Timor, ASDT); and (3) Association for the Integration of Timor into Indonesia (Associação Integração di Timor-Indonesia). These three parties had conflicting ideologies and sponsors. While UDT was pro-Portuguese, ASDT was nationalist driven, and the third party as the name suggests, was pro-Indonesia.
ASDT formed in May 1974 later changed its name on September 11, 1974 to Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor (Frente Revolucionária do Timor-Leste Independente, FRETILIN). Also, the pro-Indonesia party changed its name to Timorese Popular Democratic Association (Associaçao Popular Democrática Timorense, APODETI). Soon, the political parties in Timor-Leste descended into struggle for political dominance, not through the ballot box but through attacks and counterattacks. For a short time, FRETILIN was in control of most of the territory and declared independence from Portugal on November 28, 1975, even as the invading troops from Indonesia, invited by UDT and APODETI, sacked town after town. This was how Indonesian military occupation of Timor-Leste, which began on December 7, 1975, lasted till 1999.
Background to UNAMET: Why it failed to Keep the Peace
For so long, the UNSC paid lip service to the plight of East Timorese and the illegality of Indonesian occupation. UNSC adopted Resolution 384 on December 22, 1975 requesting all states to respect East Timor’s territorial integrity and its right to self-determination. The following year, on April 22, 1976, the UNSC passed Resolution 389 affirming the right of East Timorese to self-determination and requested Indonesia to pull out its forces immediately. Jakarta ignored the “requests” of the UNSC and Indonesia’s suppression of Timor-Leste received very little international media coverage. According to Ramos-Horta, the first foreign journalist to visit East Timor on fact finding mission arrived in 1987 (Ali, 2025).
United States (US), in the early 1990s, began to take more than a passing interest on the human rights abuses perpetuated by Indonesia in Timor-Leste. Candidate Bill Clinton, while on campaign round acknowledged the suffering of East Timorese, and he described America and the international community’s handling of the situation as unconscionable (Nairn, 1995). However, when Clinton became president, the US continued to sell military hardware such as F-16 and M-16 rifles to Indonesia. While the US chose economic interest over humanitarian concerns, the international community played active role in bringing the Indonesian occupation and self-determination of East Timor to the front burner. The UN facilitated the inaugural meeting of the All-Inclusive Intra-East Timorese in 1995. The following year, the Nobel Peace Prize for 1996 was awarded to two East Timorese, José Ramos-Horta and Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo for their efforts in seeking a just and non-violent solution to the conflict in East Timor.
This further raised awareness about the plight of East Timorese. The ascension of Kofi Annan as UN Secretary General in 1997 also favored East Timor as Annan quickly appointed a Personal Representative to East Timor. Pakistani diplomat, Jamsheed Marker was appointed to this role with the task of brokering negotiations between Portugal and Indonesia regarding the status of East Timor (Criswell, 2002).
The following year, Asian economic meltdown of 1998 ignited series of protests in Indonesia that rocked President Suharto’s administration and pro-independence crusaders in Timor-Leste moved quickly to exploit frailties in Jakarta by demanding for self-actualization. The coordinated efforts of students in Timor-Leste and crusaders in the diaspora, led by Nobel Laureate Jose Ramos-Horta, succeeded in drawing international attention to the plight of East Timorese. The ensuing domestic and international pressure forced Indonesia to announce the withdrawal of its troops in September 1998 after the fall of President Suharto’s government on May 21, 1998.
However, while Jakarta vacillated on Timor-Leste’s independence, a special branch of Indonesian army known as Kopassus, moved to fill the void by recruiting militias to quell pro-independent voices. This was the origin of the dreaded Red and White Iron militia (Besi Merah Putih, BMP) that would unleash terror after the August 30, 1999 referendum (Kammen, 2015). So, as new Indonesian President Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie, made the motions of “letting Timor-Leste go,” by signing a UN-sponsored Agreement between Portuguese Republic and the Republic of Indonesia on the question of East Timor on May 5, 1999, the BMP militias perfected their plans to thwart the referendum, officially referred to as Popular Consultation through a Direct Ballot.
The UNSC, through Resolution 1246 of July 11, 1999, established UNAMET with the mandate of conducting the referendum. Although it was evident that there was threat to peace in the build up to the popular consultation, yet the UN dispatched only 271 Civilian police, 50 Military Liaison Officers, and about 632 international staff and volunteers, led by Ian Martin, Special Representative of the Secretary General (Scheiner,1999). Both the military, paramilitary and civilians were unarmed. The bigger blunder committed by the UN was placing responsibility for security of the referendum on Indonesia, sponsors of the BMP militias.
In spite of several warnings by civil right crusaders including East Timor Action Network (ETAN) which requested the UN to broaden the mandate of UNAMET and increase the number of troops to allow the mission to meet the growing threat to civilians, the UN’s response was to meet the threat of arms buildup by pro-autonomy militias with publication of posters declaring that whatever the outcome of the August 30th referendum, UNAMET will stay after the consultation.
In spite of the threat to peace and intimidation, the referendum witnessed a large turnout, as 98% registered voters turned up and 78.5% voted for independence, while only 21.5% voted for autonomy under Indonesia. The rejection of autonomy under Indonesia caused the BMP militias to descend on East Timorese who voted for independence. UNAMET peacekeepers were forced to flee and those who bravely stayed back were helpless to prevent the atrocity unleashed. According to Soares (2019) about 1500 people were killed and over 300,000 persons displaced during the post referendum conflict.
UNAMET failed to keep the peace in East Timor because its mandate did not provide for it to perform the role of protection of civilians. That function was outsourced by the UN to Indonesia,
an invested party in the conflict and sponsors of armed militia groups. This was a costly error on the part of the UN.
So, why did the UN, in spite of warnings, commit this blunder? One answer is the culture of the UN that places emphasis on dialogue and negotiation. This point is reiterated by Boot (2000) who opined that UN diplomats believe that no issue is too incompliant to be resolved through pacific means. Just as the US Marine Corps produces hardnosed fighters, so the UN produces mediators. This is fine, except that dialogue does not always work with armed groups as the accounts of Dransfield (2015) in East Timor and Afghanistan show.
Another reason is the complicity of the great powers, especially permanent members of the UNSC, due to national interests that hinder these countries from writing clear, credible and achievable mandates. In this instance, the US, the sole global hegemon at the time, continued to do business with Indonesia for more than twenty years in spite of Jakarta’s gross violation of the rights of East Timorese and its illegal occupation of East Timor. The Clinton administration despite its strong condemnation of the inhumanity of Indonesia’s actions in Timor-Leste, and Congressional restrictions, approved more than $60 million worth of weapons sales to Indonesia in 1995.
This sale mirrors a pattern of US administration policies since the start of Indonesia’s illegal occupation of Timor-Leste. Between 1990 and 2000, Pentagon exported $328 million worth of weapons and spare parts to Indonesia. Within the same period, Pentagon spent more than $7.5 million for military training for Indonesian troops under the International Military Education and Training program (IMET). It took the post referendum devastating events for President Clinton to approve complete weapons embargo on Indonesia in September 1999.
The complicity of the US is further revealed by declassified documents which revealed that the US government had fore knowledge that Indonesia’s military was providing weapons for BMP militias in the buildup to the 1999 referendum (Davidson, 2019). In spite of the US’ privileged information, the UNSCR for UNAMET failed to equip it for armed confrontation ahead. Also, the same Indonesia military was tasked by the UN with responsibility for security for the referendum.
INTERFET and UNTAET Peace Missions: Reasons for their Success
The success of INTERFET and UNTAET is based on the broad, clear, credible and achievable mandates of the UNSC through Resolution 1264 for INTERFET and Resolution 1272 for UNTAET. Both resolutions are based on provisions of Chapter VII of the UN Charter instead of Chapter VI which was the basis for UNAMET.
The broad based and credible mandates for INTERFET and UNTAET occurred because the US under Clinton administration decided to place the humanitarian crisis in East Timor above economic interest of the United States at this time. This shows that credible mandates are the results of political will by the members of the UNSC, namely, the permanent members of the UNSC.
Another reason for the success of both INTERFET and UNTAET is the presence of broad local consent and support for the peace process. Although the menace of BMP militias was present when INTERFET and UNTAET resumed, however, the major political parties, namely, the National Congress for Timorese Reconstruction (CNRT), led by Xanana Gusmão, FRETILIN and the UDT were supportive of the peace process after the parties had fought and achieved “mutually hurting state.” For instance, the CNRT is an umbrella body for many pro-independent groups.
Overall, INTERFET and UNTAET complemented each other. While INTERFET focused on peacekeeping, UNTAET had a comprehensive mandate comprising peacekeeping, peacemaking and peacebuilding. Specifically, UNTAET’s mandate included: (1) Provision of peacekeeping force to protect civilians, properties and maintain law and order. (2) Coordination of humanitarian aid to East Timorese.
(3) Restoration and repair of damaged critical infrastructure such as hospitals, schools and other buildings. (4) Creation of enduring institutions for sustainable governance and law such as establishment of courts, reconciliation commission and appointment of judges. (5) Support for composition of a new constitution; and (6) Organization and supervision of free elections (Department of Veterans’ Affair, 2025; Dransfield, 2015).
Despite its solid mandate, UNTAET faced many operational challenges. There were shortages of equipment like helicopters for quick transport, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) for surveillance, Armored Personal Carriers (APCs) for peace enforcement and Medical Evacuation Vehicles (MEVs) for evacuating women in labor and the injured from conflict zones to hospitals (Dransfield, 2015). Also, most of the development experts were concentrated in the capital Dili, and this left administrative regions like Cova-Lima, Bobonaro, Baucau, Ainaro and others without sufficient development experts to carry out the mandate of restoring and repairing damaged infrastructures.
In order to effectively surmount this challenge, Dransfield (2015) reported that the military had to step up to take on civilian roles. Another method used to overcome the operational challenge posed by shortage of human resources is the training of Timorese police and military (FALINTIL-Força de Defesa de Timor-Leste, F-FDTL) to support the mission mandate.
However, none of these efforts would have been meaningful without the cooperation and coordination of different agencies and stakeholders involved in the peace mission. This was achieved through the formation of the Civil-Military Cooperation Teams (CMTs) to collaborate with NGOs such as Oxfam, Médecins Sans Frontiers (MSF), Timor Aid and Policia Nacional Timor-Leste (Dransfield, 2015).
UN Peace Missions in Timor-Leste: Lessons and Recommendations for Future Missions
The UN continuously reviews and investigates lapses in peace missions with the goal of improving peace missions to meet current challenges. This is important because as conflicts across the globe multiply over the years, so the challenges posed to peacekeepers have increased.
There are three reviews worth mentioning here. They are the Brahimi Report in 2000, the New Horizon initiative in 2009, and the High-level Independent Panel on Peace Operations (HIPPO) in 2015. While the New Horizon initiative which places emphasis on unity of effort was an improvement on the Brahimi Report, HIPPO offers a rather radical approach to peace operations.
HIPPO emphasizes Primacy of Politics (POP) over Protection of Civilians (POC). The reason for this according to the seasoned panelists who put forward the recommendation is because POC tends to direct peace mission efforts towards the use of military for stabilization instead of dialogue with political actors involved in the conflict. Stabilization does not create lasting peace and often it leads to peace missions with no end date (Russo et al, 2025).
Based on the lessons from peace missions in Timor-Leste and other conflict zones, this paper recommends that while peace missions should focus on achieving lasting peace through POP, the military option to fulfil POC should also be present. The accounts of Dransfield (2015) in Timor-Leste and Afghanistan supports this. Also, UNPROFOR did not fail because of lack of POP, rather, it failed because the military strength to fulfil POC was absent.
Secondly, the UN needs to balance its state-centered focus for peace missions with a people-centered approach.
For instance, in the period before the referendum in Timor-Leste, the UN devoted a lot of efforts to tripartite agreement between the UN, Portugal and Indonesia. A people-centered approach involving key stakeholders in Timor-Leste was largely overlooked. The state-centered approach was the reason Indonesia was saddled with responsibility for security during and after the referendum.
Thirdly, Rules of Engagement (ROE) should be field-focused and flexible to meet evolving challenges in the peace mission environment. Obi (2015) in his account as Field Commander of UNMISS, stated his frustrations with how ROEs written in New York do not reflect the realities of the conflict environment and are inflexible.
Fourthly, the UN should reconsider its practice of making civilians head of peace operations. The doctrine of POP appears to dictate that a civilian should lead peace operations, however, in the final analysis, the most important objective of a peace operation is POC. This paper suggests that the UN appoint field commanders who have experience in administrative role and can adequately combine their military culture of quick dispatch with dialogue and negotiation.
Finally, the UN has to deepen partnerships with regional bodies and international defense organizations such the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the African Union. The UN should focus on smoothening the areas of friction in the partnership such as standardization of training and equipment among Troop Contributing Countries (TCCs). Also, there is need for understanding between UNSC members, especially the permanent members, who write resolution mandates, the rich member states of Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), that are the top financial donors to UN peace operations, and the Asian and African countries that are the top TCCs. All stakeholders should understand that peacekeeping is not a philanthropic gesture that keeps others safe, instead, peacekeeping should be viewed as a symbiotic endeavor that keeps everyone safe.
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