The UN's failure to integrate Falintil veterans may cause East Timor to fail

On 28 November 2002 in what can only be described as a highly combative Independence Day speech the President of the Republic called upon the government to dismiss the Minister for Internal Administration for having engineered an environment in which fringe Fretilin veterans groups were pitting the community and themselves against the police service - thus undermining public security. Several days later the 4 December Dili riot occurred - and the issue of recruitment of veterans of the police service appears to be a foregone conclusion. The Minister in question remains very much in the Council of Ministers and the Fretilin Central Committee.

On 6 January 2003 an armed group attacked and killed a number of villagers in an isolated area of the central mountains in Atsabe, Ermera. Initially labelled as a militia incursion it now appears likely that is was the action of a rogue group testing the strength of central authority, seeking plunder and/or revenge. Of note has been the reaction of the group most loyal to the President - the defence force. Since 1999 the defence force has been restricted to cantonment, training facilities or the Los Palos area. It has long been clear that the defence force has not been happy with the actions of these fringe Fretilin Falintil security groups, the leadership of whom have an old and acrimonious relationship with F-FDTL High Command.

Furthermore, the F-FDTL has been frustrated with the UN's inability to control these groups and their political patrons. Following the Dili riot the defence force was apparently determined to demonstrate to the East Timorese public that it can ensure security. The defence forces deployment and actions in the mountains of Ermera in January/February 2003 was a clear message directed to both the community broadly, as well as at F-FDTL critics specifically. However, its actions in the mountains came under early criticism from both international and national human rights groups with criticism of the defence forces' arbitrary arrest and temporary detention of over 40 men from the offending area.

The issues of defence force and police service recruitment plague the East Timorese community. Veterans feel robbed of their independence dividend, and this is compounded by profoundly weak economy and high unemployment. It is upon a foundation of law and order and stability that East Timor's democracy and development will flourish. Yet the institutions charged with ensuring defence and security are faltering or behaving in a potentially erratic manner. Against this backdrop, the UN is withdrawing from East Timor. Defence and security responsibilities are already being handed over to the to PNTL and F-FDTL. By November 2003 it will have handed over all districts to PNTL and the PeaceKeeping Force (PKF) is expected to hand over to F-FDTL by June 2004.

Neither the police service nor the defence force are adequately supported or managed by East Timorese civilian oversight mechanisms. Only two civilians control the uniformed services, the Minister for Internal Administration and the Secretary of State for Defence. Given the potentially volatile relationship these institutions will have with each other and with various segments of the community it is a somewhat inflammable mix.

UNTAET (and the international community) must assume a significant amount of the blame for this situation having overseen the recruitment into these institutions. Moreover, it failed to provide for, or at least to insist upon, adequate bureaucratic support for, and civilian oversight of, the F-FDTL and PNTL Other East Timorese institutions have yet to assume any real responsibility for oversight of the security sector - Parliament remains weak as does the media and civil society.

Early decisions regarding demobilisation and establishing the defence force and police services were made in a spirit of political and practical expediency rather than with a view to the long-term development of East Timor. A few UN officials in conjunction with a narrow section of the East Timorese leadership guided the process. This resulted in institutions that are characterised by many in East Timor as being illegitimate. This is clearly a dangerous equation. Old divisions in the anti-Indonesian resistance movement are being institutionalised in the new East Timorese state with one political grouping (President Gusmão's allies) finding a home in the defense force and dissidents (under the patronage of the Minister for Internal Administration) likely finding a home in the police service, and some elements of local government.

The institutionalisation of political differences in the defence force and police service will almost certainly cause East Timor to take a regional approach to democracy and possibly follow the worst example - that of its old oppressor Indonesia. Given these institutions' burgeoning commercial interests, their political differences are compounded even further. It all looks very much Indonesia.

One notable academic recently commented:

It is not difficult to imagine East Timor's civil institutions failing, while the ETDF (East Timor Defence Force) emerges - due mainly to its Falintil inheritance but also to the quality of the Australian training - as the only cohesive force capable of running the country. It would be terribly ironic if the opportunity cost of building an efficient and cohesive military force was a failing state in which intervention by that force became inevitable.

Despite years of UN administration and billions of dollars spent on rebuilding the country and associated peace operation there is a possibility of a disintegrating state divided along political lines drawn by divisions in the resistance/veterans community and supported by their control of various state agencies.