The United Nations Security Council and War:The Evolution of Thought and Practice since 1945 (63 page)

What did this mean for East Timor, that ‘orphan conflict of the post-Cold War era in which the interests of the great powers were only marginally engaged’?
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Initially, not much, although the shifts in the international order and changes within Indonesia and East Timor itself in the period 1989 to 1998 precipitated some important reassessments. First, at the international level, the end of the Cold War brought about a fundamental review of the West’s relations with the Suharto regime. Whereas prior to 1989, an autocratic Indonesia had served the West’s purposes, in the post-Cold War era a more critical attitude prevailed. This was especially the case at the time of crises, such as the Santa Cruz massacre in Díli in November 1991 and the Asian financial meltdown of 1997–8. The latter, in particular, saw a widening gap between Western expectations of the need for IMF-inspired financial reform, and Suharto’s cronyist style of government. The resultant collapse of the Indonesian economy, the revolt of the country’s small but influential middle class, and a damaging power struggle within the Indonesian army (Tentara Nasional Indonesia/TNI), precipitated Suharto’s fall on 21 May 1998.

His replacement, Ir Bachruddin Jusuf Habibie (in office, 1998–9), an aeronautical engineer who had spent much of his young adult life in Germany, had very different views of the world. In his perspective, East Timor was a Catholic carbuncle on the face of majority Muslim Indonesia. He shared none of the army’s sense of ownership of the recalcitrant 27th Province and wished to see the issue resolved in short order. Barely three weeks after taking office, he was already offering the former Portuguese territory ‘autonomous’ status (9 June 1998), and by 27 January 1999 that offer had been supplemented by an announcement that such ‘special’ autonomy would be put to a popular vote and if rejected would result in the immediate severance of East Timor from Indonesia. These were remarkable developments coming so soon after the long years of Suhartoist intransigence on the East Timor question. But there was a problem: Habibie was politically weak and lacked any constituency within the army. His ability to constrain those determined to take Timor apart should its people reject the suffocating embrace of the unitary Republic was thus limited.

On the ground in East Timor a number of developments seemed to offer new possibilities for a long-term political resolution. The decision by the Timorese resistance leader, Xanana Gusmão, to distance himself from the rigid Marxist-Leninism of the original Fretilin party opened the way for a new broad-based national movement, known as the National Council of Timorese Resistance (CNRT), encompassing differing ideologies.
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Internationally, the previous perceptions of Fretilin as a Communist organization were replaced by a new understanding of its nationalist credentials. Nowhere was this change more important than in Portugal where the incoming president, Dr Máirio Soares (in office, 1986–96), threw the full weight of Portuguese diplomacy behind the Timorese right to self-determination, a campaign greatly enhanced by Portugal’s entry into the European Community on 1 January 1986.
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With the fight against Communism ‘won’, an independent East Timor was no longer seen as a potential South East Asian ‘Cuba’. In January 1989, Indonesia had taken the decision to open East Timor and allow access to foreign visitors. But in less than two years that decision had rebounded, leading to unprecedented interest in what had long been a forgotten conflict. The infamous Santa Cruz massacre on 12 November 1991, when hundreds of protesters were gunned down in full view of Western reporters at Díli’s main civilian cemetery,
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put East Timor under the international spotlight as never before, as did the 1996 award of the Nobel Peace Prize to José Ramos-Horta and Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo.
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Kofi Annan’s appointment as Secretary General (in office, 1997–2006) led immediately to a more vigorous engagement with the East Timor issue by the UN Secretariat. Annan, who had been head of the DPKO at the time of the Rwandan genocide (April 1994) and the Srebrenica massacre (July 1995), showed a rare determination to make human rights the hallmark of his secretary-generalship. This would later manifest most strongly during the post-referendum violence in East Timor when Annan stated publicly that senior Indonesian officials risked prosecution for crimes against humanity if they did not consent to the deployment of an available multinational force (10 September 1999) and insisted that sovereignty must give way to the imperative of stopping crimes against humanity.
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In the weeks following his appointment, Annan breathed new life into the Tripartite Talks by placing more emphasis on meetings of senior officials rather than foreign ministers, and by appointing a Personal Representative, Jamsheed Marker, to facilitate discussions between Lisbon, Jakarta, Díli, and New York. A process was now embarked on which proved unstoppable. Two developments assisted here. First, the interest of concerned Western states, later to be known as the ‘Core Group on East Timor’, in seeing a lasting resolution of the East Timor issue. Secondly, Indonesia’s economic weakness which made it much harder for Jakarta to prevent Timor reaching the agenda of the Security Council once agreements had been reached between Portugal and Indonesia on the modalities for the proposed popular consultation (5 May 1999).
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As it became clear in late 1998 and early 1999 that the East Timor issue was becoming ripe for resolution, an informal Core Group of states came into being comprising a mixture of P5 (the UK and the US), and non-Council states (Japan, Australia, and New Zealand) with a strong regional interest in the fate of the former Portuguese territory. The Group’s key inceptor was Australia, the state which had the most interest in seeing a peaceful outcome in East Timor and which had already taken an important initiative with President Habibie in late December 1998.
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The Group also had the strong support of Annan and his senior staff. Its overall aim was to ensure that a historical injustice should be righted without destabilizing Indonesia just then at its most vulnerable stage of democratic transition.
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Containing neither parties nor proxies to the conflict
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and kept a quasi secret until late February 2000,
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the Core Group in Teresa Whitfield’s words ‘proved an ideal buffer between the United Nations and the Security Council, particularly in the months in which the UN was effectively implementing the 5 May 1999 agreements on Indonesia’s behalf, against a background of intense resistance by some Indonesian actors’.
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The Group’s deep pockets, the leverage which some members, particularly the US, could exercise over Jakarta, and its access to substantial military resources – for example the heavy lift and logistical capacity of the US without which InterFET could not have moved – would all count for much in the coming months. So too would the skills available from both the energetic US Permanent Representative, Richard Holbrooke,
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and the UK Mission in the drafting and tabling of resolutions, and the steering of business through the Council.

Between 7 May and 15 September 1999, the Council was ‘seized’ of the East Timor issue in a way which it had never been before in the whole period since the Indonesian invasion. Starting with Resolution 1236, it ‘welcomed’ the conclusion of the 5 May agreement between Portugal and Indonesia on the popular consultation and the intention of the Secretary-General to establish a UN presence in East Timor.
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Just over a month later (11 June), it sanctioned the establishment of the UN Assistance Mission in East Timor (UNAMET) to organize and conduct the popular consultation, originally scheduled for 8 August, with a mandate until 31 August and the support of 280 civilian police (Civpol) ‘to advise the Indonesian police in the discharge of their duties and to supervise the escort of ballot papers and boxes to and from the polling sites’, and 50 military liaison officers (MLOs) ‘to maintain contact with the Indonesian Armed Forces’.
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Informed by the Secretary-General and the intelligence services of their respective countries of the increasingly difficult security situation on the ground, the Council agreed to two extensions of the UNAMET mandate until 30 September and then 30 November 1999;
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and on 15 September authorized – under
Chapter VII
of the UN Charter – the establishment of a multinational force (InterFET) under Australian command ‘to restore peace and security in East Timor’, ‘to protect and support UNAMET in carrying out its tasks’, and ‘within force capabilities to facilitate humanitarian assistance operations’.
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Just over a month later, also under a
Chapter VII
mandate, it established the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) for an initial fifteen-month period with a robust military and international police component in order to ensure security during the challenging humanitarian and reconstruction phase, and to deter any possible cross-border incursions by TNI-sponsored militias.
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Given its experience with Indonesia in the immediate post-ballot period, the Council was taking no chances.

All these resolutions were passed unanimously. In addition, the Council agreed on 5 September to send its first visiting mission to the field for four years (the last had been to Burundi in 1995).
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This acted as a highly effective diplomatic tool to secure President Habibie’s consent to the dispatch of a multinational force, as well as galvanizing regional and Council action in support of InterFET and the subsequent UNTAET. Many wavering Western policymakers, particularly in the US, were won over by its decisiveness.
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Much has been written on the May-September 1999 period from the vantage point of the key players in the Security Council, the UN Assistance Mission in East Timor (UNAMET), the UN Secretariat, and those covering events on the ground.
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In the main, these accounts consider the Council’s handling of the East Timor issue in a favourable light. Jeremy Greenstock, the UK permanent representative (in office, 1998–2003), who was a key member of the Council mission to Jakarta and Díli from 8 to 12 September 1999, sees the Council’s actions as a fine example of the power of ‘legitimacy’. Bringing non-self governing territories through to independence is central to the UN’s mandate, and he remembers the day – 27 September 2002 – when José Ramos-Horta and Ambassador José-Luis Guterres, as RDTL Foreign Minister and permanent UN representative respectively, came to take their seats in the General Assembly as one of the most positive moments in his whole five years at the UN.
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While the ultimate outcome may have been satisfying, there are still troubling questions to answer. First, in view of Indonesia’s appalling record as an occupying power in East Timor since December 1975 why was it vested with responsibility for security during the pre- and post-ballot phase? Secondly, even if it has to be acknowledged that an international peacekeeping force would have been politically unacceptable to Jakarta given its likely destabilizing effect on the Habibie administration, why did the Council not insist that the UN Secretariat engage in worst-case scenario planning for preventative action during the period of maximum danger, namely the days immediately following the ballot? Thirdly, why did the UN promise the East Timorese people that its mission (UNAMET) would ‘remain in East Timor after the ballot to carry out its responsibilities and ensure the result of the vote is properly implemented’
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when it knew full well that most of its personnel (i.e. its 425 UN Volunteers who constituted nearly half its expatriate staff)
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would leave immediately after the ballot and that those who remained would have no capacity to protect either themselves or their Timorese staff – let alone the wider population – against the violence of the pro-autonomy militias and the Indonesian army?

Finally, why did the Council delay in agreeing that a mission should be sent to East Timor when it could have been present at the time of the 30 August vote and the subsequent 4 September announcement? Three times the Council was urged to consider sending a mission prior to the ballot announcement, but three times it declined citing the burden that it might put on UNAMET and the danger that it might itself become a target for the militias. Only when Kieran Prendergast, Undersecretary for Political Affairs, pressed again on 5 September after the post-ballot violence had broken out in a manner exceeding even his worst expectations did the Council act and then with commendable speed.
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It is possible that had the mission been on the ground earlier it could have acted as a warning to Indonesia of the commitment of the international community to seeing through the post-ballot process. Given delays in convening the meeting of the Indonesian People’s Consultative Assembly (Majelis Permusyawaratan Rakyat/MPR) in Jakarta, where the vote would finally be taken to accept the results of the ballot and agree to East Timor’s formal severance from Indonesia, this process now had to last at least until 20 October. This was a very long time for a small UNAMET team of 282 international staff, 280 Civpol, and fifty MLOs
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to be holding the UN mission together amidst the Indonesian army-orchestrated violence.

These are questions which admit of no easy answers. The Brahimi Report subsequently declared that ‘the Secretariat must not apply best-case planning assumptions to situations where the actors have historically exhibited worst-case behaviour’
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and it certainly had the example of East Timor in mind. As the UNAMET head, Ian Martin, has pointed out, the UN’s formal planning process was carried out on the basis of a best-case scenario hoping that international attention and pressure would keep Indonesia in line. But this, in Martin’s view, was never realistic.
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Given the petulant nature of President Habibie’s initial offer and his known desire to be rid of East Timor should his wide-ranging autonomy proposal be rejected – not least because of the expense of the Indonesian occupation
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– it was hardly appropriate, as Martin points out, for the Council to expect Jakarta to be maintaining security, administration, and budgetary support not only till the MPR meeting on 20 October but many months beyond that when the UN had finally put a transitional administration and a peacekeeping force on the ground.
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Even if the Indonesian army and its pro-autonomy militias were out of the picture – which they most definitely were not – this would still have been a huge assumption to make. At the same time, the UN was caught in a bind: it could hardly task its Secretariat with worst-case scenario planning on the basis that an important member state in good standing with the world body would violate its solemn undertakings, especially not when its friends on the Council, in particular Malaysia and Bahrain, were praising it for its cooperation while simultaneously accusing UNAMET of bias towards the pro-independence party.
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