Peacekeepers left East Timor ‘too soon’

FT
By Shawn Donnan in Dili
Published: June 6 2006 22:25 Last updated: June 6 2006 22:25

The United Nations’ top official in East Timor said on Tuesday that the world body had reduced its presence in the country too quickly and ignored warnings from the ground that the tiny country’s security situation remained “fragile and fluid”.

“The Security Council was too optimistic,” Sukehiro Hasegawa, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s special representative to East Timor, said in an interview with the Financial Times.

“It was the perception of the international community that everything was fine. And we said [from the ground] that the situation remained fragile and fluid. That it had not reached the stage where you could just leave it to the East Timorese.” The UN ended its administration of East Timor in 2002.

The comments came as pressure grew on Tuesday on Mari Alkatiri, prime minister, to resign as some 2,000 people from outlying districts descended on the capital, Dili, to demand his ousting. The protest was the largest since international peacekeepers arrived last month.

The show of force by Mr Alkatiri’s opponents highlighted what increasingly appears to be a stalemate in efforts to find a political solution to a crisis that has caused East Timor to descend into the worst violence seen since Indonesia’s bloody withdrawal in 1999.

In an emotional address, President Xanana Gusmao, a former rebel leader who is revered in East Timor, told the demonstration that he was still searching for a solution to what he called a “constitutional crisis”.

“My duty is to defend the people and that is not easy,” he said. “So I urge you to calm down and not create more trouble so one day our children can smile again.”

Jose Ramos-Horta, the country’s influential foreign and defence minister, said in an interview with the Financial Times yesterday that he had urged Mr Alkatiri to accept the creation of a national unity government.

Mr Ramos-Horta said he was willing to lead such a government until elections next year, although he insisted he had no interest in serving in the role beyond that.

But the Nobel laureate – who has been mentioned as a potential candidate for UN Secretary-General – said Mr Alkatiri had so far resisted the idea.

Diplomats said finding a political resolution was complicated by the fact that, while Mr Alkatiri’s resignation might ease the short-term crisis, it also risked setting a precedent for using violence to unseat Timorese leaders.

The latest crisis has also highlighted what experts say are the fragile institutions left behind by the UN-led nation-building experiment in East Timor, which was virtually burned to the ground by exiting Indonesian troops and pro-Jakarta militias in 1999.

Both Mr Hasegawa and Mr Ramos-Horta said East Timor was given independence too early and the move had contributed to the continuing weakness of many government institutions.

Mr Hasegawa said the UN, which administered the country between September 1999 and independence in May 2002, should have stayed on for “another two years”. Mr Ramos-Horta said he had urged the UN in 1999 to run the country for at least five years.

Mr Hasegawa, a veteran of UN missions in places such as Cambodia and Rwanda, has been in East Timor since 2002 and headed the mission since 2004. He said the UN’s work in East Timor was undermined for years by budget constraints.

The UN was due to shut its current mission on May 20 and put an election-focused operation in place instead.

The current crisis saw the mandate extended until June 20 and that is likely to be prolonged further, according to diplomats and UN officials.

They said a “more robust” mission would eventually have to take its place.