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Bulletin LIAISON > LIAISON Volume 3, numéro 6, novembre 1999 Ce document est disponible seulement en anglais.
Lessons Learned from East Timor The UN should broker itself a greater role in providing election assistance as more countries move toward democracy. The violence in East Timor that fol-lowed the overwhelming vote for in-dependence has once again brought the United Nations conduct in global hot spots under public scrutiny. Many claim the UN had ample warning that the situation in East Timor was volatile and likely to deteriorate after the referendum vote, but took no action to deal with this contingency. The criticism is harsh, but is it justified? After all, the UN can only take action when its member states authorize such activity and provide the requisite resources. Election assistance is not a new field of United Nations support. Since its founding in 1945, the UN has been involved in the efforts of many member states to realize self-government and more recently, to advance principles of democracy and political rights.Election assistance will be considered if there is a request from national authorities, and broad support by the people of the nation concerned. In addition, the political, material, institutional and security situation in the requesting country must satisfy established criteria for UN electoral assistance. East Timor did not fit all the criteria for UN assistance. From the beginning the security situation was tenuous – twice the vote, originally scheduled for August 8, was postponed due to insecurity on the ground; of more immediate concern is East Timor’s political and institutional ability to handle independence – East Timor has little local infrastructure and will have to overcome many hurdles in acting at the international level. Few will disagree that the timing for a vote on the future of East Timor was not opportune. In January, President B.J. Habibie made the surprising offer of independence for East Timor, if it rejected a proposal for autonomy within Indonesia. In May, procedures for the UN-supervised vote were agreed upon by Indonesia and Portugal, still recognized by the UN as the administrator of East Timor. In exchange for Indonesia’s agreement, the Indonesian army and police were made responsible for security during the registration and voting. Without this concession, UN negotiators believed that the vote would never take place. It was also believed that this window of opportunity would be closed with the election of the new President in October.In retrospect, that window may well have stayed open. Contrary to many expectations, the new leader, Mr. Wahid, recently announced that he is prepared to give the Indonesian province of Aceh an independence vote. In accepting what became an inadequate compromise, perhaps the UN should have given more weight to the politics behind the independence offer – on January 29, Reuters reported that Nugroho Wisnumurti, director-general for political affairs in Indonesia’s Foreign Ministry, called the offer of independence a “worse case scenario.” At that time, he had outright rejected a referendum vote as well as the posting of a UN mission to East Timor. Not a sign of support for an independent East Timor. This is not the first time hostility and violence has broken out after an election in which the UN gave assistance. In Angola, the UN assisted in the 1992 election that unleashed the bloodiest chapter in the civil war still engulfing that country. There, the UN administered the election while the Angolan National Electoral Commission established the rules and procedures governing the election process. An election observer described the situation at that time as “conducting an election in an armed conflict zone.” Akin to East Timor, the situation on the ground leading up to the election was not conducive to peaceful acceptance of the results – the leader of UNITA, one of the parties running in the election, had threatened to create havoc in Angola if he lost. He did lose and immediately returned the country to war. Since then the UN had attempted to broker a peace between the warring Angolan factions. In 1997, MONUA, the United Nations Mission of Observers in Angola, was established to assist the parties “in consolidating peace and national reconciliation” and to stabilize the country. In February 1999, MONUA was pulled, signalling UN recognition that the peace mission had been unsuccessful. The UN has provided election assistance in many other countries to a nonviolent end. As the similarities between Angola and East Timor are observed, the question is: What is the role of the UN once it has agreed to assist in an election? Clearly, the UN is obligated to fulfill any agreement as to the extent of its participation. In both Angola and East Timor this is what the UN did. Problems arose when fulfilling its mandate was not enough to achieve wide acceptance of the election results. Many would say that the UN’s role as international protector requires the Organization to go beyond its mandate in some situations. But in East Timor there was great reluctance to take action without Indonesia’s consent.Eventually, a multinational force was deployed with Indonesia’s agreement. The simmering conflicts in East Timor and Angola reveal that perhaps the UN needs to broker itself a larger role in providing election assistance in areas of current or recent armed conflict. One common recommendation is to make demilitarization a condition precedent to the holding of elections. Another is to require that the UN be a partner in providing security not only after the vote, but also in the time leading up to and during voting. For this to happen, contributions and member state support are a necessary precondition. Elections are a part, if not the most important part, of true democracy. An opportunity for a people to advance their political views and set a course for their country’s future. UN member states should readily support UN election assistance in countries that are pursuing democracy. For more information on activities of the United Nations system in the field of electoral assistance please see the United Nations Electoral Assistance Division website at: http://www.un.org/Depts/dpa/docs/eadhome.htm |
