Washington - The failure of the United Nations to prevent
bloodshed in East Timor, despite clear warnings from officials inside and
outside the organization, is reigniting a debate about whether the world body
is equipped to deal with urgent humanitarian crises, particularly inside the
borders of sovereign states. At the UN General Assembly last week,
Secretary-General Kofi Annan called for even greater UN involvement in
conflicts within national borders, saying that state sovereignty ''is being
redefined.'' President Bill Clinton reaffirmed his own interventionist
impulse. ''When we are faced with deliberate, organized campaigns to murder
whole peoples or expel them from their land, the care of victims is important,
but not enough,'' he said.
Yet many doubt whether the United Nations can adapt, or
whether key member countries such as the United States want it to adapt, to
meet these new demands and expectations. In responding to the crisis in East
Timor - just as in Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Kosovo - the world body was
hamstrung by the absence of a standing UN military force, schisms in a
Security Council where five nations have veto power, a shortage of funds, and
the plodding, insulated and overly deferential dynamics of the 185-member
organization. The disaster in East Timor is a case study of the problems of
the organization, and it raises tough questions for the ''Clinton doctrine''
of humanitarian-driven interventionism.
On the eve of signing an agreement with Indonesia in May to
allow an independence referendum in East Timor, several senior UN officials
were full of apprehension rather than joy. True, the vote would let East
Timorese decide their fate, 24 years after Indonesia occupied the former
Portuguese colony, and Mr. Annan would call the May 5 signing ''an historic
moment.'' But the Indonesian government had scratched out sections in the
original UN draft that demanded the disarming of anti-independence militias
and the confining of Indonesian soldiers to barracks. Indonesia's Foreign
Ministry also had rejected an April 30 letter from Mr. Annan that tried to get
a personal commitment from President B.J. Habibie on security guarantees
during the referendum.
''I cannot hide my apprehensions regarding the course on
which we are about to embark,'' a senior UN official wrote in an internal
memorandum just before the signing. Citing the possibility of intimidation,
vote rigging and violence, he wrote: ''Apart from the moral opprobrium that
would be heaped on the UN were we to follow such a course, the consequences
for the long-term stability of East Timor would be disastrous. Will any of our
'friends' come to redeem our reputation? I somewhat doubt it.''
Those words seem prophetic now. The capital of East Timor,
Dili, lies in ruins, and the reputation of the United Nations is badly
bruised. East Timor had been widely ignored since Indonesia invaded in 1975.
Although the United Nations condemned the annexation that followed in 1976,
few major powers - especially the United States - were ready for a showdown
over it. But the issue festered. A small guerrilla group fighting for
independence became a persistent nuisance, and the awarding of the 1996 Nobel
Peace Prize to two East Timor leaders focused attention on the territory.
The door to independence opened in January, when Mr.
Habibie said he would let East Timor choose between independence and autonomy
within Indonesia. At the United Nations, Mr. Habibie's offer was seen as a
''window of opportunity'' that could soon slam shut, said a senior diplomat.
With Mr. Habibie's term ending in the fall, no one knew who might replace him
and what that person's attitude would be toward East Timor. Negotiations
between Indonesia and the former colonial ruler of East Timor, Portugal,
produced a draft agreement. Because the deal gave Jakarta responsibility for
security, the United Nations wanted assurances. On April 30, Mr. Annan sent
his letter to Mr. Habibie and it was rejected. On May 4, he sent a memorandum
laying out ''necessary security conditions.'' He got no reply, sources said.
It was an awkward time. NATO was fighting over Kosovo. The United States had
been content to take a supporting role, and Portugal ''feared that if this
referendum, didn't happen before Mr. Habibie left office, it would never
happen,'' UN diplomats said.
On May 5, the accord was signed. ''There was a great desire
to get this issue off the agenda, and the United Nations, saw in Mr. Habibie's
proposal a way to do that,'' said Adam Schwarz, an expert on Indonesia at
Johns Hopkins University. ''The problem is, they were not asking the hard
questions about whether this was workable.'' Officials from the United Nations
and five countries - the United States, Britain, Australia, New Zealand and
Japan - began meeting weekly in May to plan a peacekeeping operation that
would keep order after the anticipated withdrawal of Indonesia from the
territory in November.
But before the referendum, there was no planning for a
multinational intervention force capable of stopping possible militia
violence. ''You can't go to the Security Council and say, 'We think Indonesia
is going to implement a scorched-earth policy and we need a policy of foreign
intervention now,''' said a diplomat familiar with the planning. ''The
politics of the council are such that you can't paint a worst-case scenario.''
Instead, diplomacy was wielded to try to persuade Indonesia to keep order.
Among others, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph
Ralston, spoke to the Indonesian defense minister, General Wiranto, a number
of times, stressing the need to maintain order. Nonetheless, by the Aug. 30
vote, around 10,000 militia members, including 2,000 heavily armed irregulars,
had flooded East Timor, according to U.S. estimates.
On Sept. 3, the referendum results were announced: 78.5
percent of East Timorese had voted for independence. Militias went on a
rampage. In the United States, there were divided views on how to aid the East
Timorese. With U.S. forces taxed by Kosovo and other peacekeeping commitments,
Pentagon and National Security Council officials resisted yet another foreign
military effort. ''People always understood things could go badly,'' a senior
Pentagon official said. ''But under the circumstances, we felt it would be
much better if there were an Asian face on this.'' After a week of threats
from the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, United Nations and
Washington, Indonesia agreed to allow an international force to restore order.
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Some UN officials have since asked themselves whether Mr.
Annan should have postponed the referendum, as he could have under the May 5
agreement. UN diplomats answer that Xanana Gusmao, the East Timorese leader
under house arrest; Mr. Ramos-Horta; and Constancio Pinto, a former guerrilla
fighter who represents East Timor at the United Nations, all favored
proceeding. The senior New York diplomat also said that many people misread
the intentions of Indonesia, including Stapleton Roy, the U.S. ambassador to
Indonesia. When the military pulled out troops and replaced its East Timor
commander, many analysts thought that meant the military was accepting
independence. Few believed that Indonesia would risk billions of dollars in
foreign investment and IMF loans by launching a scorched-earth policy in plain
view of international observers.
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