International Peacebuilding and Local Involvement: A Liberal Renaissance? 9780367024123, 9780429399756

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International Peacebuilding and Local Involvement

This book interrogates the common perception that liberal peace is in crisis and explores the question: can the local turn save liberal peacebuilding? Presenting a case for a liberal renaissance in peacebuilding, the work interrogates the assumptions behind the popular perception that liberal peace is in crisis. It re-­examines three of the cases igniting the debate—Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-­Leste—and evaluates how these transitional administrations implemented their liberal mandates and how local involvement affected the conduct of their activities. In so doing, it reveals that these cases were neither liberal nor peacebuilding. It also demonstrates that while local involvement is imperative to peacebuilding, illiberal local involvement restores an elite-­centred status quo and reinforces or creates new forms of conflict and violence. Using both liberal and critical lenses, the author ultimately argues that a conceptual and operational departure from the holistic and comprehensive origins of liberal peacebuilding in fact paved the way for the liberal peace crisis itself. Drawing on analysis from in-­depth field research and interviews, this book will be of much interest to students of peacebuilding, peacekeeping, statebuilding, security studies and International Relations in general. Dahlia Simangan is a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) postdoctoral research fellow at the United Nations University in Tokyo. She holds a PhD in International, Political, and Strategic Studies from the Australian National University.

Routledge Studies in Intervention and Statebuilding Series Editors: Aidan Hehir and Nicolas Lemay-­Hébert Founding Editor: David Chandler

The series publishes monographs and edited collections analysing a wide range of policy interventions associated with statebuilding. It asks broader questions about the dynamics, purposes and goals of this interventionist framework and assesses the impact of externally-­guided policymaking. Local Legitimacy in Peacebuilding Pathways to Local Compliance with International Police Reform Birte Julia Gippert The Practice of Humanitarian Intervention Aid workers, agencies and institutions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo Kai Koddenbrock Peace Figuration after International Intervention Intentions, events and consequences of liberal peacebuilding Gëzim Visoka Statebuilding in the Middle East and North Africa The Aftermath of Regime Change Irene Constantini Deferring Peace in International Statebuilding Difference, Resilience and Critique Pol Barugués-Pedreny International Peacebuilding and Local Involvement A Liberal Renaissance? Dahlia Simangan For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/ Routledge-Studies-in-Intervention-and-Statebuilding/book-series/RSIS

International Peacebuilding and Local Involvement A Liberal Renaissance?

Dahlia Simangan

First published 2019 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2019 Dahlia Simangan The right of Dahlia Simangan to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-­in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-­in-Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book ISBN: 978-0-367-02412-3 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-39975-6 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear

For the people of Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-­Leste

Contents



List of tables Acknowledgements List of abbreviations



Introduction

viii ix xi 1

1 Locating a middle ground between liberal and local trajectories in peacebuilding

19

2 Cambodia: politicized involvement in a compromised peacebuilding

48

3 Kosovo: superficial involvement in a co-­opted peacebuilding

80

4 Timor-­Leste: exclusive involvement in a fragile peacebuilding

111

5 The perils of liberal peacebuilding and pitfalls of local involvement

144



Conclusion

168



Appendix: list of interview participants and resource persons Index

177 182

Tables

5.1 Providing security during peacebuilding: a summary of the case studies 5.2 Pursuing justice and reconciliation during peacebuilding: a summary of the case studies 5.3 Promoting development during peacebuilding: a summary of the case studies

148 152 154

Acknowledgements

The following are instrumental to the completion of this book: the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS KAKENHI 17F17780) for my fellowship while writing this book; Nicolas Lemay-­Hébert and Edward Newman for reading the earlier version of this book; the two anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful comments; Andrew Humphrys, Bethany Lund-­Yates, and Georgina Bishop for their editorial support; Luke Glanville, Joanne Wallis, Benjamin Zala, Katrina Lee-­Koo, and Renee Jeffery for their academic mentorship; the professional staff at the Australian National University’s Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, Department of International Relations, and School of Politics and International Relations for their academic support; Hiroya Sugita for his constant academic guidance and Kanagawa University for administering my JSPS research fellowship; Thomas Doerfler and Rebecca Brubaker for reading the drafts of my book proposal and the rest of the United Nations University-­ Centre for Policy Research (UNU-­CPR) team in Tokyo for hosting me as a postdoctoral research fellow; the United Nations University-­Institute for Advanced Sustainability (UNU-­IAS) for their administrative assistance; Joshua Fisher and the wonderful people at the Advanced Consortium on Cooperation, Conflict, and Complexity (AC4) of Columbia University for hosting me as a visiting PhD student; the Academic Council on the United Nations (ACUNS) for the Dissertation Fellowship Award in 2015; the Australian Political Studies Association and other academic associations for the platform to present my research; and the gracious individuals who assisted me during my fieldwork. Thank you to my loved ones for their unwavering support and devotion. Most importantly, I am indebted to the peacebuilders of Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-­Leste for entrusting me with their stories and experiences to write this book. This book is a revised version of my PhD thesis titled “The Limits of Liberal Peacebuilding and Pitfalls of Local Involvement: Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-­ Leste in Retrospect” submitted to the Australian National University in 2017. Some parts of this book also appear in the following publications by Taylor & Francis Ltd, www.tandfonline.com reprinted by permission of the publisher: “Domino Effect of Negative Hybrid Peace in Kosovo’s Peacebuilding” by Dahlia Simangan, Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding Vol. 12:1 pp.  120–41 (2018); and “The Pitfalls of Local Involvement: Justice and Reconciliation in Cambodia, Kosovo, and

x   Acknowledgements Timor-­Leste” by Dahlia Simangan, Peacebuilding Vol. 5:3 pp.  305–19 (2017). Some parts of Chapter 2 appear in “When Hybridity Breeds Contempt: Negative Hybrid Peace in Cambodia” by Dahlia Simangan, Third World Quarterly (2018) copyright © Southseries Inc., www.thirdworldquarterly.com, reprinted by permission of Taylor & Francis Ltd. www.tandfonline.com on behalf of Southseries Inc., www.third worldquarterly.com. Some parts of Chapter 4 appear in “A Detour in the Local Turn: Roadblocks in Timor-­Leste’s Post-­Conflict Peacebuilding” by Dahlia Simangan, Asian Journal of Peacebuilding Vol. 5:2 pp. 195–221 (2017), reprinted by permission of Institute for Peace and Unification Studies (IPUS), Seoul National University, http://tongil.snu.ac.kr/xe/ajp.

Abbreviations

AAK AFTA ANTI ASEAN CAVR CBMRR CCHR CFA CFSP CivPol CMAA CMAC CMATS CNRM CNRP CNRT CNUP CoE CPAF CPP CSHD CTF DC-­Cam DDR ECCC ECMI EITI ERW

Alliance for the Future of Kosovo; Aleanca për Ardhmërinë e Kosovës (in Albanian) ASEAN Free Trade Area Timor-­Leste National Alliance for an International Tribunal Association of Southeast Asian Nations Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation; Comissão de Acolhimento, Verdade e Reconciliação de Timor Leste (in Portuguese) Community-­Based Mine Risk Reduction Cambodian Center for Human Rights Central Fiscal Authority Common Foreign and Security Policy Civilian Police Cambodian Mine Action and Victim Assistance Authority Cambodian Mine Action Centre Certain Maritime Arrangements in the Timor Sea National Council of Maubere Resistance; Conselho Nacional da Resistência Maubere (in Portuguese) Cambodia National Rescue Party National Council of Timorese Resistance; Conselho Nacional de Resistência de Timor (in Portuguese) Cambodian National Unity Party Council of Europe Cambodian People’s Armed Forces Cambodian People’s Party Cambodian Self Help Demining Commission of Truth and Friendship Documentation Center of Cambodia Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia European Centre for Minority Issues Kosovo Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative Explosive Remnants of War

xii   Abbreviations ESI ETAN ETTA EU EULEX F-­FDTL

Estimated Sustainable Income East Timor and Indonesia Action Network East Timor Transitional Administration European Union European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo East Timor Defence Force; Falintil-­Forças de Defesa de Timor Leste (in Portuguese) Falintil Armed Forces for the National Liberation of East Timor; Forças Armadas de Libertação Nacional de Timor-­Leste (in Portuguese) FDI Foreign Direct Investment Fretilin Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor; Frente Revolucionária de Timor-­Leste Independente (in Portuguese) FUNCINPEC National United Front for an Independent, Neutral, Peaceful and Cooperative Cambodia; Front Uni National pour un Cambodge Indépendant, Neutre, Pacifique, et Coopératif (in French) GDP Gross Domestic Product GICHD Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining GNI Gross National Income GNP Gross National Product HDI Human Development Index HPCC Housing and Property Claims Commission HPD Housing and Property Directorate HRW Human Rights Watch IBL Institutionalization Before Liberalization ICC International Criminal Court ICISS International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty ICJ International Court of Justice ICRC International Committee of the Red Cross ICTJ International Center for Transitional Justice ICTY International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia IICK Independent International Commission on Kosovo IMF International Monetary Fund INTERFET International Force for East Timor IOM International Organization for Migration ISF International Stabilisation Force JIAS Joint Interim Administrative Structure JICA Japan International Cooperation Agency JPDA Joint Petroleum Development Area KCSS Kosovar Centre for Security Studies KFOR Kosovo Force KLA Kosovo Liberation Army Ushtria Çlirimtare e Kosovës (UÇK) (in Albanian) KPA Kosovo Property Agency KPC Kosovo Protection Corps KPNLF Khmer People’s National Liberation Front

Abbreviations   xiii LANGO LDK MAG MDGs NATO NGO NISMA NMAS NPA OSCE PDK PDK PFCC PISG PNTL POLRI PRK PSGs RCAF RECOM RGC RtoP SEESAC SITF SNC SOC SOE SRSG SSR TNI UN UN GA UN-­Habitat UN PBC UN PBF UN PBSO

Law on Associations and Non-­Governmental Organizations Democratic League of Kosovo; Lidhja Demokratike e Kosovës (in Albanian) Mines Advisory Group Millennium Development Goals North Atlantic Treaty Organization Non-­Governmental Organization Social Democratic Initiative NISMA Social Demokrate (in Albanian) National Mine Action Strategy Norwegian People’s Aid Organization for Security and Co-­operation in Europe Democratic Party of Kosovo Partia Demokratike e Kosovës (in Albanian) Party of Democratic Kampuchea Petroleum Fund Consultative Council Provisional Institutions of Self-­Government East Timor National Police Force; Polícia Nacional de Timor-­ Leste (in Portuguese) Indonesian National Police; Kepolisian Negara Republik Indonesia (in Bahasa) People’s Republic of Kampuchea Peacebuilding and Statebuilding Goals Royal Cambodian Armed Forces Regional Commission for Establishing Facts about War Crimes and Other Gross Violations of Human Rights Committed on the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia Royal Government of Cambodia Responsibility to Protect South Eastern and Eastern Europe Clearinghouse for the Control of Small Arms and Light Weapons Special Investigative Task Force Supreme National Council State of Cambodia State-­Owned Enterprise Special Representative of the Secretary-­General Security Sector Reform Indonesian National Armed Forces; Tentara Nasional Indonesia (in Bahasa) United Nations UN General Assembly UN Human Settlements Programme UN Peacebuilding Commission UN Peacebuilding Fund UN Peacebuilding Support Office

xiv   Abbreviations UNAIDS UNAMET UNAMIC UNCLOS UNDP UNMIK UNMISET UNMIT UNOTIL UNTAC UNTAET US WHO WPS WTO

Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS UN Mission in East Timor UN Advance Mission in Cambodia UN Convention on the Law of the Sea UN Development Programme UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo UN Mission of Support in East Timor UN Integrated Mission in Timor-­Leste UN Office in Timor-­Leste UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia UN Transitional Administration in East Timor United States of America World Health Organization Women, Peace and Security World Trade Organization

Introduction

‘Local’ is the current buzzword in peacebuilding in both academic research and policymaking. The local turn in peacebuilding, as a response to the shortcomings of the liberal peace agenda, advocates for locally sensitive approaches to rebuilding post-­conflict societies. The liberal peace agenda rests on the assumption that democratic institutions and globally integrated market-­oriented policies can promote and sustain peace and development (Doyle 1983; Russett 1996; Keohane and Nye 2001; Rasler and Thompson 2005). It gained prominence and legitimacy after the Cold War when some communist and authoritarian states transitioned to liberal democracy. It has informed international peace operations at the height of humanitarian interventionism in the 1990s. The United Nations (UN) published the hallmark An Agenda for Peace document in 1992 cementing the peacebuilding pillar into its agenda to assist societies transitioning from conflict to peace. With its emphasis on democratic institutions, market development, justice, human rights, and the rule of law, the UN carries a liberal framework into their peace operations.1 The incidents of conflict relapse in societies where the UN has intervened, however, have raised doubts about the viability and effectiveness of liberal peace assumptions. International peacebuilding has a mixed record of successes and failures. The UN claims a high success rate for its past peacekeeping missions (UN Peacekeeping 2010). It has conducted free and fair elections, monitored ceasefire agreements and the disarmament of former combatants, overseen the safe return of displaced populations, streamlined foreign aid, and re-­established vital public infrastructure. The UN peacekeeping website showcases its achievements in helping to “end conflicts and foster reconciliation” and in “providing basic security guarantees and responding to crises [to support] political transitions and [help] buttress fragile new state institutions” (UN Peacekeeping 2018). Empirical studies back up the claim that UN peace operations have contributed to the decline in civil wars and major conflicts since the early 1990s (Fortna 2004; Doyle and Sambanis 2006; Howard 2008; Newman 2009). Under other conditions, however, the UN has also failed to protect the populations of Somalia, Rwanda, and Bosnia from genocide, crimes against humanity, and other forms of massive human rights violations. Moreover, some liberal peacebuilding outcomes are the antithesis of what is liberal and peaceful—reversals to conflict,

2   Introduction autocratic leaders, economic instability, and social discrimination. The UN acknowledges these shortcomings when it claims to “have helped countries to close the chapter of conflict and open a path to normal development, even if major peacebuilding challenges remain” (UN Peacekeeping 2018). These failures and challenges have ushered in new and reimagined approaches to peacebuilding. The scholarship on the local turn steers away from the top-­down, Western-­ based, and exclusionary tendencies of the liberal peace. It calls for a bottom-­up, locally contextualized, and inclusionary approach that incorporates local actors, agencies, and norms. It strives to magnify the gap between local realities and the kind of peace that peacebuilding missions generate for post-­conflict societies. The emphasis on the local sits alongside a popular perception within academic debates that liberal peace is in crisis (for example, Cooper 2007) and that liberal peacebuilding does more harm than good (Jarstad and Sisk 2008; Diehl and Druckman 2010; Zürcher et al. 2013). Since liberal peace has become the “discourse, framework, and structure” (Richmond 2005: 206) behind the concept and practice of international peacebuilding, intervening actors often indiscriminately use it as a universal blueprint for rebuilding post-­conflict societies (Richmond and Franks 2009). In reality, though, post-­conflict societies do not work in a political vacuum and, in some cases, they are far from homogenous with existing social, political, and economic structures. The discourse on the local turn provides a useful lens for examining the local dimensions international peacebuilding tends to neglect, either intentionally or unintentionally, because of their liberal preferences. The high risk of relapse into conflict in societies transitioning to peace places conflict prevention at the top of the UN’s peace and security agenda. It is an international security concern if a post-­conflict society slips back into conflict. Not only does conflict relapse mean that previous international peacebuilding efforts and resources were wasted, but it also raises the possibility of the conflict morphing into a more severe or intractable one (Collier and Sambanis 2002). Conflicts in fragile, failed, and dangerous states (hereinafter referred to as disrupted states) often produce spill-­over transnational security threats, such as transnational crime, terrorism, illicit arms, and drug and human trafficking (Helman and Ratner 1992). In response, the UN has expanded the mandate of its peacekeeping missions to include the strengthening of state capacities for sustainable peace and development (UN Peacekeeping n.d.). The UN also created the Peacebuilding Commission in 2006 to support international efforts in post-­ conflict peacebuilding. Its main objective is to ensure that post-­conflict societies do not revert to conflict and violence. However, in July 2014, the Chair of the Commission expressed concern about the sufficiency of existing tools for preventing countries from relapsing into conflict. He cited the worsening situations in the Central African Republic and South Sudan as painful reminders of the tragic consequences of unsustainable peace (“Recent Crises” 2014). In 2015 an Advisory Group of Experts reviewed the UN peacebuilding architecture2 and made an observation that, within the UN, “peacebuilding is left as

Introduction   3 an afterthought: under-­prioritized, under-­resourced and undertaken only after the guns fall silent” (A/69/968-S/2015/490 2015: 3) even with the recent rise in major civil conflicts since 2010 (Uppsala Conflict Data Program n.d.). Peacebuilding has been practically sidelined in the international agenda despite the UN rhetoric that peacebuilding is as important as conflict response and prevention. For instance, when the UN General Assembly endorsed the Responsibility to Protect (RtoP) in 2005 (A/RES/60/1 2005: paras 138–40) it did not include post-­intervention responsibility or the Responsibility to Rebuild, which was part of the original 2001 International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) RtoP document.3 The higher commitment that post-­conflict rebuilding requires compared to intervention and prevention makes UN member states hesitant to endorse it (Schnabel 2012). Some scholars are seeking to return it to the international peace agenda in light of the risk of post-­intervention violence (for example, Gheciu and Welsh 2009; Bose and Thakur 2016; Keränen 2016), such as that seen in post-­intervention Libya where rebels perpetrate rampant lawlessness and human rights violations (Bachman 2015). More recently, the term peacebuilding seems to have slipped away from the UN’s rhetoric (Chandler 2017), with it focusing more on institution-­building for good governance. Gone are the days of the UN’s confidence in being the harbinger for peace. Together with the other international institutions and agencies, the UN has taken on a humbler posturing by adopting less interventionist approaches. This shift hopes to allow local actors and agencies to create the peace they aspire for in a way relevant to their local experiences. The crisis of liberal peace, the increasing preference for the local turn, and the risks of conflict relapse prompt a timely and relevant question, the responses to which have implications for how the UN and the rest of the international community assist in rebuilding post-­conflict societies. That is, can the local turn save peacebuilding? To answer this question, I looked at past international peacebuilding missions’ attempts to promote liberal peace in Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-­Leste and analysed whether the outcomes of their peacebuilding components arose from the failures of implementing or not implementing liberal peacebuilding. I also examined how local actors and perspectives were incorporated into the peacebuilding process and whether these localized approaches filled the shortcomings of the liberal peacebuilding framework. Assessing how these dynamics played out on the ground illuminates the answer to whether liberal peacebuilding can be revived and whether the local turn can replace or complement it.

Main argument In this book, I argue for a liberal ‘renaissance’ in peacebuilding. This renaissance does not advocate for, or urge more, liberal peacebuilding. It is also not a defence of the assumption that a more faithful liberal peacebuilding would have been more successful. Instead, the use of the word renaissance here implies a renewed interest in the study of international peacebuilding based on the premise

4   Introduction that the debate on liberal peacebuilding seems to have ended with a consensus that liberal peacebuilding is unsustainable, coupled with an increased, albeit practically futile, discussion on the local turn in peacebuilding. The prevailing conceptual critique and the instinctive practice of liberal peacebuilding have departed from the holistic and comprehensive origins of its key components: liberalism (individual freedoms), peace (positive and negative peace), and peacebuilding (a continuum of actors and issues). Meanwhile, the policy alternatives to liberal peacebuilding have become too technical and fixated on building institutions instead of a comprehensive approach that encompasses both institution-­ building and peacebuilding. Furthermore, the local turn in peacebuilding tends to stray from the holistic origins of peace, which sometimes results in precarious types of local involvement that precede a return to a status quo plagued with governance, socio-­economic, and security issues. This argument revives the essential principles of liberalism (in requiring local involvement) and the holistic origins of peacebuilding (in translating the holistic definition and comprehensive implementation of peace). It does not justify the failures of liberal peacebuilding but rather illustrates how the essence of liberal peace and the original conceptualization of peacebuilding are complementary to the recommendations of the local turn. In view of this argument, the local turn, as a complement to instead of a replacement for liberal peace, can potentially save peacebuilding. My aim in this book is to return to the initial debate on liberal peacebuilding by reinvigorating the “saving liberal peacebuilding” argument first presented in a seminal article that Roland Paris wrote in 2010. Paris, an esteemed academic and policy expert on international affairs, defends liberal peacebuilding from its critics. He acknowledges that the discussion about the shortcomings of liberal peacebuilding is warranted but argues that the bases of these critiques are flawed and misinformed. Critics of liberal peacebuilding have failed to recognize the inherent contradictions within liberalism and, misleadingly, equated such contradictions with the elements of liberal peace (Paris 2010). For example, liberalism promotes universalist formulas, such as political and economic liberalization, as well as the ethic of individual and collective choice or self-­government, which may contradict the former (ibid.: 350). For Paris, the critics have not yet provided clear, plausible, and less problematic alternatives to liberal peacebuilding. His defence, unsurprisingly, was met with criticism and scorned as a neo-­imperialist disposition that leans towards an orthodox solution of doing more of the same thing (for example, Cooper et al. 2011; Roberts 2012). Through this book, I invite peacebuilding scholars who have long dismissed liberal peacebuilding to revisit past peacebuilding missions, viewed as having operated within the liberal peacebuilding framework, and examine in a new light whether these missions were indeed liberal and peacebuilding. This new light entails knowledge of the recent local turn in peacebuilding theory and the outcomes of more localized approaches to peacebuilding. These localized approaches were implemented in earlier cases of peace operations, such as the UN transitional administrations in Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-­Leste.

Introduction   5 The argument I advance in this book is drawn from a retrospective examination of peacebuilding processes through the UN transitional administrations in Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-­Leste. The examination reveals two major findings. First, while the UN transitional administrations failed to sustain the peace they helped create, most of the critical literature has been too quick to attribute the incidents of violence and conflict following and during the transitions to the flaws in the liberal peacebuilding framework. This critical perspective does not adequately explain instances when the transitional administrations departed from their liberal mandates. These instances highlight the gap between the rhetoric and praxis of peacebuilding missions. Thus, I argue that the failure of the missions to implement their liberal mandates and uphold their liberal values also played a role in creating a fragile peace in these post-­conflict societies, and not solely the flaws in the liberal peacebuilding framework. The implementation of some of the peacebuilding components of the transitional administrations in Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-­Leste was neither liberal nor peacebuilding with respect to the holistic and comprehensive origins of its fundamental concepts. Liberal peacebuilding also failed to deliver its goals of liberal transformation and lasting peace when it became fixated on the technical establishment of institutions without sufficient capacity-­building to safeguard such institutions from abuse and misuse. This fixation became more problematic when the institutions built were incompatible with local contexts or sometimes incompetent or unwilling to deliver their responsibilities. Second, local involvement, understood as one of the practical applications of the local turn, exacerbated the potential for violence when it was exclusive, superficial, non-­representative, and politicized. It is, of course, impossible to remove political interests from political actors involved in the peacebuilding process. For this book, however, politicized means self-­aggrandizing involvement which only serves the local elite’s accumulation of power.4 Although critics have attributed these types of involvement to liberal peacebuilding, I argue that they are far from the holistic and comprehensive origins of liberal peacebuilding, which further support the characterization of the peacebuilding missions under study as neither liberal nor peacebuilding. These types of local involvement in rebuilding Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-­Leste did not address the shortcomings of liberal peacebuilding but rather preserved or reproduced oppressive and violent political, social, and economic structures. Local involvement, therefore, is not a panacea for the failures of liberal peacebuilding and falls short of saving peacebuilding especially when it is not anchored in liberal values. These findings challenge earlier claims that the shortcomings of liberal peacebuilding missions were due to a lack of local involvement. It also substantiates recent studies raising caution over the potential pitfalls of local involvement, or peacebuilding from below, by identifying the types of local involvement that aggravate or reproduce rather than address or suppress the causes of conflict.

6   Introduction

Introduction to the case studies In line with this book’s objective of renewing the debate on liberal peacebuilding, it is only appropriate to return to some of the cases that ignited the debate in the first place. The UN transitional administrations in Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-­Leste are fitting case studies because they have been usually referred to in the critical scholarship for uncovering the failures of liberal peacebuilding. The UN deployed transitional administrations in Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor­ to assist them in their transition from conflict to peace. These transitional administrations adopted a liberal peacebuilding framework that purportedly aimed to build durable peace by promoting the liberal elements of democracy, justice and human rights, the rule of law, and the free market. The UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) operated from February 1992 to September 1993 to restore civil rule after years of internal war and foreign intervention. The UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) started in June 1999 to administer the return to a peaceful and normal life of the people of Kosovo after the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) intervention against the former Yugoslavia. It remains operational but with reduced authority following Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence in 2008. The United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) was mandated from October 1999 to May 2002 to administer Timor-­Leste while preparing it for independence after a popular consultation rejected the option of autonomy within Indonesian. The UN hailed these transitional administrations as successful in rebuilding the disrupted systems and damaged infrastructures in these post-­conflict societies (S/ RES/880 1993; S/RES/1338 2001; S/2007/256 2007). In Cambodia, the UN administered the first national elections peacefully and democratically.6 In Kosovo, the UN removed the Yugoslav forces to provide a safe and secure environment for the Albanian community country to organize and administer itself. In Timor-­Leste, the UN established institutions of self-­governance needed for a functioning independent state. However, the instability and violence that occurred a few years after, and even during the mission, raised doubts about the durability of the kind of peace and the sustainability of institutions the UN promotes and builds in post-­conflict societies. Cambodia was subjected to a violent military coup d’état in 1997, four years after the UN left. Kosovo witnessed ethnically motivated riots in 2004, five years after the UN arrived. Timor-­Leste experienced a security crisis in 2006, one year after the UN declared its mission a success. Although these cases are technically transitional administrations, their mandates echo the components of liberal peacebuilding and therefore can be considered peacebuilding missions and examined within the liberal peacebuilding framework. They mirrored the assumptions of liberal peacebuilding, and the implementation of their mandates epitomized the complex dynamics between international and local actors, agencies, and norms. The analysis of these cases resonates with other UN missions with similar mandates on elections or democratic representation, security, justice and human rights, the rule of law, and economic development. Their broad governing mandates and

Introduction   7 far-­reaching administrative authority have set an enduring standard for international peacebuilding.7 A transitional administration is a tool the UN employs to administer post-­ conflict societies.8 What is unique about a UN transitional administration compared to other UN missions is the former’s assumption of sovereign authority in government administration, and peacekeeping and peacebuilding duties (Chesterman 2004). Transitional administrations are mandated, in various operational capacities, to establish a legitimate and effective government, sustainable economy, civil society, and justice and reconciliation, among others. A transitional administration is a more comprehensive project compared to the other types of peacekeeping operations because it comprises areas and activities that have traditionally been under the ambit of government functions, such as civil and social services, reconstruction of infrastructure, and the training of a police force and judiciary (Griffin and Jones 2000). The participation of international agencies also makes a transitional administration more civilian compared to militarily heavy peace operations. Transitional administrations have been far from perfect though. Their mandates have often been inconsistent, inadequate, and out of touch with the realities of peacebuilding and local aspirations for peace (Chesterman 2004). These contradictions have sometimes led to issues related to the handover of administrative tasks from international to local actors and agencies. Some suggest that these issues can be avoided by focusing more on assistance than on governance (for example, Zaum 2009). On the other hand and on a more positive note, the post-­conflict societies examined in this book had not experienced another major conflict comparable to what they had experienced before the UN entered, and they were able to maintain the key institutions for self-­governance created during the transition. Local involvement is also not a new undertaking for UN peace operations. The UN transitional administrations in Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-­Leste attempted to incorporate local actors, agencies, and norms into their peacebuilding activities in varying ways and degrees. The UN in Cambodia worked with the government in administering the country’s transition and coordinated with the local factions in fulfilling its mandates. The mission in Kosovo was more expansive as it included capacity-­building for governance and security sector reform, among other things, while overseeing the development of provisional democratic self-­governing institutions. The mission in Timor-­Leste also administered the development of local democratic institutions but with a more extensive scope and depth of activities on the ground as it involved more local actors while achieving unprecedented sovereign status in the administration of the country. These examples make these transitional administrations appropriate case studies to examine local involvement in liberal peacebuilding. A retrospective examination of these cases aims to confirm whether the critiques of liberal peacebuilding, as applied in these post-­conflict societies, were the critiques of liberal peacebuilding or something else. Were these transitional administrations liberal and peacebuilding? It also aims to re-examine the claim that the peace operations in these cases have failed to produce lasting peace because of

8   Introduction the lack of local involvement. Interrogating the bases of the claims that liberal peacebuilding is in decline and the increasing preference for the local turn can potentially locate a middle ground that marries the strengths and reduces the weaknesses of both.

Peacebuilding components Interconnected issues pose a challenge in rebuilding a post-­conflict society. In my discussion in this book, I pay attention to the peacebuilding components of security, justice and reconciliation, and development. According to the original RtoP report, the post-­conflict rebuilding pillar has three components requiring immediate attention, and the analytical categories in this book are linked to these recommendations (ICISS 2001). These peacebuilding components are relevant to the elements of liberal peace making them appropriate categories for analysing liberal peacebuilding in action. The first component is security. Without security, the delivery of basic services, resumption of state functions, and long-­ term planning for development would not be possible or, at least, would be disorderly and ineffective. Security, for the purpose of this book, means the security of all members of a population—from physical harm to their life, property, and livelihood—by eliminating threats from arms and weapons and reforming security institutions. In a post-­conflict situation where revenge killing is likely, it is imperative that basic security and protection are provided (ibid.: 40). The security component also entails the disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) of former combatants and the (re)building of local security forces under the broader security sector reconstruction/reform. Due to the variations of the UN mandates and the contexts of the conflict, each case study has a different focus, specifically in terms of the physical security component. In Cambodia, the focus is on demining because of the acute threat from landmines and unexploded ordnances preventing the Cambodians from living freely and safely. In Kosovo, the focus is on the protection of ethnic minorities because of the high potential of retaliatory attacks against them after the withdrawal of Serbian forces. In Timor-­Leste, the focus is on the militia attacks along the border with Indonesia because these posed the most immediate security threat especially for returning refugees. The second peacebuilding component is justice and reconciliation or transitional justice. The UN defines transitional justice as “the full range of processes and mechanisms associated with a society’s attempt to come to terms with a legacy of large-­scale past abuses, in order to ensure accountability, serve justice, and achieve reconciliation” (S/2004/616 2004: para 8). The mechanisms of transitional justice could either be judicial or non-­judicial, such as prosecution, truth-­seeking and -telling, reparation, institutional reform, national consultation, or a combination thereof, as long as it adheres to international legal standards and obligations (S/2004/616 2004: para 8; UN 2010: 2). Retributive forms of justice centre on punishing perpetrators, while restorative forms of justice underscore the rehabilitation of perpetrators and the needs of victims. A post-­conflict

Introduction   9 society may prioritize either political stability over justice or justice over reconciliation. The UN supports accountability, justice, and reconciliation in all circumstances, including post-­conflict contexts. It advances the peace-­versus-justice debate9 by asking when and how instead of whether to pursue justice (UN 2010: 4). The question of when, however, unearths another principle open to debate: justice delayed is justice denied.10 But the UN’s position takes into consideration the national context and stakeholders with regard to the timing and type of justice as long as it complies with international legal standards and obligations. The UN also recognizes the limitations of pursuing justice in unstable situations but encourages the building of foundations for effective mechanisms and processes to strengthen the rule of law (ibid.). The third peacebuilding component is development—an umbrella concept for ways of improving the lives of the people. It is, therefore, ambitious to cover all these ways in this book. Traditionally, development has been equated with economic growth, which is the “quantitative change or expansion in a country’s economy” measured by gross domestic product (GDP) or gross national product (GNP) (Soubbotina 2004: 96). “Economic growth not only has law and order implication, but it is vital for the overall recovery of the country concerned” (ICISS 2001: 42). However, economic development in post-­conflict societies is different from the usual processes of development in a non-­conflict context (del Castillo 2008). While confronting the normal challenges of socio-­economic development, aggravated by conflict, post-­conflict societies also have to settle for less optimal economic reform policies to promote reconstruction and peace consolidation (ibid.). Policymakers in post-­conflict societies often find themselves in a situation wherein the “imperative of peace consolidation competes with the conventional imperative of development” (ibid.: 32). Development is no longer confined to economic development gauged by national wealth. The 1990 United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Human Development Report expands the definition of development by casting the limelight on human development while linking it with economic development. This perspective regards development as the richness, not just of the economy but more importantly, of human life by providing people with wide-­ ranging choices on how to live a humane life (ul Haq 1990). Development, therefore, is more than economic growth; it constitutes the expansion and enrichment of human freedoms (Sen 1999). It also needs to be sustainable. The UN World Commission on Environment and Development (1987: 41) defines sustainable development as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. Renowned Amer­ican economist Jeffrey Sachs (2015) advanced the concept of sustainable development as a complex interaction between the world economy, global society, and the Earth’s physical environment. Since the meaning of development is both expanding and context-­based, and post-­conflict development runs a gamut of tasks, this book hinges on specific development issues most relevant to each of the three case studies. For Cambodia, the focus is on sustainable development because of UNTAC’s unique mandate related to

10   Introduction ­ ambodia’s natural resources. For Kosovo, the focus is on human development C because of UNMIK’s emphasis on the provision of basic services, specifically healthcare, in addition to ethnic minority issues concerning Kosovo. For Timor-­ Leste, the focus is on economic development because of the country’s rich oil resources, which were the subject of negotiation by UNTAET during its tenure. Applicable macroeconomic components of economic growth are included in the discussion to give an overview of each case’s economic trajectory.

Examining local involvement in liberal peacebuilding To observe liberal peacebuilding in practice, I analysed the UN transitional administrations’ implementation of their liberal mandates. These mandates are embedded in the UN resolutions and regulations that guided the transitional administrations. I do not assume the mandates as faultless guidelines. However, in order to have a uniform analysis of the peacebuilding activities of the UN transitional administrations, I used these mandates as analytical categories. To observe the local turn, I focused on the involvement of local actors, agencies, and norms in the peacebuilding process. Local actors are independent or organized individuals with a significant stake in the peacebuilding outcome and have exercised their agency in the process. They can be political elites, local security groups, non-­governmental and community-­level organizations, community leaders or traditional elders, and everyday people. To draw conclusions from the comparative analysis of the case studies, I answer the following sub-­questions in the discussion. What were the mandates of the transitional administrations? How were the mandates implemented? What were the outcomes of their implementation? Was there local involvement in their implementation? How were the local actors, agencies, and norms involved in their implementation? What were the outcomes of local involvement? Since I am interested in the processes and outcomes of liberal peacebuilding and local involvement, I examined the top-­down and bottom-­up approaches employed by international and local actors in implementing the mandates of the UN transitional administrations in Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-­Leste. Top-­ down approaches are state-­centric and institutional approaches, such as high-­ level political dialogues and regional or bilateral agreements. Bottom-­up approaches are community- and grassroots-­level initiatives, such as community dialogues, civil society recommendations, and other avenues involving local actors and agencies. International actors, such as UN officials/decision makers, international organizations, international donors, regional bodies, and other foreign states, can assist a post-­conflict society in rebuilding or reforming state institutions. These actors, like the local actors defined above, are fluid in terms of spaces, territories, values, and approaches, and must be understood vis-­à-vis their contexts and representations (Hirblinger and Simons 2015; Mac Ginty 2015). The differentiation between international and local, liberal and non-­liberal, top-­down and bottom-­up neither means that this book unknowingly falls into the trap of binary logic nor assumes that these categories are always

Introduction   11 clear-­cut. For example, an international approach may be non-­liberal while a locally-­initiated approach may minimize the representation or agency of other groups. I recognize the potential of this dichotomy to thwart a nuanced and realistically grounded understanding of the international and the local. A monolithic view of the local and the international also runs the risk of ‘methodological reductionism’ between the two (see also Paffenholz 2015; Debiel and Rinck 2016). This view fails to see peacebuilding from the experiences of the local (Millar 2014). It also ignores the complex interactions of these actors within a dynamic and evolving process of peacebuilding (Hunt 2017). The delineation between the international and the local in this book mainly serves the purpose of data gathering, data management, and comparative analysis. They are helpful in identifying the activities of international and local actors and agencies, differentiating the liberal from the non-­liberal, and examining top-­down and bottom-­up approaches. Concentrating on the processes of peace formation instead of definitional dichotomies disentangles from the binary and narrow understanding of the international and the local. Another issue in assessing peacebuilding missions is the use of the terms ‘success’ and ‘failure’. Qualifying the success and failure of a complex and evolving process like peacebuilding is open to interpretation and contestation. To illustrate, most of the internationals I interviewed assessed the missions they worked in as generally successful. On the other hand, some of the locals were straightforward in describing the missions as complete failures. Previous studies applied minimalist and maximalist standards in assessing peace missions (Howard 2008: 6–7). If the criteria are the absence of conflict and the presence of liberal institutions (minimalist standard), then peacebuilding in Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-­Leste could be considered a success since there had been no outbreak of conflict comparable to what they experienced before the UN arrived. They could also be regarded as successful because they established liberal institutions during the transition. If, though, the criteria are the absence of other forms of structural violence in the social, economic, and political spheres, and compliance with liberal values (maximalist standard), then liberal peacebuilding in the three case studies generally failed. Although the transitional administrations achieved short-­term stability and prompted economic growth, they failed to uphold liberal values, preserved structural violence and injustices, and did not encourage the empowerment and emancipation of the local population. Previous assessments and reports do not have a consensus on the outcomes of the UN transitional administrations in Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-­Leste because what constitutes success and failure may differ across fields and organizations. Some scholars even contest the use of the terms success and failure because it ignores the complexity of conflict and peacebuilding and is, therefore, a nonsensical, and sometimes self-­defeating, process (for example, Ricigliano 2015). I recognize the difficulty in passing judgements on the subjective nature of success and failure. Qualifying the success and failure of a peacebuilding mission is not definitive but doing so, at least for specific mandates or peacebuilding components, provides a potentially useful means of reflection. It could 11

12   Introduction also foster a sense of accountability so that mistakes and failures will not be promoted as mere ‘lessons learned’ but rather profound consequences requiring reparation. In addition, I do not claim that what happened during the transition are the sole determinants of contemporary issues in Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-­Leste, but I suggest that the events during the transition have considerably shaped the current political, economic, and social contours of these post-­ conflict societies. Having said this, I qualitatively measure success and failure on the bases of the implementation of the transitional administrations’ mandates and the consequences of such implementation. How long is peace meant to last for a peacebuilding mission to be considered successful? Some studies use the five-­year period in determining whether peace consolidation has been successful (Collier et al. 2003; Call 2008). A period of two years12 is too short for a mission to deliver peaceful outcomes, and a ten-­ year time frame is too long for spurious factors to influence a fair assessment of the peace mission (Call 2008: 177). While this temporal boundary is logical for assessing the enforcement of peace agreements, five years seem too short for institution-­building in societies that had to start from scratch because of war and conflict. Procedurally, a peace mission can be considered successful when it was able to implement its mandates within the first five years after its deployment. It is also within this time frame that a peace mission can be considered responsible for keeping the peace or maintaining the absence of physical violence. The legacies of a peace mission, however, can extend to more than five years after its conclusion. In this case, a peace mission can be considered successful in building peace if a post-­conflict society does not experience conflict and violence, both physical and indirect, within the first five years after the conclusion of the mission. It can be said that peace, in both negative and positive aspects of it, has lasted.13 These procedural and structural time frames are useful benchmarks for the cases of Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-­Leste for they all experienced a serious threat to peace within the first five years after the start or after the conclusion of the peacebuilding missions. In 2014 I embarked on fieldwork in Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-­Leste to gain familiarity with the effects of international peacebuilding on their societies. I obtained personal insights from UN officials and staff, government officials, local leaders, members of civil society organizations, and other international and local peacebuilders who were involved in the various components of peacebuilding.14 I asked them about their participation and experiences in and during the transitional administrations, their perception of UN programmes, their peace aspirations, and their recommendations for future peacebuilding missions. A total of 73 interviews provide a rich source of data to elucidate which peacebuilding approaches were seen to be effective by both international and local actors.15 The personal insights from the actors who were involved in the peacebuilding process are crucial in forming a grounded understanding of the processes and outcomes of peacebuilding. On the one hand, obtaining the perceptions of international actors is important for examining their interpretation and operationalization of the liberal values embedded in the mandates of the

Introduction   13 missions they were involved in. Likewise, obtaining the perceptions of local actors uncovers the extent to which these liberal values managed to permeate at the local level. Including the perceptions of peacebuilders provides in-­depth and unfiltered information surrounding the peacebuilding activities of the UN that may not have been reflected in formal proclamations and official publications. Revisiting the peacebuilding record in Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-­Leste has the benefit of retrospection considering that peacebuilding is a continuously developing process and in view of more recent events previously unavailable to earlier studies. The source of data analysis was not limited to the perceptions of the interview participants but also includes a broader set of data from existing reports from the UN and other international organizations and scholarly publications that examined these cases with academic rigour. I triangulated these data for patterns to provide evidence for interpretations and analyses.

Organization of this book Chapter 1 positions the conceptual framework of the book in relation to the key debates in peacebuilding. First, I retrace the holistic and comprehensive origins of the fundamental components of liberal peacebuilding: liberalism, peace, and peacebuilding. I then review the evolution of the conceptualization and implementation of liberal peace in the context of international peace and security. After that, I discuss the critiques of liberal peacebuilding and the alternative approaches critics have recommended so far, particularly their case for a local turn in peacebuilding. The chapter engages with this scholarship by locating a middle ground between liberal peacebuilding and the local turn where liberal peacebuilding is originally grounded on the local dimension of peacebuilding, and the local turn is essentially complementary to the values of liberal peace. I will test the viability of this locally-­moderated liberal peacebuilding framework by analysing the conduct of liberal peacebuilding and local involvement in Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-­Leste. The subsequent three chapters are the case studies. Chapter 2 is dedicated to the case of UNTAC in Cambodia. The assumptions of liberal peacebuilding failed to fully materialize partly because of UNTAC’s illiberal action of interfering with the outcome of the election coupled with exclusively involving local actors who posed the highest threat to stability. The military coup in 1997 was a delayed albeit associated manifestation of a compromised implementation of the liberal peacebuilding agenda when international actors acted illiberally by acquiescing with illiberal actors to produce short-­term stability instead of lasting peace. Chapter 3 is devoted to UNMIK’s presence in Kosovo. The assessment of UNMIK’s mandates shows that, despite the establishment of liberal institutions, UNMIK’s neutrality over Kosovo’s status and its decision to co-­opt the former armed movement sidestepped the aspirations of the broader population. This combination resulted in institutions lacking long-­term direction and a negative, fragile peace absent of the essential elements of liberal peace. Chapter 4 looks at the experience of UNTAET in Timor-­Leste and, to

14   Introduction some extent, the missions that followed it. Timor-­Leste’s security crisis in 2006 can be attributed not only to UNTAET’s shortcomings in providing effective and sustained capacity-­building mechanisms but also because of exclusive local involvement during the rebuilding process. Even though local involvement in Timor-­Leste was more substantive compared to Cambodia and Kosovo, it was exclusive to the political elite, which was fragmented from within in terms of approaches and priorities. The result was a fragile and politicized peace outplaying the positive outcomes from the establishment of liberal institutions. Chapter 5 is a discussion of the main findings from the case studies with consideration of their unique factors and respective contexts. A comparative analysis of the cases in terms of their peacebuilding components of security, justice and reconciliation, and development is first presented. I then explain why the supposedly liberal peacebuilding missions in Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-­ Leste were neither liberal nor peacebuilding. They were not archetypes of liberal peacebuilding because they did not uphold the liberal underpinnings of their mandates, especially when confronted with threats to stability. They were also not peacebuilding because they only focused on negative peace instead of promoting a holistic peace, eliminating the structures that gave rise to the conflict and preventing the emergence of new forms of conflict and violence. In addition to institution-­building, the peacebuilding missions in all cases involved local actors and considered the local contexts, thereby satisfying the comprehensive origin of peacebuilding. However, the conduct of local involvement was exclusive, superficial, non-­representative, and politicized. These types of local involvement undermined the normative foundations of liberal peace and did not address the shortcomings of the liberal peacebuilding framework. On the other hand, participatory approaches in some peacebuilding components built on local agency and mechanisms have sustained peacebuilding efforts in Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-­Leste. In the Conclusion of this book, I present the case for a liberal renaissance in the liberal peacebuilding debate based on the argument that the crisis of liberal peacebuilding was brought about by its departure from its holistic and comprehensive origins. I close the Conclusion with final remarks on the book’s relevance to the study and practice of peacebuilding.

Notes   1 While I recognize the complexity of motivation and agree that an altruistic motive is not always genuine and liberal, the assessment of the case studies is based on the official pronouncements of intervening actors, mainly from the UN resolutions and regulations.   2 The UN Peacebuilding Architecture consists of the UN Peacebuilding Commission (UN PBC), the UN Peacebuilding Support Office (UN PBSO), and the UN Peacebuilding Fund (UN PBF ).   3 Although the Outcome Document from the 2005 World Summit includes a section on peacebuilding (A/RES/60/1 2005: paras 97–105), which decided on the establishment of the UN PBC, it did not specify the international community’s responsibility to rebuild societies that have experienced genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity.

Introduction   15   4 I wish to thank Edward Newman for his suggestion to clarify the concept of politicized local involvement by connecting it with self-­aggrandizing practices of the political elite in their involvement in peacebuilding.   5 Timor-­Leste is the Portuguese translation of East Timor. It is also called Timor Lorosa’e in Tetum, which is the local lingua franca of the country. However, throughout this book, I use the term Timor-­Leste since the official name of the country is the Democratic Republic of Timor-­Leste. I also refer to the citizens of Timor-­Leste as Timorese.   6 When referring to the UN as undertaking certain activities or adopting a particular view this only covers the UN member states, staff, and agencies that have taken a particular lead or are directly involved in the relevant peacebuilding efforts. Similarly, the international community refers to members of the international community involved in the peacebuilding components discussed in this book.   7 Transitional administrations, under the aegis of the UN, had also been deployed in West New Guinea (United Nations Temporary Executive Authority or UNTEA), Eastern Slavonia, Baranja, and Western Sirmium (United Nations Transitional Administration for Easter Slavonia, Baranja and Western Sirmium or UNTAES), and Bosnia and Herzegovina (United Nations Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina or UNMIBH). UNTEA was not selected as a case study because it was established in 1962, which falls far from the timeline of the other case studies. Given their proximity to Kosovo, UNTAES and UNMIBH were not selected to maintain geographical variation in the case studies. UNMIK was selected over UNTAES and UNMIBH because of the former’s broader governing mandate.   8 Employing transitional administrations, however, is not a novel practice and not always UN-­mandated (for example, the British administration of Palestine in 1920 and the US-­led Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq from 2003 to 2004). A transitional administration is also called a trusteeship, which arguably has a longer history rooted in classical colonialism, particularly British rule in India and European rule in Africa. The League of Nations and the UN adopted a revised concept of trusteeship applied to disrupted states after the two world wars. See Wilde (2008) for the historical evolution of the concept.   9 Transitional justice poses an ethical-­political quandary triggering heated debates between peace defenders and justice advocates (Benomar 1993). One side of the debate argues that pursuing justice may hurt the conditions for peace. The fragility of post-­conflict societies or emerging democracies may incite instability, especially if the perpetrators remain influential in keeping the stability. The other side of the debate believes that there is no peace without justice. Holding the perpetrators accountable will ultimately delegitimize them and their wrongdoings, prevent future human rights violations, and consequently, strengthen the rule of law. 10 Regarding the sequencing of truth, reconciliation and justice see, for example, Braithwaite and Nickson (2012). 11 The concept of the local, as opposed to the international, is explained in Chapter 1. 12 Doyle and Sambanis (2000; 2006) used a two-­year and five-year time frames either after a war or after a peace operation in their quantitative cross-­sectional analysis of 124 peace processes after civil wars. They later expanded their data set to 151 peace processes. 13 Galtung’s typology of peace is discussed in Chapter 1. 14 The names of some of the interview participants are withheld. Their positions and job descriptions during the missions and/or during the interviews are noted, as well as their present positions, only if relevant to the case studies. Note, however, that their positions may have changed since the conduct of the interviews. 15 While the interviews provide in-­depth information useful for exploring and confirming previous assessments of peacebuilding missions, I acknowledge the possible bias coming from the participants’ affiliations and experiences. Moreover, the selection of interview participants generated a sample that is not representative of the population.

16   Introduction Nevertheless, I treat the data from the interviews with high regard because of the participants’ actual involvement in the peacebuilding process alongside my awareness that their insights may favour or oppose certain ideas and practices.

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18   Introduction Russett, B. (1996). The Fact of Democratic Peace. In Brown, M.E., Lynn-­Jones, S.M., and Miller, S.E. (eds) Debating the Democaratic Peace. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. S/2004/616 (2004). The Rule of Law and Transitional Justice in Conflict and Post-­ Conflict Societies: Report of the Secretary-­General. UN Security Council. 23 August. S/2007/256 (2007). Report of the Security Council Mission on the Kosovo Issue. UN Security Council. 4 May. S/RES/880 (1993). Adopted by the Security Council at its 3303rd Meeting. UN Security Council. 4 November. S/RES/1338 (2001). Adopted by the Security Council at its 4268th Meeting. UN Security Council. 31 January. Sachs, J.D. (2015). The Age of Sustainable Development. New York: Columbia University Press. Schnabel, A. (2012). The Responsibility to Rebuild. In Knight, W.A. and Egerton, F. (eds) The Routledge Handbook of the Responsibility to Protect. Oxon and New York: Routledge. Sen, A. (1999). Development as Freedom. New York: Knopf. Soubbotina, T.P. (2004). Beyond Economic Growth: An Introduction to Sustainable Development. Washington, DC: World Bank. ul Haq, M. (1990). Human Development Report 1990. New York: Oxford University Press. UN (2010). Guidance Note of the Secretary-­General: United Nations Approach to Transitional Justice. UN Peacekeeping (2010). Fact Sheet: United Nations Peacekeeping. UN Peacekeeping. (2018). Our Successes. peacekeeping.un.org/en/our-­successes. Accessed August 2018. UN Peacekeeping (n.d.). Our History. peacekeeping.un.org/en/our-­history. Accessed September 2018. UN World Commission on Environment and Development (1987). Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development: Our Common Future. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Uppsala Conflict Data Program. (n.d.). ucdp.uu.se. Accessed September 2018. Wilde, R. (2008). International Territorial Administration: How Trusteeship and the Civilizing Mission Never Went Away. New York: Oxford University Press. Zaum, D. (2009). The Norms and Politics of Exit: Ending Postconflict Transitional Administrations. Ethics & International Affairs 23(2): 189–208. doi:10.1111/ j.1747-7093.2009.00206.x. Zürcher, C., Manning, C., Evenson, K.D., Hayman, R., Riese, S., and Roehner, N. (2013). Costly Democracy: Peacebuilding and Democratization after War. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

1 Locating a middle ground between liberal and local trajectories in peacebuilding

Introduction The UN is a liberal organization, and its peacebuilding missions are consequently liberal by design. It is an advocate, and also a product, of a liberal international order. The UN’s founding principles rest on international peace and security, justice, human rights, and economic cooperation. These principles are reflected in the mandates of UN peacekeeping operations. In 1988 the UN Peacekeeping Forces received the Nobel Peace Prize for its contributions towards international peace and security. Since then, and amid the decline of a bipolar world order, the UN has authorized 58 peacekeeping operations, nine of which are currently active in Western Sahara, Kosovo, Darfur, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Abyei in Sudan, South Sudan, Mali, Central African Republic, and Haiti. The five missions in Golan, Cyprus, Lebanon, India and Pakistan, and the Middle East started before 1988 and remain operational to this day. The most recently concluded UN peace mission was in Liberia, which completed its mandate in March 2018. These operational missions have either the observational/ceasefire monitoring tasks or mandates covering institution-­building and the promotion of justice, the rule of law, and human rights. With 104,000 military and civilian personnel and a US$6.8 billion expenditure for 2017 to 2018 (UN Department of Public Information 2018), these peace operations are consequential and costly endeavours for the UN and the broader international community. The objectives and outcomes of UN peace missions are often discussed and contested within academic and policy circles, and their critiques have fed the argument for the crisis of liberal peace. David Chandler, renowned for his critical contributions to peacebuilding scholarship, published in 2017 a historical account of the rise and demise of international peacebuilding. He outlined the crisis of liberal peacebuilding and referred its advent to the former UN Secretary­General Kofi Annan for linking peacebuilding with liberal institution-­building in the second half of the 1990s. The crisis is premised on the practical limitations and difficulties of exporting liberal institutions and the interventionist, top-­down, and hubristic ideology of external peacebuilders (Chandler 2017). Clearly, it is not a novel thing to say that liberal peacebuilding has exacerbated tensions,

20   Locating a middle ground created new forms of oppression, or been exploited by local actors. These criticisms have also been raised in previous assessments of Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-­Leste. However, I am interested in re-­examining these criticisms to see whether the resultant conditions of peacebuilding missions were actually brought about by the liberal peacebuilding agenda, as most commentators claim, or of something else. To do so, this chapter reviews the key debates in liberal peacebuilding and local involvement to locate a possible middle ground between international and local trajectories in peacebuilding. I will first retrace the origins of liberal peace and liberal peacebuilding by reviewing the essential principles of liberalism and the holistic conceptualization of peacebuilding. I will then revisit the critiques of liberal peacebuilding and examine the alternative approaches critics recommend, particularly within the growing scholarship on the local turn in peacebuilding. This review will inform the conceptual framework for analysing whether the peacebuilding missions in Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-­ Leste were indeed liberal and peacebuilding and whether local involvement has remedied the flaws of liberal peacebuilding. Some key concepts related to peacebuilding and the local turn are also broadly defined in this chapter.

The origins Liberal peacebuilding is not easy to define because it covers concepts that are incessantly subjected to debates and disagreements. Scholars and practitioners are yet to reach a consensus on the definition and components of peacebuilding (Barnett et al. 2007; Chetail 2009) and the other terminologies related to it, such as institution-­building and statebuilding (D’Costa and Ford 2008). Adding the qualifier liberal, which is also contested, makes the definition of peacebuilding even more complicated. In broad terms, liberal peacebuilding is the implementation of the elements of liberal peace in post-­conflict societies. This blunt definition naturally needs unpacking of its key and related concepts. What is peace? What is liberal peace? What does an illiberal peace look like? What is peacebuilding? How does peacebuilding relate to statebuilding? Only by setting the conceptual boundaries of these key concepts can we engage with the assumptions and critiques of liberal peacebuilding. There are, of course, no canonical definitions of these concepts, and they are continuously contested in International Relations and Peace Studies scholarship. In practice, they have been used and misused and contextualized and appropriated as demanded by the interests and circumstances of their proponents and critics. I will not add further layers to these already convoluted concepts; rather I will attempt to retrace their conceptual origins and what remains of them in the current understanding and operationalization of liberal peacebuilding. The tradition of liberal thinking is rooted in the advocacy of the rights and freedom of individuals, in addition to the freedom of the state and its right to be free from foreign intervention. Moreover, liberalism in political theory seeks to resolve the questions and dilemmas around the power of the government and the rights of its citizens through the social contract model. This model postulates

Locating a middle ground   21 that individuals surrender some of their freedoms to an authority, such as the state, in exchange for their remaining rights. For example, individuals can be held accountable under the rule of law in exchange for the state’s protection of their right to democratic participation or representation. With regard to the power of the government, liberal thinkers believe that this power is based on the government’s ability to recognize and promote the common good of its citizens. Political theorists addressed the dilemmas in the relationship between political authority and freedom in several ways (see, for example, Gough 1936; Waldron 1987; Morris 1999). John Locke (1993), in his Second Treatise of Government, incorporated the role of civil society in balancing the power of the government. Immanuel Kant (1939), in Perpetual Peace, expanded the liberal thinking by identifying the freedom of individuals and the sovereignty of states as elements in achieving peace. Liberalism has evolved from its philosophical origins to complex constructions as it got subjected to critiques, interrogations, and validations. At the core of classical liberalism is the freedom of the individual. Locke’s political philosophy accords every individual the right to life, liberty, and property as well as a duty to protect such rights of others. The freedom of the individual spans civil, political, and economic rights with assorted configurations of governance—from laissez-­faire liberalism to social democratic liberalism. In international relations, liberalism promotes democratic institutions, economic interdependence, international legal regimes, and collective security. Liberals often dispute on how to reach these liberal ideals, but they agree that these ideals eventually create a separate peace for liberal societies. According to Michael Doyle (2012), one of the prominent political philosophers today, liberal societies share the four essential institutions of liberalism based on Kant’s ideal republic: representative legislatures with consented authority; equality before the law and protection of fundamental civil rights; right to private property; and an economy based on supply and demand forces. Doyle is aware of Kant’s republic being capable of both restraint and waging war under the banner of its ideals. It is worth quoting his explanation below: Kant’s republics are capable of achieving peace among themselves because they exercise democratic caution and are capable of appreciating the international rights of foreign republics. These international rights of republics derive from the representation of foreign individuals, who are our moral equals…. Liberal republics see themselves as threatened by aggression from nonrepublics that are not constrained by representation. Even though wars often cost more than the economic return they generate, liberal republics also are prepared to protect and promote—sometimes forcibly—democracy, private property, and the rights of individuals overseas against nonrepublics, which, because they do not authentically represent the rights of individuals, have no rights to noninterference. These wars may liberate oppressed individuals overseas; they also can generate enormous suffering. (Doyle 1986: 1162–3)

22   Locating a middle ground The liberal institutions characterizing Kant’s ideal republic inform the main elements of liberal peace: human rights, democracy, the rule of law, and market economy. But what do we know of peace? Peace, much like liberalism, has been understood differently in competing academic and policy discourses. I define peace and peacebuilding based on the works of two of the most influential peacebuilding scholars of our time, Johan Galtung and John Paul Lederach. The most commonly cited definition of peace in the field of Peace and Conflict Studies relates to Galtung’s (1964; 1969) distinction between negative and positive peace. Negative peace is the absence of war and direct forms of violence or the biological and physical harm to the human body. Positive peace, on the other hand, is the harmonious integration of human society where structural and indirect forms of violence and conflict are absent. Galtung (1967: 14) gave some examples of positive relations that create positive peace: cooperation; freedom from fear; freedom from want; economic growth and development; absence of exploitation; equality; freedom of action; pluralism; and dynamism. These positive relations intersect with the essential elements of liberal peace. I view this conceptualization as the holistic origin of peace because it includes the freedom from physical violence as well as less visible forms of violence present in everyday social interactions. Social discrimination, political censorship, and other structural inequities that make us fearful not just of our life but also our freedom and humanity are examples of structural violence. It is a holistic view of peace because it implies that positive peace requires actions with a long-­term perspective to uproot the underlying causes of conflict and violence. This holistic understanding of peace is reflected in the UN’s Brahimi Report on Peacekeeping Reform, which characterized peacebuilding as “activities undertaken on the far side of the conflict to reassemble the foundations of peace and provide the tools for building on those foundations something that is more than just the absence of war” (A/55/305-S/2000/809 2000: 3). This report was an indication of the UN’s broadening peace activities during the 1990s: from the traditional peacekeeping role to a more substantial and administrative role of assisting the political, social, economic, and institutional transformation or rehabilitation of a post-­conflict society to eliminate conditions that allowed the emergence of conflict. For this role, the UN must stay after peace has been enforced. It was with this broadened role when the UN entered the era of peacebuilding. Galtung (1976) is also responsible for coining the term ‘peacebuilding’. Peace is the goal, and peacebuilding is the path to reach that goal. It is the pursuit of sustainable peace that can be achieved by addressing the causes of conflict and incorporating local capacities. It is important to note how Galtung’s formulation of peacebuilding does not explicitly require liberal actions or justifications but rather emphasizes self-­supporting, non-­violent conflict resolution for society to eliminate reasons for conflict and violence. Galtung’s examples of positive relations, as mentioned earlier, intersect with liberal peace. Later, Lederach (1997) defines peacebuilding as a comprehensive concept covering various processes, approaches, and stages of conflict resolution. The traditional top-­down diplomacy is not enough to resolve conflict and sustain peace, he argues. Peacebuilding

Locating a middle ground   23 necessitates more than a conflict reaction or response to include conflict prevention and other activities to prevent a post-­conflict society from returning to conflict. Lederach emphasizes the role of building interpersonal relationships, grassroots participation, long-­term understanding of conflict and peace, integrating planning and implementation, and capacity-­building of local people and institutions in conflict transformation. Lederach’s cumulative work on peacebuilding treats it as a long-­term process involving multidimensional actors with multi-­directional relationships within the multi-­layered sectors of society. Local involvement is part and parcel of Lederach’s view on peacebuilding. His conceptualization also reflects a comprehensive approach sitting on a social, political, economic, and even emotional continuum rather than a one-­directional undertaking. The analysis in this book anchors onto these peacebuilding origins: Galtung’s holistic understanding of peace and Lederach’s comprehensive approach to peacebuilding. Peacebuilding, therefore, is a holistic and comprehensive approach of preventing a post-­conflict society’s reversal to conflict and violence. Moreover, liberal peacebuilding is peacebuilding that prioritizes security, justice, human rights, the rule of law, and open economy.

The problem Why peace has to be ‘liberal’ instead of just ‘peace’? The retreat of realism at the end of the Cold War, with the collapse of the communist Soviet Union, legitimized liberalism as a higher moral and political ideal. In more recent history of interventions, the domestic characteristics of an ideal liberal society, or liberal values, have become the guiding principles of statebuilding in newly independent states and conflict-­affected territories. In most cases, liberal states lead the intervening forces and naturally adopt a liberal approach in their international interventions. Interventions by liberal states to pursue liberal objectives have significant support for good reasons. In the past, liberal internationalism fought alongside the struggle for human rights and defeated colonialism, fascism, and communism (Dunne and McDonald 2013). Because it mainly responds to humanitarian crises, liberal internationalism has a solidarist potential by engaging a complex network of humanitarian agents (O’Hagan 2013). In the economic sphere, market liberalization jumpstarted post-­world war economic growth in Europe, and economic interdependence brought by free trade made war and conflict unpalatable to trade partners (Keohane and Nye 2001). The use of military force for humanitarian objectives during the 1990s reinvented liberal internationalism to become what is now controversially called humanitarian intervention or the use of military force for humanitarian purposes. Liberal internationalism is characterized as liberal interventionism because of its aggressive policies towards the liberalization of non-­liberal states. For critics, liberal internationalism is a neo-­imperialist agenda veiled by the promises of liberal peace and altruism of humanitarianism (Chomsky 1999; Biancardi 2003; Wai 2014). Noam Chomsky, arguably the most influential thinker alive today, has repeatedly condemned, in his writings and public talks, the hypocrisy of

24   Locating a middle ground Western states led by the United States (US), whose foreign policy is fraught with human rights abuses, in launching military strikes for humanitarian reasons while militarily supporting regimes with poor human rights record. Liberal internationalism has become a misleading justification to use force for goals other than humanitarian, such as economic and geopolitical interests. Thus, the US action in Iraq in 2003, which was based on the rationale of overthrowing a tyrant in defence of US interests (Tesón 2005), cannot be considered humanitarian intervention because it is more imperialistic and less humanitarian (Nardin 2005). Paris (2010) correctly flags this type of intervention as post-­conquest peacebuilding because it does not have the consent of the local parties and therefore has less legitimacy with questionable humanitarian intent, making local support for peacebuilding difficult to obtain. Following this logic, NATO’s action in Kosovo may be categorized as post-­conquest peacebuilding because the Yugoslav government did not request it and the UN Security Council did not pass a resolution to authorize it. However, I agree with Paris (2010: 348) that even though the initial NATO operation was not consensual, the international administrative mission following NATO’s intervention did not involve forcible entry.1 Humanitarian intervention and its link to neoconservatism2 have undoubtedly dented the normative role of liberal internationalism in upholding international legal norms and human rights. The lack of timely response to the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 and Srebrenica in 1995 also raised doubts about the motives and the legal and moral faithfulness of liberal states to their self-­ proclaimed liberal values. Nevertheless, some scholars believe that liberal internationalism is still the best option for international order but requires revision to resolve its contradictions, bolster the accountability of institutions and enhance the benefits from them, and bridge the gap between theory and practice (for example, Hoffman 1995; Paris 1997; Bishai 2012; Leveringhaus 2014). The operationalization of liberal peace elements involves their institutionalization, especially in political and economic domains. The conduct of UN peace missions, for example, is guided by policies promoting the democratization of politics and economy (Paris 1997). The 1992 UN Agenda for Peace called for the strengthening of democratic practices and acknowledged the link between strong democratic institutions and stable peace and security (A/47/277 1992). In 2001 the UN Security Council decided on capacity-­building in the security sector, democratic political mechanisms, and economic and social institutions as prerequisites for successful and comprehensive peacebuilding (S/2001/394 2001). In 2007 the UN Secretary-­General’s Policy Committee outlined the characteristics of peacebuilding as consisting of “a range of measures targeted to reduce the risk of lapsing or relapsing into conflict by strengthening national capacities at all levels for conflict management, and to lay the foundations for sustainable peace and development” (UN PBF n.d.). Then UN Secretary-­General Ban Ki-­moon later released a report of his post-­conflict peacebuilding vision, which ties peace to institutions and capacity-­building (A/63/881-S/2009/304 2009).3 These pronouncements direct one to the notion of statebuilding, simply understood as the “creation of new governmental institutions and the strengthening

Locating a middle ground   25 of existing ones” (Fukuyama 2004: 17). They cast an institutionalist view corroborating the need for capable, autonomous, and legitimate governmental institutions in order to achieve security and development (Paris and Sisk 2009). The institutionalization of liberal peace elements is attributed to international security concerns posed by the discourse about state failure or state collapse. According to Zartman (1995: 5–6), a state collapses when “basic functions of the state are no longer performed, as analysed in various theories of the state”, caused by a “breakdown of good governance, law, and order”. When a state collapses, the likelihood of internal conflict and violence or civil war increases (von Einsiedel 2005: 15). The proliferation of disrupted states in the 1990s, their susceptibility to lapsing or relapsing into conflict, and the transnationality of their security issues pushed for recommendations to build stable, legitimate, and functioning institutions as a solution to incidents of internal violence and conflict. With a focus on strengthening government capacity, international organizations placed statebuilding as the objective of peacebuilding (Paris and Sisk 2007: 3) because building state institutions had become an embedded strategy in international peacebuilding missions (A/RES/60/180 2005; S/RES/1645 2005; Brahimi 2007). Liberal peace had informed the kind of institutions interveners aimed to build in these conflict-­affected societies: democracy, human rights, market economy, and the rule of law institutions. However, after realizing the difficulty of building and sustaining peace through the liberal peacebuilding agenda, intervening actors started shifting their approach from the ideological promotion of the liberal peace thesis towards the practical strengthening of institutions but still hinging, albeit less explicitly, on the elements of liberal peace (Call 2008a; Dodge 2013). The UN’s rhetoric and strategy eventually moved from peacebuilding to institution-­building and endorsed the ‘good governance’ agenda: building and strengthening state capacities and institutions in conflict-­affected societies. This emphasis on institution-­building rather than the promotion of liberal values was evident in the 2011 World Development Report, which posited that “strengthening legitimate institutions and governance to provide citizen security, justice, and jobs is crucial to break cycles of violence” (World Bank 2011: 2). The report also concluded that violent conflict increases in the absence of effective and legitimate institutions. The UN diverged from the language of peacebuilding and the liberal ideology attached to it towards a more institutionalist approach. With this shift, the UN and other international organizations now pursue a less ambitious objective of achieving “good enough” outcomes to allow flexibility and innovation, especially through incremental building of institutions (World Bank 2011).4 More recently, in 2015, the UN Peacebuilding Review reflected a more practical approach to building and strengthening the capacity of institutions that promote conflict prevention and long-­term peace. It instructed external actors to take a step back and act as facilitators through an inclusive and people-­centred practice to create space for inclusion and ownership, instead of imposing peace (A/69/968-S/2015/490 2015: para 127). By directing its efforts towards building and strengthening state capacities, liberal peacebuilding has been simplified into

26   Locating a middle ground the technical establishment of liberal institutions (Paris 2002; Zaum 2007; Donais 2012). For example, instead of promoting reconciliation among local communities, peacebuilding missions tend to focus on establishing judicial institutions the locals may even consider irrelevant. The contemporary language and practice of peacebuilding are veering away from the broader and liberal conceptualization of peacebuilding. These ideological dilution and strategic change reflect a more realistic operationalization of peacebuilding vis-­à-vis the controversial exportation of liberal values and institutions. This repositioning is what Chandler (2017: 12) calls a “pragmatic apologia”. The boundary between statebuilding and peacebuilding is further blurred within these realist critiques of international peacebuilding. Statebuilding and peacebuilding may overlap since statebuilding can be a requirement for peacebuilding, but their relationship is “complicated, contingent, and context­dependent” (Call 2008b: 3). Some cases of peacebuilding operations constitute aspects of statebuilding (Newman 2009b: 30). A UN transitional administration, for example, can be regarded as statebuilding because it is directed at establishing institutions of good governance. On the other hand, it can also continue towards the path of peacebuilding by considering the needs and rights of individuals, sustainable communities, and a sustainable polity of equitable representation. In a post-­conflict reconstruction phase, peace operations may shift from the conservative version of liberal peace, which is characterized by a top-­down approach to peacebuilding shaped by coercion, domination, and hegemony, towards an orthodox version of liberal peace, which focuses on building liberal institutions that are more sensitive to local realities and aspirations for peace (Richmond and Franks 2009: 11–12). With the narrowing of peacebuilding strategies towards a more practical (re)building and strengthening of state institutions, it may be right to interpret peacebuilding as synonymous with statebuilding (Goetze and Guzina 2008; Barnett and Zürcher 2009), if statebuilding is understood as mere institution-­ building. But according to Hameiri (2014), statebuilding has evolved separately from liberal peace and peacebuilding, specifically in the contexts of regulatory statehood and risk management. He also describes statebuilding becoming a problematic practice when the conceptualization of state capacity is limited to technical and objective terms that mask the complex political and social dynamics present in a statebuilding context (Hameiri 2007; 2009). As Balthasar (2017) argues, while peacebuilding creates coexistence of multiple institutions and identities, statebuilding is geared towards replacing multiplicity with standardization. Peacebuilding and statebuilding, whether separate, synonymous or overlapping under the ambit of the liberal peacebuilding framework, have similar shortcomings. Both are criticized as distant from the local context and perceived to be externally-­driven endeavours absent of local inputs and without much regard to the existing political and social dynamics of the post-­conflict society (see, for example, Chesterman 2004; Berdal 2008; Barnett and Zürcher 2009; Hirschmann 2012). However, while there is a concern that statebuilding has become fixated on technical and objective goals, peacebuilding, in contrast,

Locating a middle ground   27 has started to focus more on institution-­building and ‘good enough’ outcomes far afield from a comprehensive undertaking of promoting and ensuring a holistic and lasting peace. Predicated on this evolving discourse and operationalization of the UN related to peacebuilding, liberal peacebuilding has indeed become an uncomfortable compromise between a peacebuilding framework that focuses on the needs and rights of individuals and statebuilding approaches that aim to build the political, economic, and security structures of the state (Richmond and Franks 2009: 182). Therefore, the practice of liberal peacebuilding does not fully satisfy the desirable goals of peacebuilding or statebuilding because of the concessions both sides have to make in order to reach a compromise. The unintended consequences of this compromise are not essentially failures of liberal peacebuilding but failures to realize the original intention of statebuilding to politically and socially transform state apparatuses, and of peacebuilding to involve local actors and agencies in a holistic undertaking of building peace. If these inferences are warranted, it is possible that the failures of liberal peacebuilding may not be failures of the elements of liberal peace per se but of the consequences of the technical and objective focus of statebuilding and the simplification of peacebuilding as institution-­building. In fact, some critiques target the implementation rather than the concept of liberal peacebuilding, as we shall see below.

The outcomes The world has seen a decline in absolute number of civil wars since the 1990s, which coincides with increased deployment of UN peace operations after the Cold War. Edward Newman (2009a), a distinguished thinker in the field of international security, identifies the increased involvement of UN peace operations as one of the factors for this decline. Alongside increased acceptance of the UN’s interventionist role, UN peace operations had an overall positive record for having successfully ended civil wars and prevented the reoccurrence of major civil wars (Newman 2009b). Empirical evidence from previous studies on conflict and intervention backs up Newman’s claim. One of them is Fortna’s (2004) study of 115 cases from which she concludes that while peacekeeping does not always guarantee stable peace, it makes peace last longer.5 Another and earlier one is Doyle and Sambanis’ (2000) quantitative cross-­sectional analysis of 124 peacebuilding operations after the Second World War. They found out that peacebuilding operations promoting democratic institutions and processes are “more successful after nonidentity wars, after long and not very costly wars, in countries with relatively high development levels, and when UN peace operations and substantial financial assistance are available” (ibid.: 795).6 Newman’s explanation (2009a: 268) of the link between the decline of civil war and peacebuilding is worth quoting below: Peacebuilding approaches reflect the idea that maintaining peace in post-­ conflict societies is complex and requires a multifaceted approach which

28   Locating a middle ground requires attention to a wide range of social, economic and institutional needs. They reflect a liberal project; not just managing instability between states, but seeking to build peace within and between states on the basis of liberal democracy and market economies. In line with this, the types of activities in peace operations have transformed and entail engagement with a wider range of actors, including non-­governmental organizations and humanitarian organisations. This suggests that norms against intervention into ‘domestic’ affairs have weakened, and in line with this a more substantive and interventionist role of peacekeeping and peacebuilding operations in situations of civil conflict has been significant in conflict trends. The relapses into conflict and reversals to authoritarianism of some societies that have hosted international peacebuilding missions, however, have challenged the effectiveness and legitimacy of the liberal peacebuilding framework.7 Many UN peacebuilding operations, including the case studies of this book, have been negatively evaluated for producing a kind of peace that is unsustainable, unrealistic, and insensitive to the context of post-­conflict societies. Since the UN’s rhetoric rests on the tenets of liberal peace, its failure to realize its grand liberal goals and the inappropriateness of these goals for local realities and aspirations have brought into query the validity of the liberal peacebuilding framework. Criticisms of liberal peacebuilding consist of two major arguments: the biased conceptualization of liberal peace and the flawed implementation of liberal peacebuilding (Chandler 2010). As in the words of Nicolas Lemay-­Hébert (2013: 243), a scholar on international peacebuilding and statebuilding, “at the centre of the liberal peace debate lies a complex dichotomy between ‘critical scholars’ and ‘problem solvers’ ”, the former being those who problematize the assumptions and values of liberal peace and the latter being those who focus on the implementation issues of liberal peace. In the first strand, critics emphasize that the problem of liberal peacebuilding is the parameters and conceptualization of liberal peace. According to Oliver P. Richmond (2006; 2009a), one of the leading critical scholars of peacebuilding, liberal peace is limited to security, institutions, and markets and biased in favour of the Western experience because it is only advantageous to Western liberal states and their liberal policies. He further argues that this bias results in a virtual peace in post-­conflict societies, which have become mere “shells of liberal state” lacking the potential for emancipation, and perceived as successful only by Western standards (Richmond 2011). Roger Mac Ginty (2010b), also a key scholar on critical peacebuilding, suggests that liberal peace may be different from the kind of peace aspired for by the local population. Along the same lines, Mark Duffield (2001), a professor of international politics and has extensively written on the topic of global governance, also claims that liberal peace is geared towards a logic of exclusion and selective incorporation because it tends to disqualify non-­cooperating actors from development aid and global networks. Building on these previous studies, Sharbanou Tadjbakhsh (2011), an expert on peacebuilding and policy research, rejects the liberal assumptions of peacebuilding, presents the liberal peace’s

Locating a middle ground   29 model of democratization and marketization as inherently flawed, and recommends for more local ownership. The second strand of critical scholarship asserts that the conduct of liberal peacebuilding is fundamentally destructive and illegitimate. Some scholars reject the liberal peacebuilding axiom of democratization and market-­oriented economic policies automatically producing peace (for example, Mansfield and Snyder 1995; Cooper et al. 2011). They believe the promotion of democracy has become a justification to go to war and capitalism has stirred conflicts caused by economic inequalities. But even Paris (1997), a known defender of liberal peace, is aware that marketization, if not moderated, has the potential to exacerbate existing economic inequalities and rekindle past inequalities that caused the initial conflict. Rapid democratization or the introduction of the liberal democratic principles may also recall violence if it becomes a tool of political legitimacy for those who caused the conflict or state collapse in the first place (Paris 1997). This is related to the exploitation of elections by “illiberal democracies” to consolidate and exploit power and restrict individual freedom instead of adhering to the traditional principle of constitutional liberalism, which protects the rights of individuals (Zakaria 1997). Illiberal democracy is one of the manifestations of illiberal peace in which stability is preserved, but the ideals of democracy, justice, human rights, and the rule of law are suppressed underneath the false pretence of liberalism. The promotion of democracy and market economy requires conditionality and coercion violating the society’s right to self-­governance and shelving local norms and traditions (Lidén 2009). Furthermore, the typical peacebuilding components of early and rapid disbursement of aid, reliance on local elites, the primacy of stability, counterterrorism, and democratization and early elections may create opportunities for corruption (Cheng and Zaum 2012). To preserve the key principles of liberal peacebuilding, Paris (1997; 2004; 2010) proposes the “institutionalization before liberalization” (IBL) framework. He endorses the rebuilding of institutions first before the adoption and promotion of liberal values and systems. The IBL is designed to address the hubristic liberal assumptions about “the magic of the market and the ballot box”, implemented as one of the “quick and dirty” approaches in post-­conflict societies. Since this proposal means that the problem is ‘doing less’ and ‘not doing it right’, it requires a longer and more robust peacebuilder presence. It is thus unsurprising that Paris’ proposal has received several criticisms. Chandler (1999b; 1999a; 2001), for one, warns that this approach may result in a “culture of dependency” in which a prolonged international peacebuilding presence may encumber the capacities of the local population for self-­government. Cooper et al. (2011) also denounce Paris’ assumption on the lack of better alternatives to liberal peacebuilding. Instead of a universal framework, they argue for non-­ standardized peacebuilding approaches that recognize various forms of peace and concepts where local notions coincide with liberal norms. Some scholars observe how the lack of local agency in the way liberal peacebuilding achieves peace creates a society alienated from the peacebuilding

30   Locating a middle ground process and without ownership of the peace created for them (for example, Andrieu 2010; Mitchell 2010). In this case, it seems appropriate for the international community to be a facilitator rather than a central driving force in peacebuilding (King and Matthews 2012). An alternative from a hypercritical point of view is Spears’ position (2012) of doing less than more in peacebuilding. External interventions in peacebuilding may hinder post-­conflict societies’ own coping skills, and allowing them to evolve into a stable state independent of external intervention is more effective. A more moderate critique is Walton’s (2009) suggestion for liberal peacebuilding to be conducted by willing states only in accordance with their national interests, and not for the purpose of spreading liberal democracy. He reasons that international involvement should be limited and realistically calculated because strategic intentions can sustain lengthy and costly peacebuilding efforts better than liberal intentions. Therefore, in order to avoid frustrations and embarrassments from the untimely withdrawal of peacebuilding operations in societies where stable peace has not yet been established, liberal peacebuilding should be done only in low-­risk and low-­cost cases, he adds. The “fix everything” goal of liberal peacebuilding is a precarious proposition given the modest resources and short time frame devoted to it (ibid.: 722). The paucity of more recent defenders of liberal peacebuilding denotes a consensus that liberal peacebuilding, in general, is destructive and unsustainable. The claim that liberal peacebuilding has reached the point of uncertainty or ideological decline (Cooper 2007; Mitchell 2010; Campbell et al. 2011; Richmond 2011) does not receive much resistance these days. The post-­Cold War liberal internationalist euphoria has waned with the realization that the UN, together with other international organizations, is not always well-­equipped to handle complex and multidimensional peace operations. Even the UN has admitted that it is not in the best position to lead the process for sustaining peace but can only assist and facilitate national stakeholders (A/69/968-S/2015/490 2015: 5). The peacebuilding trajectory is now tracing the path of the local. In academic scholarship, the local turn in peacebuilding aims to tackle the failures of liberal assumptions about building a durable peace in post-­conflict societies by emphasizing the role of local actors and agencies (Hughes et al. 2015). This turn highlights and acknowledges the importance of bottom-­up approaches to peacebuilding, the everyday elements of peace, and the hybridity of peace processes.

The local turn Given the virtually marred reputation of liberal peacebuilding and the critiques that international actors and approaches were doing more harm than good, international peacebuilders shifted towards more localized versions of peacebuilding. As early as 2002, the UN employed a “light-­footprint” approach in Afghanistan to reduce the influence of the international presence and to realistically and locally orient international efforts (Chesterman 2002). However, some analyses

Locating a middle ground   31 suggest that while this approach is suitable for other sectors, such as development, it is not apt for the security sector, especially in the case of Afghanistan, which requires a strong physical commitment and political will (for example, Ishizuka 2008). It is also possible for this approach to perpetuate a culture of impunity by potentially legitimizing spoilers or the perpetrators of the conflict (Bellamy 2009). Moreover, it may only result in modest gains, as some studies prove that low input from international assistance also produces low output in terms of security, democratic transformation, and economic development (Dobbins et al. 2003 cited in Bellamy 2009: 180). Despite these initial blunders, local involvement has become a permanent requirement in peacebuilding activities. But a question worth raising about these local approaches is how local are they? For example, “laws officially passed by the Afghan parliament … are in fact drafted by ‘independent’ experts hired by foreign governments and cooperation agencies assigned to local institutions, while the latter are in turn pressured by international donors ‘to cooperate’ ” (Tondini 2008: 247). The lack of local perspectives seems to be an issue in both light and heavy footprint approaches. When the US and NATO abandoned the light military footprint in Afghanistan after 2007, the following build-­up of a military presence contributed to an escalation of insurgency because of the international forces’ inadequate knowledge of local affairs (Suhrke 2008). Astri Suhrke (ibid.: 221), a political scientist on violent conflict, further explains below the counterproductive effects of a heavy military presence in Afghanistan: By their presence and type of warfare, US forces created a measure of fear and antagonism that resonated beyond the inner circle of militants and fuelled recruitment of their cause. US soldiers were considered infidels in a countryside that was mostly tribal in social structure, culturally conservative, and closed to the uninvited. The Amer­icans behaved on all accounts like an occupation force. They moved at will in any place their operational plans required and searched villages without asking permission or informing local authorities. The scholarship on the local turn in peacebuilding branches out into two distinct dimensions (Leonardsson and Rudd 2015; Paffenholz 2015). The first dimension is situated in a sub-­national arena where the local is an agent for effective peacebuilding and statebuilding and therefore underscores local ownership and capacity-­building (Leonardsson and Rudd 2015). In this case, the local is seen as having the biggest potential for building effective peace but in a collaborative relationship with the international, which is not automatically considered as a “bad liberal” but rather a “misguided one” lacking local sensitivities (Paffenholz 2015: 860). The second dimension is rooted in a post-­structuralist agenda critical of the international and the liberal peacebuilding project and therefore prioritizes the everyday elements of peace and the emancipation of the local (Paffenholz 2015). In these distinctions, the local is either a tool for liberal peacebuilding or a contender to the liberal approach to peacebuilding. Both

32   Locating a middle ground dimensions, nonetheless, challenge the dominant conceptualizations of peace and approaches to peacebuilding in order to understand and explain the agency of international and local actors better, as well as their power relations and the outcomes of their encounters. The local turn in peacebuilding illuminates the limitations of existing epistemologies and methodologies of peace (for example, Mac Ginty and Richmond 2013; Schierenbeck 2015), and locates the local in the complex, multidimensional, and dynamic processes of peace (for example, Hirb­ linger and Simons 2015; Kappler 2015; Mac Ginty 2015). It does so by emphasizing the role of local agencies and the value of everyday elements coming from ordinary people, and highlighting the outcomes of the interactions between the liberal and the local during the peacebuilding process (Brinkerhoff 2005; Pickering 2007; Richmond 2009a; Autesserre 2014; Donais 2015). What and who is the local and what distinguishes it from the external or the international? It may be onerous to fully capture the essence of the local, but its conceptual elusiveness implies that the local is complex and cannot be assigned with rigid definitions. As Hughes et al. (2015: 818) explain, the local, such as relationships, practices, and sites, is flexible and relational, and being local means “combining political representation of the voice of the people with cultural appropriateness”. According to Mac Ginty (2015), the local is fluid not only in terms of levels but also through time, circumstances, and spaces. It may be bound by territorial characteristics, but critically adopting the local means seeing it beyond spaces and territories (ibid.). While acknowledging that the international-­versus-local binary is a “gross simplification”, Mac Ginty (2016: 200) finds value in it in terms of making sense of the social world around us. At this point, it is worth invoking Hirblinger and Simons’ (2015) proposal to understand the local based on what they represent and how they are being represented because these representations, which are negotiated, evolving, and sometimes conflicting, significantly impact the peacebuilding process. Therefore, I use the term ‘local’ to refer to individual or organized actors, agencies, and processes that are rooted in the evolving social, political, and cultural contexts of a post-­ conflict society and are representative of particular sectors of society. Representation is a key requirement in this definition of local actors. Involvement of local actors or groups that represent the people, in consequence, includes all the people in the post-­conflict society. For example, people who voted during the elections are considered local actors in the context of elections because they exercised the agency available to them. The involvement of local actors or groups that do not represent the people, in consequence, disenfranchises their constituents. The local turn in peacebuilding also features the vital contribution of bottom­up approaches in peacebuilding. Some scholars have previously proposed a combination of international/liberal/top-­down and local/non-­liberal/bottom-­up approaches in peacebuilding (for example, Lederach 1995; Donais 2009; Richmond 2009a; Mac Ginty 2010a; Funk 2012) but the hybridity concept is at the forefront of the recent scholarship on the local turn in peacebuilding. The concept of hybrid peace is an attempt to explain the results of the interactions

Locating a middle ground   33 between top-­down and bottom-­up approaches, international and local actors and agencies, and liberal and formalized institutional processes with the everyday elements of peace. It is a useful lens in examining both the liberal approach and the local turn in peacebuilding and the encounters between the international and the local. It also uncovers the gap between the kind of peace being built in post-­ conflict societies and the kind of peace aspired for by the local population (Mac Ginty 2010b). This gap between the realities and aspirations of the local population and the kind of peace generated for them creates local resistance (Mac Ginty 2010a; Mitchell 2010; Richmond 2010). This resistance, and the other kinds of interaction between internationals and locals, consequently produces hybrid peace. Hybrid peace, therefore, is a product of processes of accommodation, cooperation, compromise, and encounters between agents, networks, and structures of peace and peacemaking (Mac Ginty 2010a). The concept of hybrid peace, as an alternative to the “traditional, top-­down, state-­centred, technocratic, and unsustainable” approach to peacebuilding, features the “locally rooted, everyday needs, behaviours, and aspirations” of a post-­ conflict society (Belloni 2012: 33–4). By reassessing the impact of actors, networks, and structures on the achievement of peace, hybrid peace interrogates the blind preference for anything local. It also encourages the development of existing local resources instead of filling the fissures in peacebuilding with more liberal attributes that have been proven ineffective (Belloni 2012). Recognizing the hybridity of peace produced from post-­conflict peacebuilding processes raises to the surface the underlying structural factors of violence and conflict that liberal peace tends to ignore or, sometimes unintentionally, intensify (Mac Ginty 2010b). It also allows an examination of how the everyday forms of peace— those that are a “culturally appropriate form of individual or community life and care”—influence peacebuilding (Richmond 2009a: 558). In Somaliland and Bougainville, the hybrid political order incorporates elements of customary governance and enjoys legitimacy without the use of violence (Boege et al. 2009). In Guyana, Bolivia, Ghana, and Kenya, the incorporation of internal mechanisms for externally supported conflict management has been inclusive, participatory, and ultimately cost-­effective (Kumar and De la Haye 2012). Hybrid forms of peacebuilding, however, do not always generate peaceful outcomes. The encounters between international and local actors and norms are not always equal and their asymmetrical relationships may (re)produce forms of power (Björkdahl and Höglund 2013). In differentiating between positive and negative hybrid peace, Richmond (2015) describes negative hybrid peace as the outcome of preserving elite interests in the newly built or reinforced oppressive social, political, or military structures. It is possible for the interaction between international peacebuilders and the government or local elite to reproduce elements of the status quo instead of a liberal transformation, thereby resulting in a compromised peace (Barnett et al. 2014). In hybrid institutions where hybrid processes encounter resistance, the result can sometimes be conflict-­promoting and exclusionary (Millar 2014; Nadarajah and Rampton 2015). In Sierra Leone, a unified peacebuilding agenda in which the national government, civil society,

34   Locating a middle ground and donors were integrated into the process resulted in the government’s and civil society’s dependence on international aid (Philipsen 2014). In Congo, hybrid governance arrangements economically sustained the ability of non-­state armed actors to control and direct violence in the country’s borderlands (Raeymaekers 2013). In Afghanistan, the complex form of hybrid peace in which international actors have become intertwined with almost all aspects of Afghan life risks the emergence of new issues and forms of violence once the internationals leave (Jarstad and Olsson 2012). Is the local turn the panacea to the failings of the liberal peacebuilding framework? The answer is not a straightforward one given the shortcomings of the local turn and the unintended consequences of hybrid peace processes. The literature on the local turn in peacebuilding (Heathershaw 2013) and even the consequences of the liberal peacebuilding praxis (Richmond 2009b) tend to romanticize the local and condone the illiberal motives and actions of local actors and agencies. It has become blind to the earlier achievements of the liberal agenda in conflict resolution, statebuilding, and peacebuilding. Hirblinger and Simons (2015: 423) also observe how the invocations of the local in peacebuilding are “characterized through an intricate mixing of fact and value claims, and the urge to tell the ‘good’ from the ‘bad’ ”. Debiel and Rinck (2016: 283) also note the risk of methodological reductionism of the local turn in peacebuilding because it often neglects the power structures and domestic politics in which the local is embedded, and treats the international as always liberal and the local as more authoritative and legitimate. As a consequence, the local turn unintentionally creates static binaries between local and international actors, indigenous and exogenous processes, top-­down and bottom-­up approaches, and liberal and non-­ liberal, that are not helpful in elucidating local dynamics and revealing the real requirements of a post-­conflict society (for example, Chandler 2015; Mitchell 2011). There is also a palpable sense of impasse to the hybridity framework because it seems to be a conceptually stretched neologism that describes everything but means nothing.8 Even Richmond (2015: 52) acknowledges that “hybridity might be seen as somewhat overloaded as a conceptual framework, being ‘all things to all people’ ” because of the complexity of the peace processes that it represents. This book is an attempt to go around this conceptual stalemate by interrogating the conceptual and analytical roots that bore these branches of entanglement.

The middle ground In the previous sections, I retraced the holistic and comprehensive origins of liberal peacebuilding’s key components: liberalism, peace, and peacebuilding. I also unpacked the dimensions of the local turn and the meaning of the local. In this section, I will establish the compatibility of the origins of liberal peacebuilding and the local turn. Since liberal peacebuilding is a framework of conduct based on the liberal peace, I use the term local involvement as the practical expression of the local turn in peacebuilding. Local ownership is another

Locating a middle ground   35 common term in peacebuilding scholarship, and defining it is an unenviable task. Scholars and practitioners attach different meanings and approaches to local ownership, but to borrow Nathan’s (2007) definition in the context of security sector reform, local ownership is a peacebuilding process that allows local actors to choose, design, manage, and implement peacebuilding activities. To add nuance to the definition of local ownership, Lemay-­Hébert and Kappler (2016) demonstrate how various dynamics of material incentives and normative motives in a peacebuilding process produce diverse outcomes of local ownership: elusive, tangible, deep, or superficial attachments to peace. While there is a consensus in peacebuilding discussions that local ownership is imperative in peacebuilding processes, von Billerbeck (2015) argues that it remains rare in practice because of the obstacles and dilemmas attached to it: between actors aligned with liberal values but with lower operational capacity and elite equipped with operational capacity but does not necessarily espouse liberal values (see also Hellmüller 2012; Thiessen 2013). Donais (2009) also excoriates international peacebuilding operations for their tendency to treat local ownership simply as the procedure of transferring responsibilities over predetermined goals and objectives to the local counterparts. According to Richmond (2012), the way international actors promote local ownership is neither local nor ownership and should be more appropriately termed as ‘local participation’ because local actors are expected to participate in peacebuilding activities despite having a limited choice of what to own. As Bargués-Pedreny (2018) elucidates, local ownership remains a principle because it has not been operationalized in a way that supports the moral and political autonomy of post-­conflict societies. For the purpose of this book, I am using the term local involvement, instead of local participation or ownership, to diverge from participation’s lack of local agency, as Richmond and Donais pointed out, and from ownership’s aspirational discourse absent of practical guidelines, as von Billerbeck and Bargués-Pedreny observed. I broadly define local involvement as the incorporation of local (from the national to the everyday) perspectives and practices into the peacebuilding process through the agency (either asserted by the local or encouraged by the international) of local actors. My critique of liberal peacebuilding is its implementation instead of its conceptualization. I echo Begby and Burgess’ (2009: 97) observation that “the current practice of liberal peacebuilding does not adequately reflect the principles and ideals of liberal peacebuilding, not that there is something intrinsically wrong about [its] principles and ideals”. Democracy or the free market should not be abandoned, especially if this is the solution arrived at, Lidén (2009) suggests. He maintains that the real problem is the coercive transplantation of these liberal values into post-­conflict societies where the cultural underpinnings of the causes of conflicts and the local aspirations for peace are sidelined. Selby (2013) also concurs that, in the case of Cambodia, peace negotiations and agreements did not reflect liberal values but instead were designed according to the political context, strategic considerations of power, and legitimacy of both international and local actors—factors that did not echo liberal

36   Locating a middle ground ideals. It cannot be denied that past failures of hasty democratization and marketization in hopes of sustaining peace or, at the very least, keeping short-­term stability, have undermined the ambitious goals of liberal peacebuilding. Nonetheless, the liberal values of peace and security, justice and human rights, the rule of law, and development are still considered indispensable components of a comprehensive approach to sustaining peace (A/69/968-S/2015/490 2015: 4). With this position, based on Lemay-­Hébert’s (2013) categories of liberal peace debaters, I consider myself a “problem-­solver”. Liberal peacebuilding and the local turn both have strengths and weaknesses, as demonstrated in the previous sections. Conceptually, the former endorses the liberal values of democracy, justice and human rights, the rule of law, and an open economy, while the latter prioritizes the role of the local and the importance of the local context. Practically, both have contributed to peace, as well as the reoccurrence of conflict, unfortunately, albeit in different forms of violence. Liberal peacebuilding has failed to sustain the peace and empower the local while the local turn has empowered the local that may not sustain the peace. The local turn, particularly the critical scholarship, does not seem to offer tangible solutions to the liberal peacebuilding flaws it criticized (Tadjbakhsh 2011). Meanwhile, peacebuilding has become too focused on institution-­building and good enough outcomes that it has forgotten its holistic and comprehensive origins. Wallis (2017: 15) recommends that the emphasis on good enough outcomes “should not be interpreted as sanctioning the abandonment of liberal democracy” just to satisfy the modest goal of international peacebuilders but should be designed based on the needs of the recipients of peacebuilding activities. As Koivisto and Dunne (2010: 639) have noticed from the debates about the crisis of liberal peacebuilding, “conflating normal liberal visions of world politics with the political ontology of inter-­governmental relations makes liberal international theory vulnerable to the claims of its critics”. The essential principles of liberalism are inherently good, although they may inevitably contradict each other, especially if they are incompatible with local contexts.9 I recognize these contradictions, but instead of abandoning these liberal values, I propose the incorporation of local actors and agencies in upholding these values to make them compatible and relevant to local contexts. For example, liberal principles of individualism and self-­interest may not sit well with the often diverse, connected, and communal ways of post-­conflict societies (Wallis 2014: 34). However, liberalism also believes that cooperation among individuals and states is possible in order to protect self-­interest without conflicting with the interests of the other (Locke 1993). This articulation is one way of reconciling the contradictions within liberalism and bringing out the fundamentally good principles it espouses. Moreover, liberalism is not supposed to advance a single moral conception but rather aims to be neutral and equally respectful of various views of the good life (Rawls 1971; Dworkin 1978; Larmore 1990; Lund 1996; Larmore 1999).10 Most importantly, liberalism does not refute the comprehensiveness of peacebuilding or the emphasis on the local or the everyday but can complement them. As peacebuilding scholar David Roberts (2012: 370) puts forward,

Locating a middle ground   37 “a revised expression of liberalism fostering genuinely participatory and inclusive legitimacy, democracy, and human rights for political development could be ­directed towards the more pressing concerns and priorities of the ‘everyday’ ”. Liberalism, in its original conceptualization, requires local involvement. For example, the liberal principle of popular sovereignty means that the consent of the people is the source of political authority (Rousseau 1997; Charvet 2009).11 Kant’s peaceful republic constitutes individual freedoms (liberalism), the rule of law and legal equality (constitutionalism), and representative government domestically (democracy), and taken together, they inform the liberal assumptions of international peace (Danilovic and Clare 2007). Traced back to its origins, liberalism does not contradict the peacebuilding goal of addressing the rights and needs of individuals. In fact, the first essential principle of liberalism is the freedom of the individual. To ensure the freedom of the individual, ideal liberalism is committed to upholding the essential rights of each and to generating institutions that protect the individual’s social, political, and economic rights (Doyle 1983: 206–7; 2012: 5–6). In Doyle’s presentation of these sets of rights and essential institutions, the freedom and rights of the individual are at the forefront of liberalism. The local turn in peacebuilding returns to this essential principle of liberalism by placing the locals or individuals on the priority seats of the peacebuilding agenda. It rescues the values of equality, personal autonomy, and individual rights, which are also the building blocks of liberalism. However, this does not mean that anything local is better than the international since there is always the possibility of the local using liberal means for illiberal ends. The local turn does not have to automatically exclude external involvement either (Funk 2012), especially if international actors and agencies can encourage local approaches and assist in refining them (Lederach 1995). Instead of assuming that either the local or the international knows better, a sustained and mutual partnership between the two is a better approach to overcoming the obstacles of peacebuilding (Donais 2009). This partnership points to Donais’ suggestion (ibid.: 14) of “consensus-­building not only along historical axis among the wide range of local actors but also along a vertical axis spanning grassroots civil society, the national government, and the broader international community”. The local turn in peacebuilding has the potential to close the gap between the realities and aspirations of post-­conflict societies and the kind of peace generated for them by incorporating local perspectives into the contextualization and operationalization of liberal peace. The local turn does not have to be against the liberal project or vice versa, as discussed earlier. Roberts (2011: 421) explains that “the everyday represents an opportunity to refocus orthodox peacebuilding in ways that address the existing lacuna in legitimacy, sustain the development of local peace and theoretically support the liberal peace more broadly”. Liberal institutions could still represent the everyday in order to maintain their relevance and legitimacy in the peacebuilding process. Consequently, the local turn could reinforce the relevance and legitimacy of peacebuilding processes, and ideally their effectiveness, without abandoning the liberal values of security, human rights, justice and reconciliation, and development. I align with Roberts’ argument and add that the local

38   Locating a middle ground turn, in essence, is a return to the original holistic conceptualization of peace and an affirmation of the comprehensiveness of peacebuilding. However, the liberal rhetoric does not always correspond to liberal praxis, as international actors parade their liberal values but sometimes conveniently resort to illiberal actions when confronted with challenges on the ground. Instead of delivering on their promise of a post-­conflict political and social transformation, they embellish good enough outcomes with the trappings of institution- or capacity-­building projects. Institution-­building that does not uphold liberal values and peacebuilding that is lacking its original notion of respecting the needs and rights of individuals are falsely presented as parts of the liberal peacebuilding agenda. As mentioned earlier in ‘The Problem’ section of this chapter, this misrepresentation points to the failure of liberal peacebuilding instead of a critique of the technicality of institution-­building and the simplification of peacebuilding. Also, the local, especially if romanticized, does not always abide by the ideal local involvement when local actors feign representation and legitimacy through means that undermine the general interest of the local population. Leaning too far on either side of liberal peacebuilding and local involvement means abandoning the strengths of the other. Being situated on the middle ground between the liberal and the local, therefore, brings together the best of both dimensions while revealing the causes of their flawed conceptualization and implementation. It also raises awareness of the discrepancy between peacebuilding rhetoric and praxis. For example, international actors’ strong commitment to liberal values and local ownership does not always faithfully translate into operationalization during the peacebuilding process. Situating the middle ground between the liberal and the local is a locally-­moderated liberal peacebuilding that incorporates the local into liberal peacebuilding while anchoring local involvement on liberal values, contrary to hybrid peacebuilding. This middle ground is faithful to the holistic and comprehensive origins of liberal peacebuilding and follows the local trajectory of post-­conflict peacebuilding.

Conclusion In this chapter, I revisited the origins of the key components of liberal peacebuilding and the local turn and demonstrated their conceptual and practical shortcomings, pitfalls, and compatibilities. Liberal peacebuilding and local involvement seemingly trace different and opposing trajectories. However, returning to the original conceptualization of liberalism, peace, and peacebuilding leads to a potential convergence of these two trajectories. Local involvement is already at the core of liberal peacebuilding. At the same time, the problem-­ solving critique of the local turn points to the failure of peacebuilding missions to implement their rhetoric and mandates, which are essentially hinged on the liberal values of security, justice, human rights, and economic development. Anchoring on these origins, a middle ground between liberal peacebuilding and local involvement is conceptually conceivable. I will test this conceptual framework in analysing the UN transitional administrations in Cambodia, Kosovo, and

Locating a middle ground   39 Timor-­Leste in the following chapters. Examining the implementation of the elements of liberal peace and the conduct of local involvement will reveal whether these missions were liberal and peacebuilding in practice based on the holistic and comprehensive origins of liberal peacebuilding.

Notes   1 To disentangle from the debate about the real motivations behind interventions, which is outside the scope of this book, I follow Paris’ differentiation while acknowledging that it may be open to contestation. For further reading about interests, motivations, and intentions behind military interventions, in addition to Chomsky’s works, see, among others, Glanville (2014), Pugh (2004), Tesón (2005), Walzer (1978), and Weiss (2007).   2 See Gardner (2005) and Kiely (2004) for a discussion about the historical roots and the rise of neoconservatism in a global order influenced by the US and its link with liberal internationalism.   3 The report and its subsequent progress reports also highlight the need for national ownership and development of national capacity, stronger UN leadership, international support, and the role of women in peacebuilding missions (A/64/866*S/2010/386* 2010; A/65/354-S/2010/466 2010; A/67/499*-S/2012/746* 2012).   4 International donors are also refocusing their strategy towards (re)building and strengthening state institutions in disrupted states in a way aligned with local contexts to promote local ownership. Most notable in this strategic shift are the Peacebuilding and Statebuilding Goals (PSGs) of the New Deal for Engagement in Fragile States (International Dialogue on Peacebuilding and Statebuilding 2011; Hearn 2016).   5 Fortna (2008: 8) later examined the cases of the Chittagong Hill Tracts conflict in Bangladesh, the civil war in Mozambique, and the conflict in Sierra Leone to explain the relationship between peacekeeping and the ‘peacekept’ or the “decision makers within the government and rebel organisations”.   6 Doyle and Sambanis (2006) later expanded their dataset to 151 peace processes and found that international assistance is a factor in the success of a peacebuilding operation.   7 The reversal to authoritarianism of then newly democratized states in the former Soviet Union and parts of sub-­Saharan Africa questioned the high ground liberal democracy occupies in the international arena (Carothers 2004).   8 Conceptual stretching produces vague and amorphous conceptualizations that are not helpful in confronting problems based on empirical evidence (Sartori 1970).   9 See Doyle (1983, 2005) for the inherent contradictions within liberalism and how to reconcile them. 10 The principles of liberalism are not without contestations, especially surrounding the concepts of a good life, neutrality, equality, and morality, but these are outside the scope of this book. 11 For example, in her examination of the role of constitution-­making during statebuilding, Wallis (2014; 2016) confirms how extensive public participation during constitution-­making not only produces legitimate and effective state institutions but also generates a unifying sense of national identity and establishes sustainable peace. She posits that inviting the voices of the people to be heard is a reflection of the liberal principle of popular sovereignty.

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2 Cambodia Politicized involvement in a compromised peacebuilding

Introduction Cambodia hosted the first large-­scale UN-­led liberal peacebuilding mission. For the first time in the history of UN peace operations, the UN oversaw the administration of a member state and conducted, rather than merely observing or supervising, a democratic multiparty election. The 1991 Paris Agreement (officially titled as the Comprehensive Cambodian Peace Agreement) and the UN Security Council Resolution 745, which authorized the deployment of the UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC), embodied the assumptions of liberal peace—that a liberal democracy will promote lasting peace. “The [UN Security Council] was convinced that free and fair elections were essential to produce a just and durable settlement to the Cambodia conflict, thereby contributing to regional and international peace and security” (S/RES/745 1992: para 5). Yasushi Akashi, the Special Representative of the Secretary-­General for Cambodia during UNTAC’s period, stated that the inclusion of an “operational and intrusive human rights mandate to the [UN], as an integral part of a peace agreement in order to facilitate national reconciliation and self-­determination” was a new undertaking for the UN (A/48/762 1994: 3). The UN’s plan for a nationwide election and the emphasis on human rights obligated Cambodia to adopt a liberal democratic system. The peace agreement and UNTAC’s mandate reflected a liberal design in reconfiguring Cambodia’s political and economic institutions. The arrival of UNTAC signalled the end of recurring political instability and violence in Cambodia’s history. The emergence of left-­wing communist and right-­wing conservative movements in Cambodia after the Second World War was a response to King Norodom Sihanouk’s grip to power. Sihanouk perceived both movements as political challengers, but he placed a heavier hand on the communists, whom he labelled as the Red Khmer or the Khmer Rouge (Ross 1983: 31). His policy catalysed a pro-­Amer­ican conservative government led by General Lon Nol. In 1970 the National Assembly voted for Sihanouk’s deposition and Lon Nol assumed premiership and governed Cambodia with emergency state powers. Lon Nol’s government was able to hold on to power only because of US economic and military assistance during the Vietnam War. Meanwhile, the Khmer Rouge was gaining public support in the rural parts of Cambodia

Cambodia   49 by blaming socio-­economic problems on the government and feigning support for Sihanouk, to whom the people continued to pledge allegiance. The Khmer Rouge eventually took over the capital, Phnom Penh, in 1975 and toppled Lon Nol’s government. To create a peasant farming society inspired by the Chinese communist agricultural model, Pol Pot, the leader of the Khmer Rouge, and his followers purged the educated, public servants, foreigners, and all others they deemed unfit to work in the rice fields. In less than four years, the regime committed genocide on almost a quarter of its own people. An estimated 1.7 million to 2.2 million out of an estimated 7.8 million Cambodians lost their lives due to direct violence, starvation, forced labour, and other conflict-­related causes (Tabeau and Kheam 2009: 19). The regime fell in 1979 when a Vietnamese-­ backed military force successfully overthrew it and installed a puppet government— the People’s Republic of Kampuchea (PRK), later renamed into the State of Cambodia (SOC). What remained of the Khmer Rouge, as well as other non-­ communist groups, kept on waging war against the SOC and continued representing Cambodia in the UN. The competing factions agreed to a ceasefire and signed the peace agreement in 1991 after almost a decade of negotiations. The four competing factions were: the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) controlling the SOC; the Khmer Rouge’s Party of Democratic Kampuchea (PDK), which later transformed into the Cambodian National Unity Party (CNUP) to participate in the election; the anti-­SOC Khmer People’s National Liberation Front (KPNLF ); and the royalist party Sihanouk formed called the National United Front for an Independent, Neutral, Peaceful and Cooperative Cambodia (FUNCINPEC for its French abbreviation of Front Uni National pour un Cambodge Indépendant, Neutre, Pacifique, et Coopératif  ). The agreement authorized the formation of the Supreme National Council (SNC)—a coalition government headed by Sihanouk.1 It also mandated the deployment of the UN Advance Mission in Cambodia (UNAMIC) in October 1991 to assist the Cambodian factions in complying with the ceasefire agreement and to conduct humanitarian mine action (S/RES/717 1991; S/RES/728 1992). UNTAC was established in March 1992 and absorbed the functions of UNAMIC. UNTAC’s primary mandate was to conduct the election, in addition to civil administration, military functions, and human rights protection. UNTAC’s tasks included: the supervision, monitoring, and verification of the ceasefire agreement; facilitation of the voluntary return of refugees and displaced persons and ensuring conducive conditions for their return and reintegration; rehabilitation and reconstruction programmes to benefit all areas of the country and all levels of society; and respect for the human rights and fundamental freedoms of Cambodians (Paris Agreement 1991). Cambodia was clearly poised to become a liberal democratic state.

Compromised democracy Creating and maintaining a safe and secure environment was imperative for UNTAC to carry out its primary mandate of conducting a free and fair election.

50   Cambodia The implementation of the ceasefire agreement, including the plan for the disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) of former combatants, was a prerequisite for the election. Demilitarization would “stabilize the security situation, build confidence, and reduce arms and military supplies throughout Cambodia” (Paris Agreement 1991: Art VIII.I). UNTAC successfully cantoned and disarmed the forces in the areas to which it had access (Brown and Zasloff 1998). It initially cantoned 55,000 former combatants from the other two main factions—FUNCINPEC and KPNLF (UNTAC 2003). The second phase of the cantonment process stalled when the Khmer Rouge withdrew from the DDR process. The Khmer Rouge’s refusal to comply with the DDR process, and later to contest in the election, was based on its observation that the Vietnamese forces were still in Cambodia and that UNTAC was acquiescent to the CPP. The Khmer Rouge accused UNTAC of failing to administer the country objectively by allowing the CPP to remain in control of the government. Several of my interview respondents confirmed that UNTAC did not exercise its administrative mandate consummately. It merely sat with the government while the CPP remained in control, acted above UNTAC, and conducted business as usual without much international interference or monitoring. Although the CPP agreed to the DDR process, it only handed over old weapons and allowed cantonment only of its ineffectual units (Rowley 1996: 15). The CPP also carried out acts of intimidation, coercion, and violence to get rid of its political opponents to ensure victory in the election (Ledgerwood 1996). As a result, some of the factions continued arming themselves for protection and out of fear, thereby prolonging the armed conflict, particularly between the military wings of the CPP and the Khmer Rouge (Amer 1995). The incomplete disarmament of the factions deteriorated the security situation until the run-­up to the election.2 Fear of the Khmer Rouge’s return to power increased among the people who started believing that UNTAC was only motivated by personal gains rather than an end to the conflict (Thayer and Chanda 1993). Since the DDR process stalled, so was the creation of a unified national security force. The factions’ armies continued agitating the security situation during and after UNTAC’s administration. UNTAC’s military component pulled out too soon without ensuring a proper reorganization of the armed forces down to the lower levels that could provide security effectively, Sam Oum, a former SOC military officer, described (personal interview, 2014). The missed opportunity to form a unified national army under civilian control made it easier for Hun Sen and the CPP to monopolize Cambodia’s government using the military. The political structure remains unchanged since then and is likely to create insecurity and instability if challenged (Roberts and Williams 1995). The failed DDR process presented UNTAC with three options: to redefine its mission from peacekeeping to peace enforcement, to abandon the mission and admit failure, or to proceed without the Khmer Rouge’s participation (Rowley 1996). It was strategically easier for UNTAC to opt for the third. UNTAC’s decision to employ a “departing train” strategy3 and conduct the election despite Khmer Rouge’s non-­participation allowed the latter to maintain a military

Cambodia   51 p­ resence in its controlled territories (Jennar 1994). The planned election carried on despite the stalled DDR process. In May 1993 the Cambodians participated in a democratic election for the first time, voting for the members of a Constituent Assembly that would draft and approve a new constitution. As the ruling party of the government, the CPP was confident it would win. However, the people decided to give the majority of the seats to FUNCINPEC, with Prince Norodom Ranariddh, Sihanouk’s son, as its leader. FUNCIPEC received 58 seats, CPP 51, and the other parties 11 (UNTAC 2003). UNTAC declared the election free and fair, and the international community and the Khmer Rouge accepted the outcome. The UN proved capable of carrying out a free and fair election amid the challenging conditions. The aftermath of the election, however, saw a political ruckus among personalities vying for power (for details, see Findlay 1995). Hun Sen raised baseless allegations of electoral fraud and hinted a military coup. A CPP faction led by Prince Norodom Chakrapong, also a son of Sihanouk, threatened territorial secession. All the while, Sihanouk advocated for a government of national unity that would incorporate and bolster his patriarchal authority. The political parties agreed shortly to form an interim coalition government. UNTAC resorted to endorsing the post-­election arrangement to prevent the country from regressing to another civil war. The new Constituent Assembly declared Sihanouk the Head of State and, once again, King of Cambodia. Sihanouk then appointed Hun Sen and Ranariddh as co-­prime ministers. On 24 September 1993 UNTAC concluded its mandate and transferred authority to the new government. Several UN agencies stayed in the country to continue their programmes around rehabilitation, mine clearance, human rights protection, and the reintegration of refugees and displaced persons. For four years following the conclusion of UNTAC’s mission, political rivalries and armed clashes plagued the co-­premiership of Hun Sen and Ranariddh, mainly over trying to incorporate the divided members of the Khmer Rouge into their parties. In 1997, four years after UNTAC’s exit, a violent coup killed at least 41, injured at least 150, and forced an estimated 60,000 people to flee (Ashley 1998; Adams 2007). Hun Sen staged the coup, eradicated his opponents, took control of the military, consolidated his political authority through co-­ option and intimidation, and obtained legitimacy through the same liberal political system the UN helped establish. The CPP obtained victory in the 1998 polls without free and fair measures despite its verbal commitment (Peou 1998). The CPP applied its 1993 strategy of disenfranchising its political enemies to the subsequent elections to maintain a monopoly over Cambodia’s government. Michael Maley (personal interview, 2013), a member of UNTAC’s Electoral Commission, describes below the political manoeuvrings surrounding the 1993 election: At one level, the parties were professing to the process, but on another level, they were trying to undermine it. Politicians are like that. Hun Sen is a killer, in the same sense that Stalin was; and a lot of his people too. The CPP and the SOC functionaries were the toughest people I ever dealt with

52   Cambodia within an international environment. They were professional and organized, and they wanted an election that would be taken by the international community to be free and fair, but they also wanted to manipulate it to their own advantage to the greatest extent possible. They did this through their approach in the campaigns. There was a lot of intimidation and fear within the community. The notion of dealing with that by getting the parties to talk together was not realistic, because it was not in their mindset. With the benefit of hindsight, I do not think [UNTAC should have been prepared to make any concessions to] thugs like that. Democratization in post-­conflict societies is a long domestic process, and the role of international actors within it is limited to the design and establishment of physical institutions that will help build a moderate and sustainable political culture (Reilly 2004). UNTAC successfully conducted a free and fair election, but it failed to establish institutions for sustained democratization due to its short-­sighted and inflexible mandates. The short time frame of the mission did not allow for a bottom-­up democracy promotion that would have contributed to strengthening the civil society, developing local capacity, and sustaining democratic processes (Newman 2004). UNTAC’s Electoral Component tried to build local capacity by training local counterparts as registration officers, presiding officers, data entry operators, and polling staff (Michael Maley, personal interview, 2013). But the political situation on the ground was complicated and risky for UNTAC to cover all the components of its mandate. The election required a high level of security and Cambodia had no electoral history and professional expertise prior to UNTAC, William Maley, an electoral officer for UNTAC and an Australian professor of diplomacy, added (personal interview, 2013). However, even in the technical aspect of the election, some interview participants noted the lack of capacity-­building and proper hand-­over of expertise and material. Cambodia had to start from scratch when it conducted the 1998 election on its own. Election is one of the means towards, and not the absolute indication of, a liberal democracy. The peaceful conduct of elections in Cambodia was UNTAC’s greatest achievement, and the international community hailed the mission a success. However, UNTAC’s endorsement of a post-­election agreement that did not reflect the vote of the people sidestepped its liberal mandate for the sake of short-­term stability. There was a growing sense of urgency within UNTAC to leave the country before another civil war outbreak (Simon Hermes, UNTAC Border Control Unit’s officer, personal interview, 2013). “As a Cambodian, we felt the UN was running away from us”, Sam Oum said (personal interview, 2014). It would have been an operational nightmare with potentially consequential erosion of UN’s international legitimacy if Cambodia relapsed into conflict during UNTAC’s tenure. The will of the people, despite the outstanding success of the election, did not prevail and power politics persisted. “[UNTAC]’s meddling after the election meant that the people were denied of, in the post-­election washout, the fruits of their courage” (William Maley, personal

Cambodia   53 interview, 2014). These missed opportunities passed on to the Cambodian society. Since the 1997 coup, Hun Sen has remained in control of the government. It is a corrupt government without self-­monitoring, and that does not engage in meaningful consultation with civil society, according to Chak Sopheap, the executive director of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights (personal interview, 2014). The institutions remain fragile because the government is incapable of maintaining them. A Cambodian economist also described how the elite groups are enjoying the fruits of economic improvement, but the majority of the people are still facing economic difficulties even accessing basic services (personal interview, 2014). Cambodia has evolved from a monarchic system to a ‘modern’ form of governance with some cultural elements still embedded in its current socio­ political structures. It has experienced a wealthy empire, a foreign protector, a consenting monarchy, a conservative right-­wing government, an extreme communist regime, and an authoritarian prime minister hiding behind the façade of institutional democracy. Throughout these changes in the political landscape, an informal sociopolitical system has been preserved in Cambodian society—that of a vertically hierarchical patron-­client relationship or the patronage system (Chan and Vannarith 2008). Khsae, which means “string” or “connection”, links people together through familial, institutional, or political associations (Jacobsen and Stuart-­Fox 2013: 16). Theravada Buddhism has influenced this system, which has persisted through different regimes. The most recurrent tendency in this system is factionalism; it is the modernized version of the old patronage system expressed in favouritism, nepotism, and graft (Thion 1986). The manifestations of the traditional patronage system continue to be issues of governance in Cambodia today. Morgenbesser (2017), for example, pointed out how Cambodia’s authoritarian government uses elections to feed its patronage system, which in turn bolsters authoritarian rule. In the context of Cambodia’s democratic system, local discourses of patron–­client relationships affect political representation by giving more importance to political personalities than to liberal ideas (Baaz and Lilja 2014). In the 1993 and 1998 elections, this patronage system transmitted into the way Cambodians voted for a leader who would reward them for their loyalty (Roberts 2001). The persistence of this tradition was not carefully considered in the planning of transforming Cambodia into a liberal democracy as Roberts (ibid.: 34) describes below: The organizers of the [peace agreement] missed several crucial issues in their attempts to democratize Cambodia. One of the most important was that they attempted to implant equality and individual choice in a society governed, and financed, through hierarchical inequality and group loyalties. Free choice would be desirable if the consequences of making that choice did not have negative economic ramifications. That is, it could not be meaningful to vote altruistically for a personality if that leader could not return the favor in the traditional manner.

54   Cambodia Cambodia’s patronage system, on which the current government survives, hinders political integration and liberal democratization. UNTAC entered Cambodia carrying an expectation and mindset different from local realities. Sophoan Livan, an interpreter for the Civilian Police (CivPol) of UNTAC, believes that the Western concept of power does not complement well with the Cambodian culture of patronage and seniority (personal interview, 2014). An international human rights officer for the Human Rights Component of UNTAC observed how the UN programmes were good on paper, but they were foreign to the Cambodians (personal interview, 2014). The old patronage system has persisted because UNTAC involved the locals in a foreign framework that clashes with traditional practices. For example, UNTAC’s attempt to demilitarize the armed wings of the factions and integrate them into a single national army failed because the members of the factions were loyal to their patrons or leaders, who in turn provided them with security and protection. This loyalty was beyond and above any UN resolution seen as externally imposed and internationally managed. The by-­product of this unresolved tension between international concepts and local realities is a government ruled by personalities, which uses the means of liberal democracy to maintain power. In Cambodia, the politics of personalities defeated the ideals of liberal peacebuilding and the internationals acquiesced with these personalities instead of fulfilling their liberal peacebuilding mandates. The legacy of UNTAC’s short but consequential mission set the foundation for Cambodia’s politico-­military situation years later. The power-­sharing arrangement between Hun Sen and Ranariddh has been referenced by politicians who have challenged Hun Sen and CPP’s political authority (Samean 2003). The CPP has such a monopoly of power in Cambodia that “elections have become little more than a sideshow, helping to bolster the electoral-­authoritarian regime that Hun Sen has built” (McCargo 2005: 98). Cambodia embodies a hybrid democracy in which elections are held regularly, but civil and political liberties are limited (Un 2005). In 2015 the government passed the Law on Associations and Non-­Governmental Organizations (LANGO), which serves as the legal basis for cracking down on any non-­governmental organizations (NGOs) the government perceives to be endangering security, stability, and public order. LANGO also enforces political neutrality on NGOs. In early 2018 the Constitution was amended to criminalise any insult to the king. An independent report shows how the CPP uses these legal tools in creative ways to eliminate its political opponents and critics (Mooney and Baydas 2018). The CPP dismissed the report as detached from social realities (Chheng 2018), but the reality reflects a government that has been prosecuting and shutting down human rights organizations and independent critical media using repressive laws to restrict the already threatened freedom of expression and association. In 2017 the Cambodian Supreme Court dissolved the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), the main opposition to Hun Sen and the CPP, and arrested its leader, Kem Sokha for treason charges. This move ensured CPP to run for the July 2018 elections unopposed, from which Hun Sen and the CPP have again emerged victorious.

Cambodia   55

Politicized justice Justice and human rights were vital components of the Paris Agreement’s objective, especially for a country that had experienced genocide. However, it was not an easy task for UNTAC. The Khmer Rouge killed the educated, including lawyers and judges, that by the end of its regime there were only ten law graduates left in the country and no judicial mechanisms to defend human rights (Duffy 1994). Impressively, UNTAC took positive strides despite starting from scratch. The Cambodian government started acceding to several international human rights instruments upon UNTAC’s encouragement (ibid.). The Human Rights Component of UNTAC was also successful in conducting human rights education and investigation, which encouraged a human rights culture from the grassroots level (ibid.) and planted the seeds of civil society activism (personal interviews, 2014). These activities prompted the emergence of local human rights organizations that are now key actors in the pursuit of justice and reconciliation in Cambodia. These organizations have become increasingly effective in monitoring and reporting human rights abuses and in opening public spaces for protest and dialogue. As one Cambodian peacebuilding scholar put it, the Cambodian civil society is now actively putting pressure on the government to implement the liberal peace ideals UNTAC brought into the country (personal interview, 2014), but this was not the case earlier. Public acquiescence is inherent in the Cambodian way of life in such a way that public participation in political matters is not the norm for ordinary Cambodians (Neou and Gallup 1997). This attitude has affected the way human rights discourse is promoted and deliberated in Cambodia. In her study of the impact of UNTAC on the human rights culture in Cambodia, Hughes (2007: 840) describes how the international donors and human rights workers promoted “a culturally specific form of human rights, emphasizing moral behaviour in society rather than offering any radical critique of the political order”. She argues that the result of this approach was a convenient but limited local participation in human rights struggles. For example, local human rights workers are usually from the middle class, with a subordinate relationship with international organizations (ibid.: 841). They networked extensively internationally, submitted reports to international donors, and attended forums, but they rarely sought active participation from ordinary villagers (ibid.). Hughes also observed how the role of the local human rights workers was limited to professional human rights training instead of encouraging and espousing active political participation for human rights—something that satisfies international organizations but isolates ordinary citizens. This limitation is also evident in the establishment of a tribunal to bring the Khmer Rouge to justice. UNTAC did not have a mandate on justice and reconciliation related to the Khmer Rouge-­perpetrated genocide. The Khmer Rouge would not have entered into an agreement containing punitive provisions against them (Neou and Gallup 1997). This decision was politically strategic to enforce the Paris Agreement and bring the Khmer Rouge into the negotiating table. However, it also delayed the

56   Cambodia delivery of justice for the victims of the Khmer Rouge, as well as the victims of the SOC’s politically motivated killings. And this delay influenced the development of relevant justice mechanisms in the years following UNTAC’s exit. It gave time and space for Hun Sen to consolidate his power, which permeated the country’s judicial institutions. UNTAC should have provided mechanisms to strengthen the judicial system from the start, according to Ok Srei Sopheak, a Cambodian political analyst (personal interview, 2014). The SOC had weak bargaining power then and would have accepted most proposals the UN had put forward, he said. But UNTAC’s short-­term mandate was not enough in establishing an effectively functioning judicial system. This shortcoming shaped the current political and judicial dynamics of Cambodia. One of those ripples is the government’s non-­cooperation and political meddling in the structures and procedures of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal. The Khmer Rouge Tribunal (officially named the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia or ECCC) in Phnom Penh brings to trial senior Khmer Rouge leaders and those most responsible for crimes committed during the Khmer Rouge regime. The tribunal was a lengthily negotiated compromise between international standards of justice and Hun Sen’s opposition to a UN-­ sponsored international tribunal (Broadhurst et al. 2015).4 A UN Group of Experts proposed an ad hoc UN tribunal seated in another Asia-­Pacific country considering “that the Cambodian judiciary [at that time] was unlikely to meet minimal international standards of justice even with external assistance” (A/53/850 1999: 3). Hun Sen, on the other hand, wanted the Cambodian courts to have sovereign jurisdiction over the trials. The Law on the Establishment of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia for the Prosecution of Crimes Committed during the Period of Democratic Kampuchea finally took effect in June 2003, and the Khmer Rouge Tribunal started operating in June 2007. It is a hybrid tribunal, which is an ad hoc Cambodian court with international participation, created jointly by the Cambodian government and the UN but remaining independent of them, and applies international and domestic law and standards (ECCC 2006–2015a). Over the course of ten years, the tribunal has brought to trial only five Khmer Rouge leaders. Scholars, international observers, and the Cambodian civil society voiced their disappointment on the tribunal early on. The criticisms mainly concerned the “[tribunal’s] questionable impartiality, limited public involvement, and constrained personal jurisdiction” (Capeloto 2008: 104). The tribunal suffers from severe political interference, lack of transparency, limited logistical resources, and weak competence among Cambodian counterparts. Previous assessments of the criminal procedures highlighted both the challenges and prospects surrounding the dilemma between judicial independence/­ international standards and local involvement/national ownership (for example, Cohen 2007; Bertelman 2010). The most common critique was the mismatch between international and local mechanisms. Barria and Roper (2005) cautioned about the inherent danger in creating hybrid institutions with mixed legal mechanisms in countries without or with a weak rule of law and judicial independence.

Cambodia   57 Cambodia does not have the necessary institutions and legal culture to complement an international tribunal founded on the rule of law because of the corrupt and coercive nature of its government. The Cambodian judiciary is weak, politicized, and highly susceptible to bribery and outside influence. The government scored low on the 2017 Corruption Perception Index, ranking 161st out of 180 countries (Transparency International 2018). Although there are ongoing efforts to combat corruption, such as the passage of the Anti-­Corruption Law, the creation of the Anti-­Corruption Unit in 2010, and the establishment of the parliamentary Anti-­Corruption Commission in 2014, these have yet to be translated into practice. The government has limited the scope of suspects because of the previous connections of some of the current government officials with the Khmer Rouge. It also barred investigations of the political violence the SOC had committed against its political opponents in the past. This interference undermines the credibility of the tribunal and reflects the political injustice that the Cambodian government perpetuates. The limited scope of who to prosecute serves the government’s interest in enhancing its legitimacy by reaffirming its victory over the Khmer Rouge. As Stensrud (2009) claims, the tribunal serves as a trophy for the government in terms of winning its place in Cambodian history and society. Locating the tribunal within the military compounds and far from the centre of Phnom Penh is another indication of the government’s control over the tribunal, according to Gidley (2018). The tribunal’s location represents its link to the military, which is controlled by the CPP, and distance from the Cambodian people (ibid.). Behind the veneer of hybridity, the government has significant control of the tribunal. Burdened by the government’s weak record of judicial integrity and independence, the tribunal is plagued with an unnecessarily complex structure incapable of quick decision-­making and robust implementation of its mandates to effectively pursue justice (Ciorciari and Heindel 2014). Judicial institutions and local involvement in these institutions are present in post-­Khmer Rouge Cambodia. These mechanisms, unfortunately, are not advancing the justice and reconciliation components of liberal peacebuilding. A 2016 investigation reveals that the tribunal’s final judgement over Case 002/01 was legally unsound with questionable proceedings, “incomplete research, inaccuracies, misapprehension” of legal doctrines, and lacking “systematic and cogent analysis for the factual findings” (Cohen et al. 2015: vi–vii). The international criminal accountability in the Cambodian context exhibits how “local actors adapted and transformed an international concept for local use” (Palmer 2016: 124). Including national lawyers and judges, allowing the government to manage the court, and locating the tribunal in the country do not necessarily equate to legitimate local ownership. The tribunal is a product of international preference (international legal norms and procedures) and local agency (the government’s need for legitimacy and control). Local actors, in this case, the political elite, used the liberal institutions of justice for their own illiberal motives—political aggrandizement and impunity for the political violence they perpetrated in the past. The political interference of the Cambodian government

58   Cambodia and the questionable credibility of national lawyers and judges make the liberal institutions of justice prone to illiberal manipulations and poor judgements derailing and delegitimizing the ideals of liberal peacebuilding. This snowball effect in the justice system is a consequence of the exclusive involvement of the political elite in peacebuilding. Drawing a definite conclusion about the effects of liberal justice on peace in Cambodia is unfair because the tribunal is still operational and outreach for ­bottom-­up reconciliation efforts have just recently begun. Nonetheless, the ­tribunal’s record so far demonstrates that the goal and practice of liberal peacebuilding can be disrupted by illiberal manipulations of the country’s leadership or government. The government acts illiberally by blocking investigations that may uncover the crimes of those who are currently in power. This political interference preserves a narrative in favour of Hun Sen and his cronies but emasculates the purpose and legitimacy of the tribunal. Justice has not been fully served in Cambodia; and it is much more difficult to serve justice and reconcile with past abuses amid the current political, economic, and social injustices the Cambodians experience on a daily basis.

Everyday reconciliation The predominantly top-­down, retributive, and Western-­style approach of the tribunal falls short of serving the expectations attached to the traditional Khmer concept of justice. The tribunal is incompatible with the cultural context of Cambodia and emotionally distant from the experiences of the Cambodian people. For example, forms of reparation are not perceptive of Cambodia’s social context. The financial and individualized reparation attached to retributive justice does not match the development and communal type the Cambodians seek (Ramji 2005). Also, the Western style of retributive justice is not in line with Cambodia’s cultural outlook on justice and reconciliation. Some argue that the tribunal’s rules on enforcing corrective action do not complement the Theravada Buddhist teaching that the action should be voluntary through an acknowledgement of one’s mistakes and an intention to amend those mistakes (Gellman 2008). Cambodia’s religious perspective is more consistent with restorative justice, and the tribunal’s retributive form of justice is insufficient to meet this local perspective. Lambourne (2014: 40) noted that “even though justice through the ECCC is an integral goal, retributive justice only for key individuals through a tribunal without truth and acknowledgement is partial justice”. The tribunal was initially criticized for having a limited scope for, or questionable application of, public and victim participation (Mohan 2009). The trials were focused on the perpetrators with little or no participation of the victims, and avenues for victims to participate formally at any stage of the prosecution were lacking (Capeloto 2008: 118–20). The tribunal was not conceived to provide support for victims mainly because the number of victims was too large and the mandate and resources of the tribunal were insufficient to attend to every victim (Ciorciari and Heindel 2014). The tribunal has a victim participation

Cambodia   59 scheme under the Victims Support Section, but it was designed from scratch and a product of experimentation since such an extensive scheme has never been implemented in other tribunals. At the outset, it suffered from weak institutional support, budget constraints, understaffing, and a vague view of how it should be implemented (Ciorciari and Heindel 2014). To improve the victim participation scheme, the tribunal’s Victims Support Section modified its Internal Rules stating that: One of the major innovations of the [tribunal] is the enhanced recognition of Victims in its proceedings. Victims of crimes that fall under the jurisdiction of the Court are given a fundamental role in the [tribunal]. They can submit complaints to the Co-­Prosecutors, who take the interests of Victims into account when considering whether to initiate prosecution. Victims may also participate as Civil Parties. In this capacity, they are recognised as parties to the proceedings and are allowed to seek collective and moral reparations. This reflects the commitment of the [tribunal] to its mandate of helping the Cambodian people in the pursuit of justice and national reconciliation. (ECCC 2006–2015b) The revision in the tribunal’s Internal Rules to address the issues of victim participation is a principle unique to the tribunal, which could potentially fill the gaps in international criminal justice and inform future international criminal proceedings (Bair 2009). The 2010 revision of the Internal Rules included stipulations for the civil party lead co-­lawyers—one Cambodian and one international— in handling a large number of victims while maintaining victim participation (ECCC 2010; Lavergne 2012). The co-­lawyers represent the consolidated interests of civil parties and are responsible for overall advocacy, strategy, in-­court presentation, and the facilitation of collective and moral reparation. The tribunal also opened new avenues for external funding to support claims for reparations. One of the major changes reflected in the 2015 revision was the additional stipulation for the application of foreign lawyers to represent civil parties, listing specific principles for the compliance of national and foreign lawyers (ECCC 2015). This change referred to the victims’ concern about being represented by someone they felt was incompetent, inexperienced, and not knowledgeable about and sympathetic to their experiences. There are criticisms, however, that the scheme for civil parties only weakens the intended granting of full rights to the victims by streamlining the interests of civil parties through co-­lawyers (for example, Sokol 2011; Stegmiller 2014). The Internal Rules may be revised yet again, but these revisions signify the tribunal’s openness to criticisms, flexibility in the face of evolving challenges, and responsiveness to the voices of the Cambodian people. The development of victim participation is attributable not only to the lessons learned by the tribunal but also to the enduring advocacy of local civil society. One of the positive outcomes of the tribunal is the civil society’s active participation in the pursuit of justice and reconciliation. After seeing the shortcomings of the

60   Cambodia Victims Support Section, local NGOs have initiated programmes to assist victims in connecting with the tribunal’s legal processes. These programmes compensate for the limitations of criminal justice and balance the macro- and micro-­level policy reforms through additional restorative measures (Sperfeldt 2012). They provide outreach, legal guidance and representation, monitoring activities, and psychosocial support. Without the NGOs, the civil party mechanism would have neither been known nor fully utilized by the victims (Stegmiller 2014: 474). Outside the tribunal, NGOs are taking the lead in promoting reconciliation. In 2008 the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport approved a nationwide project proposed by the Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-­Cam), an independent Cambodian research institute documenting, researching, and sharing the history of the Khmer Rouge, to include the history of genocide in Cambodia in school curricula. DC-­Cam also conducts community dialogues in order to bring victims and perpetrators together in a space outside the tribunal where they can explore ways to foster understanding and forgiveness (Ciorciari and Ramji-­Nogales 2013). These are vital venues especially for victims and perpetrators living alongside each other in their communities. The value of these community dialogues is the solicitation of inputs from the people on how to address their needs, not just as a group but also as individuals. These dialogues bridge the gap between the rigidity of legal procedures and the unique sensibilities of community-­level reconciliation and individual-­focused reparations. The role of NGOs in setting up these initiatives is crucial given the absence of a nationwide effort to provide a formal truth-­seeking and reconciliation mechanism. Their activities acknowledge individual victimhood and promote restorative approaches to justice and reconciliation. Collective approaches to transitional justice sometimes overlook individual preferences of coming to terms with the past, as DC-­Cam Director Youk Chhang (personal interview, 2014) expresses below: Reconciliation generates high expectations, and it is personal. I cannot tell someone to forgive or to apologize, so I focus on education, especially on the process of justice. Using the term reconciliation is misleading because, personally, I cannot reconcile with what they did to my family. It does not give respect to those who suffered. The dominant concept and method of truth and reconciliation is a Christian concept wherein you confess, and you move on with life. But in Buddhism, you have to pay back no matter what. The majority of Cambodians do not want to forget what happened under the Khmer Rouge regime, painful as it may be. According to Linton (2004: 227), Cambodians want the younger generation to be aware of the genocide not just as a historical fact but also as a moral lesson; “it is about coming to terms with one’s own experiences, memories and negative feelings; learning as individuals and a society to coexist with each other; and then working together towards a common future”. This narrative explains the decreasing feelings of animosity and revenge and the increasing preference for truth-­seeking and community-­level reparations (Pham et al. 2011b: 35). In response, local NGOs

Cambodia   61 are developing and conducting creative, artistic, educational, and therapeutic initiatives for victims to complement and supplement the formal and retributive form of justice (Mejer 2015). The preference for restorative reparation complements local priorities. While Cambodians value justice, they also want their basic needs addressed, such as food, health, education, jobs, and infrastructure (Pham et al. 2011b: 3). Given this local preference, and due to the advocacy of local NGOs, the tribunal’s Victims Support Section and the civil party lead co-­lawyers requested donor support for various forms of reparation after Case 002/01. Some of the projects include public memorials, building monuments, therapies and self-­help group rehabilitation, exhibitions, public education, and publication of relevant materials. The reparation projects “aim to provide formal acknowledgement to the victims of the Khmer Rouge regime in order to mitigate the harms and suffering they have experienced, to preserve collective memory and restore victims’ dignity” (ECCC 2014). Highlighting the positive outcomes from the tribunal is useful not only for Cambodian society but also for future planning and establishment of justice and reconciliation mechanisms in other post-­conflict societies. First, the structure and processes of the tribunal contributed to the development of international criminal law and the improvement of international standards for criminal procedure (Form 2009; Jasini and Phan 2011; Poluda et al. 2012). Second, compared to other tribunals, the Khmer Rouge Tribunal has wider outreach (Ciorciari and Heindel 2014). With the advocacy of NGOs, the proceedings are publicly accessible, and the tribunal’s online resources have educational features designed for capacity-­building. Notwithstanding the political interference from the government mentioned earlier, the decision to conduct the trials in Cambodia instead of in other countries made the tribunal closer to the people, thereby providing possible avenues for a greater degree of public participation and monitoring. Third, the trials allow for truth and emotions from the genocide experience to emerge. The testimonies can now be pieced together to paint a clearer picture and to dive into a deeper understanding of what happened during the Khmer Rouge regime (Form 2009). The tribunal serves as a venue for the victims to have their negative moral emotions heard and acknowledged by formal or legal institutions of justice (Jeffery 2015). Last, and most importantly, after three decades, the first step to delivering justice had finally begun. Despite the delays and birth pains of the tribunal’s establishment and its subsequent procedural flaws, the majority of the Cambodians surveyed and interviewed after the first trial recognized the significance of the tribunal in enforcing accountability on those who were responsible for crimes during the Khmer Rouge regime (Pham et al. 2011b). They want to know why the genocide happened and demand an acknowledgement of wrongful action from those who committed the crimes (ibid.). Even though the tribunal’s primarily retributive style lacks an inclusive and restorative approach to justice, the Cambodians see the utility of the tribunal in strengthening the local justice system. The tribunal contributes to a positive and lasting social change through the process of creating and accepting a common history, ending impunity, and building faith in the local

62   Cambodia judicial system (Scully 2011). The presence of the tribunal is a reminder for the Cambodians that it is possible to eventually obtain their demands for justice. As Tek (2011: 436) put it: Justice is not only attainable, but has somewhat been felt in Cambodia. People tend to prefer a world with the [tribunal] no matter what the external and internal problems are than a world without [it], which is a world that did not even try to punish the perpetrators. Justice and reconciliation take time, especially for a country in which lives, institutions, and physical structures were virtually destroyed. Cambodia’s history of violence necessitates less simplistic forms of justice and reconciliation. Factors such as religion, culture, personal experience, psychological well-­being, temporal distance, and sometimes the outcomes of the trials play a role in the extent of forgiveness and reconciliation (Pham et al. 2011a: 460). However, the predominantly retributive approach of the tribunal does not capture the complex nature of truth, victimhood, perpetration, and reparation in Cambodia’s pursuit of justice and reconciliation. The gaps and flaws of the tribunal, coupled with the Cambodian people’s preference for truth-­seeking mechanisms and community-­ level reparations, have paved the way for recommendations on exploring other forms of transitional justice (Doung and Ear 2009; Bockers et al. 2011; McGrew 2011) and for improvements of the tribunal’s victim participation scheme. These modifications do not discount the importance of putting the top leaders of the Khmer Rouge on trial but only suggest that restorative justice should complement the tribunal’s retributive approach. Fortunately, the advocacy and activities of the local civil society and the patience of everyday Cambodians to participate in these processes help create more restorative, victim-­centred, and needs-­based approaches to transitional justice in Cambodia.

Corrupted development Agricultural industry has been the backbone of the Cambodian economy for centuries. Cambodia maintained a village-­based, subsistence economy with an emphasis on rice and rubber cultivation when it was a French protectorate. The traditional patron-­client labour relationship was left untouched as the French invested little in the industrialization of the local economy (Slocomb 2010: 72). After its independence from France in 1953, Cambodia adopted a mixed economy when Sihanouk pushed for economic modernization. He encouraged private businesses in several industries, agriculture, and commerce sectors while maintaining state control over key economic sectors such as energy, transportation, and mining (ibid.: 78). When Lon Nol took over the government in 1969, his policy removed state control and involvement in most sectors of production and trade to fully liberalize the economy. However, the civil war transformed the Cambodian economy into a “war economy” mostly sustained by foreign assistance. The heavy reliance on foreign assistance disengaged the government from

Cambodia   63 the traditional sources of production in the countryside, which became the stronghold of the Khmer Rouge-­led revolution (ibid.: 162). When the Khmer Rouge took control of the country in 1975, it enforced a closed economic policy that abolished all capitalist principles and foreign involvement. It prohibited the use of Cambodian riel, abolished the banks, and banned barter trade (Rumbaugh et al. 2000: 30). This extreme policy left the Cambodian economy in ruins. There was little or no industry left to restore when the SOC took over (Chhair and Ung 2013: 5). The SOC reintroduced the use of the Cambodian riel, but high inflation limited its circulation (Frost 1993). When UNTAC arrived, Cambodia was dealing with acute socio-­economic problems, inadequate public infrastructures and basic services, and serious environmental concerns from unrestricted logging and mining (ibid.). A budgetary crisis and a weak, corrupt, and unskilled administration exacerbated these economic issues (ibid.). Rehabilitating Cambodia’s economy was undoubtedly a colossal task requiring comprehensive programmes and sustained support. UNTAC had a Rehabilitation Component mandated by the Declaration on the Rehabilitation and Reconstruction of Cambodia as part of the Paris Agreement. UNTAC’s development mandate was comprehensive in the sense that it covered not only market liberalization but also economic sustainability. The development tasks included the management and implementation of international aid, restoration of existing basic infrastructure and public utilities, provision of basic services, and the promotion of Cambodian entrepreneurship to advance self-­sustaining economic growth. The Declaration also launched an assessment of Cambodia’s human, natural, and other economic assets to identify priorities and availability of resources. It emphasized that the “primary objective of the reconstruction of Cambodia should be the advancement of the Cambodian nation and people” [and that] “economic aid should benefit all areas of Cambodia, especially the more disadvantaged, and reach all levels of society” (Paris Agreement 1991: 70), signifying intentions of inclusivity and sustainability. After the 1993 elections, the UN continued encouraging financial support for rehabilitation in view of the financial crisis the Cambodian government was facing at that time. The Declaration stipulated that an International Committee on the Reconstruction of Cambodia be created once the new government was in place. The task of the Committee was to coordinate and monitor international financial aid for Cambodia’s reconstruction (S/RES/880 1993). UNTAC raised and consolidated funds for post-­conflict reconstruction and economic expansion. In June 1992, at the Ministerial Conference on the Rehabilitation and Reconstruction of Cambodia held in Tokyo, donor countries pledged a total of nearly US$880 million for reconstruction and development and another US$120 million at a meeting in 1993. However, some studies confirmed that this financial support did not benefit all levels of society, especially those who needed it most, as stated in UNTAC’s mandate (Doyle 1995; Whalan 2013). International donors assisted major projects but not small-­scale, grassroots programmes that could have provided economic opportunities to local communities. One of the reasons for this was the donor countries’ preference for traditional

64   Cambodia large-­scale projects even though UNTAC’s Rehabilitation Component envisioned small-­scale projects (van der Lijn 2006). In the case of Japan, which was one of the largest donor countries to Cambodia, while its assistance encouraged cooperation with NGOs, most of its aid was channelled to the urban areas of Phnom Penh (Takahashi 2004). In addition, the slow disbursement of international aid due to the donor countries’ bureaucratic procedures and reluctance to disburse given the unstable security and political conditions in Cambodia delayed actual reconstruction (Azimi 1994). By the end of UNTAC’s mission, only US$200 million had been disbursed (UNTAC 2003). Nevertheless, the long-­run positive impact of foreign aid to Cambodia cannot be discounted. Foreign aid has prompted economic growth by providing much-­needed capital. Although the relationship between aid and development contains both advantages and disadvantages, the case of Cambodia is an example of how the injection of capital was effective in relieving the country from poverty (Hokmeng and Moolio 2015).5 Cambodia’s economy has been growing rapidly with an average economic growth of 7 per cent annually and is projected to be stable with minor fluctuations in output growth and a low inflation rate (Ly and Martin 2018). The positive trend of Cambodia’s economy is not a conclusion that its economic growth is exclusively attributable to UNTAC’s economic mandates but an observation that several economic indicators have improved since the transition. The end of the civil war and the restoration of peace, in general, provided opportunities for the local population and Cambodians returning from overseas to engage in economic activities. The improved overall security and political stability in the country increased confidence in foreign investments. Based on the World Bank’s data (2018), the increased participation of Cambodians in the agricultural, industrial, and service sectors raised overall production and their share in total GDP. Investments in garment exports, tourism, and real estate also account for the country’s growing economic activity. UNTAC’s facilitation of foreign trade and aid enhanced the government policy of an open economy, which started in 1989. Cambodia’s reintegration into the global economy spiked trade,6 generated inflows of private capital and foreign direct investments (FDI),7 and helped sustain economic growth. Cambodia’s economy has profited from its membership in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) in 1999, its accession to World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2004, and other bilateral trade agreements (Naron 2012). Cambodia’s participation in trade organizations has compelled the government to reshape its domestic laws on trade, finance, commerce, and investment in order to conform to international standards, thereby increasing the inflow of trade investments (Naron 2012). However, the coup and the Asian financial crisis in 1997 dipped Cambodia’s GDP growth to 5 per cent, the lowest in five years since UNTAC’s departure. Similarly, the 2007–2008 global financial crisis severely affected the long-­running positive economic growth the country had seen since 1994, such that it recorded a negative 1.4 per cent change in GDP per capita growth. Cambodia’s large export-­oriented garment

Cambodia   65 industry, including textiles and footwear, significantly suffered from 50 factory closures and 63,000 job losses (UNDP Cambodia 2009; Chan and Oum 2011).8 The highly dollarized economy limited the fiscal policy options of the government during the crises (Jalilian et al. 2009).9 These economic episodes illustrate how Cambodia’s integration into the global economy revived its economy but also exposed the country to global trade and financial vulnerabilities. Market liberalization, on the other hand, produced economic inequalities and other negative social consequences. Income inequalities have not improved significantly since the 1990s. In 2012 the lowest 10 per cent of the population in terms of income only had a 3.93 per cent share of income or consumption while the highest 10 per cent had 25.23 per cent (World Bank 2016). Moreover, the garment and textile industry is plagued with human rights concerns, such as low standards for the health and safety of workers, child labour, insufficient wages, job insecurity, and a lack of representation in trade unions (CCHR 2014). The uneven development between urban and rural communities is also an issue considering that an average of 81 per cent of the population lived in rural areas from 1991 to 2014.10 Although poverty incidence at the national level reduced from a 12.39 per cent poverty gap in 1990 to 0.97 per cent in 2012, it has always been higher among the rural population compared to the urban population and national population (World Bank 2016). These inequalities are reverberations of a not so distant past. My interviews with the Cambodians who worked for UNTAC revealed their dissatisfaction with the fact that Phnom Penh benefitted more from international assistance compared to other districts, in addition to the way in which the international staff received much higher incomes than the local staff. Instead of paying attention to other productive sectors and areas in the country, UNTAC’s investment was concentrated in the service sector in Phnom Penh, where most of the international staff were located and where they spent their salaries and allowances on food, accommodation, and entertainment (Curtis 1993: 18). Overall, Cambodia’s socio-­economic development is moving forward. In recent years, poverty has continued to decline, and maternal health, early childcare, and primary education have improved. As one of the best performers in poverty reduction, the country halved the poverty rate from 2004 to 2012 because of government policies aimed at increasing the minimum wage in the garment industry and at improving roads, communication, and rural irrigation to benefit agricultural production (World Bank 2014). The increase in agricultural output, specifically rice, and an increase in rice prices and better access to market information have also contributed to poverty reduction (ibid.). The World Bank, however, warns about the vulnerability, even to the slightest economic shock, of those who are near the poverty line. Cambodia has also been successful in preventing and treating HIV/AIDS considering that it has been one of the major social ramifications of the international military presence. Some interview participants expressed dismay over the proliferation of HIV/AIDS and other sexually ­transmitted diseases due to UNTAC’s presence. According to the Joint UN ­Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS 2016) data, Cambodia had 1,500 individuals infected with HIV/AIDS in 1991, and this number multiplied 18 times

66   Cambodia by 1993 with a record of 27,000 individuals. The government and civil society, with the support of the international aid agencies, have been working together to address this issue and their efforts have come to fruition. In 2017 Cambodia had the highest coverage rate in the developing world, with 80 per cent of those who were estimated to be infected having access to antiretroviral treatment (UNAIDS 2017). Notwithstanding its economic growth, poverty reduction, and access to HIV/AIDS treatment, Cambodia still needs to address other development issues, including environmental sustainability. The rapid degradation of Cambodia’s forests poses the highest threat to its environmental sustainability. The UN Environment Programme reported in 2009 the drastic reduction of estimated forest coverage11 in Cambodia from 73 per cent in the 1970s to 35 per cent at most by 1995 due to slash-­and-burn agriculture and unrestricted logging (Matthew et al. 2009). According to the report, the Khmer Rouge exploited valuable resources and exported timber to finance their activities, and the other factions did the same to fund their military campaigns against the Khmer Rouge. This became a cycle that negatively affected the environment and the lives of the people depending on it. The Khmer Rouge’s reliance on logging, alongside issues of massive flooding and food shortages caused by deforestation, provided a strong incentive for the government to initiate a moratorium on timber (S/RES/792 1992). UNTAC created a Technical Advisory Committee on Management and Sustainable Exploitation of Natural Resources to implement these measures. It provided support by monitoring the movement of timber, and Cambodia’s neighbouring countries announced a complete ban on imports of logs from Cambodia. The moratorium later included sawn timber and extended to the extraction of mineral resources (S/RES/810 1993). The moratorium weakened the earning capacity of the Khmer Rouge, contributing to its eventual disintegration (Matthew et al. 2009). The moratorium exemplifies a vertical relationship between international peacebuilders and local leadership. The government reached out to UNTAC to assist with the enforcement of the moratorium. UNTAC supported and extended this initiative by recommending the inclusion of other mineral resources in the moratorium, which was subsequently adopted by the Cambodian government. The moratorium is an example of international and local actors cooperating to develop a mandate that addresses not only the political and security concerns of UNTAC and the government but also the economic and environmental issues affecting everyday Cambodians. Some assessments, however, show the ineffectiveness of the moratorium. According to Bottomley (2000), illegal logging intensified in anticipation of the restrictions. Later on, enforcement proved difficult, especially following UNTAC’s exit, as regional demand and a low state budget created an environment conducive to continued illegal logging (ibid.). The government’s mismanagement of natural resources and inability to consistently enforce regulations, coupled with rapid development and high population growth, contributed to Cambodia’s deforestation (ibid.). Deforestation is still an urgent problem given its impact on the national economy and people’s livelihoods. Data from World

Cambodia   67 Bank (2018) reveal an alarming decline in forest area from 73.3 per cent of land area in 1990 to 53.6 per cent in 2015. Global Forest Watch (2018) also reports that tree cover loss in Cambodia has been steadily increasing since 2001. Notwithstanding the incomplete national assessment of Cambodia’s forest area and overestimation in some studies, it is certain that Cambodia has one of the worst deforestation rates in the world. In April 2016 Cambodia’s Anti-­Logging Commission sent a report to Hun Sen claiming the successful elimination of illegal logging in the country (Dara and Kossov 2016). But it is common knowledge among communities and environmental groups that illegal timber keeps flowing out of the country. A connection between the government and illegal logging has been exposed in several incidents. In April 2012 a Cambodian military officer killed Chut Wutty, a Cambodian environmental activist vocal about the negative effects of illegal logging, after he refused to hand over photographs evidencing forest destruction and illegal rosewood smuggling in a forest in Koh Kong province, southwest of Cambodia (“Cambodian Police” 2012). In April 2016 the Ministry of Culture of Fine Arts-­Cambodia banned the screening of a documentary film about the life of Chut Wutty, citing that the venue for the screening violated the law by not subjecting the film to a content check and that it was filmed without permission from the ministry and other government authorities (Sassoon and Dara 2016). In June 2016 the Natural Resources and Wildlife Preservation Organization raised accusations of personal involvement by a government soldier and military police officer in illegal timber smuggling in Kampong Speu, a province east of Koh Kong (Seangly 2016). Illegal logging remains rampant in Cambodia because of the involvement of government agencies and officials. Some corrupt government officials turn a blind eye to the worsening situation of the Cambodian forests because they benefit from illegal logging. Le Billon (2002) concludes that the initiative on environmental protection was not sustained because the political elite continue to manipulate public resources by circumventing the law. He also argues that the international community’s discourse on sustainable and accountable forest management legitimizes foreign transnational companies while disenfranchising the petty illegal loggers in rural communities whose main source of income comes from the forest. To survive amid these restrictions, these petty illegal loggers often have no choice but to feed on the political elite’s corrupt practices (ibid.). This arrangement implies how economic liberalization, instead of subduing the traditional patronage system in Cambodia, further encourages it (Springer 2011). As a result, the legal institutionalization of the logging industry “barred [the common] Cambodians from their forests in order for the country to get on a false path of ‘environmentally sustainable development’ ” (Le Billon 2002: 583). The political elite exclusively incentivized from their feigned compliance with liberal trade rules at the cost of a more inclusive and sustainable economic development. Without the political will of Hun Sen and his ruling party to abide by the logging regulations they initiated in the first place during the transition, Cambodia’s commitment to sustainable development will remain purely rhetorical. The

68   Cambodia unresolved tension between motivation and implementation of logging regulations encouraged corrupt activities that undermined the benefits of a sustainable economy and the value of local involvement in economic empowerment.

Local involvement in mine action The previous sections illustrate how the flawed national elections, the politicized tribunal, and the corrupt environmental practices have denied everyday Cambodians of the very tenets of liberal peace—democracy, justice, and human rights—and how the exclusive involvement of the political elite contributed to this denial. On the other hand, the local agency of civil society organizations in pursuing justice and reconciliation alongside and outside the tribunal’s retributive processes expresses the empowering potential of inclusive and substantive local involvement. Another outstanding piece of evidence on how local involvement into top-­down approaches can have a positive impact on rebuilding post-­conflict societies is found in the context of mine action in Cambodia. Mine action refers to landmine clearance, education, victim assistance, global advocacy, and stockpile destruction. During the conflict, the factions used landmines around their controlled territories. The extent of contamination in Cambodia consists of other unexploded ordnance and abandoned explosive ordnances collectively categorized as explosive remnants of war (ERW). The years of wars and conflict left an estimated four to six million landmines and other ERW (RGC 2009). The US also dropped 2.75 million tons of bombs in Cambodia during the Vietnam War, including 27.9 million pieces of cluster munitions (RGC 2017: 1). This deadly legacy has killed 19,758, injured 35,941, and amputated 9,021, and continues to threaten the safety of the population (CMAA 2017: 2). Demining was one of the immediate security tasks of UNTAC in order to provide basic physical protection for the lives and livelihoods of the people. The Paris Agreement (1991: Art. IX.12) stipulated that, after the completion of the DDR process, the factions would form mine-­clearing teams to remove, disarm, and/or deactivate unexploded ordnances. Despite the stalled DDR process, UNTAC’s Mine Clearance Training Unit continued its demining activities. It also trained the Cambodians to identify, locate, and destroy landmines, and eventually transferred its responsibilities to the Cambodian Mine Action Centre (CMAC), which the SNC created in June 1992. In 2001 a Royal Decree pronounced and “clarified CMAC’s role as a National Institution to provide mine action services for humanitarian and development projects” (RGC 2001). The government established the Cambodian Mine Action and Victim Assistance Authority (CMAA) in the same year to regulate, monitor, and coordinate mine action-­related activities. CMAA is the regulatory body over CMAC and other demining operators in the country: the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF ), HALO Trust, Mines Advisory Group (MAG), Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA), Cambodian Self Help Demining (CSHD), and APOPO. The coordinated efforts of these operators, with the donors’ support, reduced the number of victims of

Cambodia   69 landmines and unexploded ordnances below 100 (2016 data) for the first time since 1979. Cambodia had released 1,691 square kilometres of contaminated land for productive use by the end of 2017 and targets to clear the remaining 1,970 by 2025.12 Cooperation from the factions and the involvement of the local population were vital to the fulfilment of the demining programme. The Paris Agreement required each faction to provide information about caches of weapons and military supplies throughout Cambodia. Alan Beaver, a military engineer for UNTAC who was involved in the planning for CMAC’s programmes, observed the cooperative attitude of the factions in locating the mines at that time (personal interview, 2014). He also mentioned the reports from the local communities as crucial sources of information for identifying areas for demining because the factions failed to keep accurate records of the locations of the mines. The involvement of local communities did not end at the collection of information but expanded to more proactive participation. UNTAC’s positive legacy in mine clearance in Cambodia is its long-­term vision and substantial involvement of local communities in various mine action-­related activities. Cambodian mine action agencies are now linking their efforts to socio-­ economic community development and civil society empowerment. They align their demining activities with the socio-­economic needs of local communities. For instance, the CMAA, with the support of the Japanese government, has constructed 28.3 kilometres of rural and farm roads, 5 community ponds, a concrete bridge, and 2 water gates, prepared 494 hectares of agricultural land, and trained 661 farmers (CMAC 2013). Demining also contributes to poverty reduction by encouraging socio-­economic activities on cleared lands through the prioritization of farming, education, and healthcare facilities. This bottom-­up approach in demining ensures that cleared lands benefit those who need them the most, prevents land grabbing, and contributes to community development (Shimoyachi 2010). NPA, for example, aligns its humanitarian demining activities with the promotion of civil society and community development, and increasingly supports local organizations advocating for improved democratic participation. NPA encourages political deliberations on the issue of human rights protection by ensuring that the releasing of cleared lands coincides with the protection of land rights (Aksel Steen-­Nilsen, country Director of NPA Cambodia, personal interview, 2018). In the past, CMAC has supported local empowerment through its Community-­Based Mine Risk Reduction (CBMRR) network of volunteers. The volunteers worked at community level in: supporting communities to play a greater role in determining the mine-­ action priorities in their villages; providing ongoing risk education at a local level to civilians at high risk; and ensuring greater integration with victim assistance services and community-­development projects that could assist with providing alternative income-­generation activities for groups at risk. (Bottomley and Sambath 2010: 12)

70   Cambodia CBMRR activities contributed to mobilizing and empowering individuals and communities in exercising their rights and role in identifying local solutions for their local priorities, at least within the mine action sector (ibid.).13 Mine action is also instrumental for some Cambodians to come to terms with their past. Aki Ra, a former Khmer Rouge soldier who was forced to lay mines and later served the PRK and SOC, began demining by himself using crude tools. His community started recognizing his work and sought his help whenever they suspected landmines/ERW. He displayed the metal casings he collected in his house to attract donations from tourists and to educate his neighbours about the threats of landmines/ERW. He used the donations to support the children he adopted who were victims of landmines/ERW. Impressed by his dedication, private individual donors helped Aki Ra set up the Cambodian Landmine Museum and Relief Center and obtain his demining certification to head the CSHD, a Cambodian demining NGO run by and for Cambodians (William ‘Bill’ Morse, international project manager of CSHD, personal interview, 2018).14 For someone with post-­traumatic stress disorder, Aki Ra said that clearing the landmines, some of which he had laid with his own hands years ago, helps him deal with his past.15 Some former combatants from all competing factions have been trained as deminers and educators (Oum Phumro, Deputy Director General of CMAC, cited in JICA 2017). They are not only reintegrated back into their communities but have also become contributors in mitigating the threats from landmines/ERW. Mine action in Cambodia also provides opportunities for grassroots participation. First, the deminers I talked to expressed their pride in being a part of mine clearance as a national endeavour.16 Other than being deminers, some Cambodians also work as educators in mine awareness programmes. Cambodian deminers and educators are often based in and around their villages where they can engage with their communities. This type of involvement encourages participatory approaches (Dammers 2003: 82) and potentially increases local capacity for future community-­based engagements that will serve as venues for democratic deliberation. Second, mine action agencies consult with village chiefs and villagers in identifying their needs. The CMAA identifies priority areas17 for demining based on inputs and reports from villagers. They also receive reports of identified landmines from local police, which receives information from the villagers. The Mine Action Planning Units link bottom-­up and top-­down approaches in planning and prioritization. Third, land release is grassroots-­based with extensive involvement of stakeholders, according to Mol Roeup Seyha, Deputy Secretary General of CMAA (personal interview, 2018). The CMAA is proud of its participatory approaches from the planning stage to land release.18 For example, the handover process for cleared lands is participatory and involves landowners, villagers, local authorities, demining operators, quality managers, and other relevant stakeholders. Local involvement in mine action has shown a modest yet meaningful potential to encourage civil society empowerment and promote socio-­economic development while addressing the physical threats from landmines/ERW and helping those caught between exploding lands come to terms with their past.

Cambodia   71

Conclusion UNTAC was the first comprehensive UN peacebuilding mission and inevitably had missteps due to inexperience. It was expected to quickly fulfil ambitious mandates in a short period of one year and seven months. At the outset, the UN was not prepared to get involved in long-­term planning and involvement in Cambodia because the local factions manifested early on their lack of political will to achieve a real comprehensive peace settlement and of the international community’s weak commitment to sustain its support (Doyle and Sambanis 2006: 220). The signing of the peace agreement took the UN by surprise making its deployment ill-­designed and under-­resourced (Thayer 1998: 160). After the election, UNTAC quickly wrapped up its mission out of fear that a civil war outbreak would taint its achievements. As a result, UNTAC failed to institutionalize its liberal mandates effectively and to involve local actors other than the political elite. By limiting the interaction between the international peacebuilders and local elite, UNTAC failed to encourage a substantive bottom-­up approach to peacebuilding that could have allowed a meaningful encounter between local elite and civil society or local communities. Also, even after a process wherein the local population was able to make their voices count by bravely casting their ballots despite security threats, UNTAC decided to give in to a political compromise. Some assessments of peacebuilding in Cambodia consider it successful in ending the conflict while others view the implementation of its mandate as flawed at best. This chapter has demonstrated how liberal peacebuilding in Cambodia under UNTAC was neither liberal nor peacebuilding despite its liberal intention. The comprehensive project of transforming the Cambodian conflict into a peaceful liberal democracy failed because remnants of oppressive political, social, and economic structures still beset the country. To some extent, international peacebuilding in Cambodia only produced superficial institutions unable to protect the population from elite interests. It has produced a virtual liberal peace detached from the local population (Richmond and Franks 2007) and an illiberal democracy in which authoritarianism manipulates the legitimacy of democratic elections (Peou 2000). Election is not enough to sustain a broader democratic transformation although it is one of the basic exercises of a liberal democracy. UNTAC contradicted the liberal intention of its mandate by failing to uphold the results of the democratic process it promoted. As Diamond (2016: 415) describes, “the international community [in Cambodia claimed to promote democracy but it did not] have the stomach or resources for the fight”. UNTAC did not fully commit to the enshrining of the liberal values it championed that after its exit the political elite deceptively justified and protected their illiberal interests by misusing the institutions built for these same liberal values. UNTAC’s top-­down and shallow implementation of the liberal ideals of democracy, without substantive political transformation and lacking inclusive local involvement, did not produce a holistic peace in Cambodia. The current government dominated by the CPP exploits the liberal democratic system to

72   Cambodia c­ onsolidate legitimacy and maintain power by holding elections rife with electoral fraud and corruption. Hun Sen and his political allies took advantage of UNTAC’s missteps for them to exclusively incentivize from the peacebuilding process. They dominated the rebuilding of security institutions, influenced some of the judicial processes of the tribunal, and exploited the benefits of a liberal economy. This exclusive and politicized involvement produced a negative peace controlled by the ruling political party and lacking the elements of democracy, human rights, justice, and good governance. The case of Cambodia reveals how the local elite could also be implicated in the failures of liberal peacebuilding. The local turn could not save liberal peacebuilding because liberal peacebuilding was not liberal in the first place and local involvement was exclusive and politicized.

Notes   1 The SNC consisted of representatives from the factions and was chaired by Sihanouk. It was a ceremonial government as the administrative control remained on the hands of the SOC.   2 The UN reported several violations of the ceasefire agreements by the CPP and Khmer Rouge during its administration of Cambodia (S/RES/728 1992; UNAMIC 2003). Artillery duels between the factions’ armed wings forced 150,000 residents of Battambang province to flee their homes. The Khmer Rouge fired artillery shells near the location of UNTAC troops and temporarily detained some UNTAC personnel. Violent incidents also happened in the offices of other political parties and against Vietnamese-­speaking people. Firm in investigating and prosecuting these violations against human rights, the SRSG established the Office of the Special Prosecutor to investigate and prosecute these violations.   3 Stedman (1997) used the metaphor of a “departing train” to describe the process of moving forward at a certain deadline regardless of whether the spoiler joins in or not. In the case of Cambodia, the deadline was the election, and the spoiler was the Khmer Rouge.   4 The ten-­year wait from the request until the start of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal’s operation consisted of a series of negotiations between the UN and the Cambodian government regarding the venue for the trials and other elements of the tribunal’s structure.   5 The evidence from Cambodia corresponds with Sachs’ (2005) recommendation of injecting aid and capital to developing countries in order to get them out of the poverty trap.   6 World Bank (2018) data show a dramatic increase in the share of trade in GDP from 13.5 per cent in 1970 to 48.7 per cent in 1993.   7 FDI to Cambodia amounted to a total of US$19.2 billion by 2014 (National Institute of Statistics and National Bank of Cambodia 2016).   8 As of 2014, 698 export-­oriented garment and footwear factories employ more than 600,000, which accounted for least 3.9 per cent of the population (Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia 2015).   9 Dollarization was one of UNTAC’s legacies on the Cambodian economy. The preference for US dollars was a consequence of market prohibitions during the Khmer Rouge regime and low public acceptance of the Cambodian riel after the regime’s fall (Duma 2011: 5). The large foreign exchange inflows related to UNTAC’s operations and the return of Cambodian expatriates during the early 1990s gave a higher preference for the US dollar over the Cambodian riel. Cambodia uses both currencies to date.

Cambodia   73 10 In 2017 the total rural population was 12.6 million and the total urban population was 3.4 million (World Bank 2018). 11 Forest cover refers to lands measuring more than one hectare with more than 10 per cent tree canopy density. 12 These mine action data were reported at the 2018 National Mine Action Conference held in Phnom Penh from 16–17 May 2018 (field research 2018). 13 According to a CMAC official (e-­mail communication, July 2018), projects similar to CBMRR are still ongoing, but I did not receive additional information despite several follow-­up requests. 14 Morse was inspired by Aki Ra’s story and permanently moved to Siem Reap from the United States. As the international project manager of CSHD, he is also the primary donor and responsible for finding new funding sources. Bill nominated Aki Ra for the 2010 CNN Hero. 15 See Wallace (2010) for a brief account of Aki Ra’s story. 16 I joined Aki Ra and a CSHD demining unit in Kampong Kdei village, 60 kilometres southeast of Siem Reap, and talked with the unit’s deminers in May 2018. 17 Priority areas are productive land meant for farming and construction sites for education and health centres. Low priority areas are those with smaller residential populations. 18 Land release is the removal of threats from landmines/ERW through appropriate measures, such as technical and non-­technical surveys, and clearance activities (GICHD n.d.).

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78   Cambodia S/RES/880 (1993). Adopted by the Security Council at its 3303rd Meeting. UN Security Council. 4 November. Sachs, J.D. (2005). The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time. New York: Penguin Press. Samean, Y. (2003). Alliance Demands Compared to 1993 Hun Sen. Cambodia Daily, 17 October. Sassoon, A.M. and Dara, M. (2016). Culture Ministry Bans Film on Forest Activist Chut Wutty. Phnom Penh Post, 19 April. Scully, S. (2011). Judging the Successes and Failures of the Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia. Asian-­Pacific Law and Policy Journal 13(1): 300–53. Seangly, P. (2016). Kampong Speu Officers Tagged as Smugglers. Phnom Penh Post, 9 June. Shimoyachi, N. (2010). Demining and Land Management in Post-­Conflict Cambodia. Asian Journal of Environment and Disaster Management 2(1): 53–60. doi:10.3850/ S179392402009000271. Slocomb, M. (2010). An Economic History of Cambodia in the Twentieth Century. Singapore: NUS Press. Sokol, D.S. (2011). Reduced Victim Participation: A Misstep by the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. Washington University Global Studies Law Review 10(1): 167–86. Sperfeldt, C. (2012). Cambodian Civil Society and the Khmer Rouge Tribunal. The International Journal of Transitional Justice 6(1): 149–60. doi:10.1093/ijtj/ijr037. Springer, S. (2011). Articulated Neoliberalism: The Specificity of Patronage, Kleptocracy, and Violence in Cambodia’s Neoliberalization. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space 43(11): 2554–70. doi:10.1068/a43402. Stedman, S.J. (1997). Spoiler Problems in Peace Processes. International Security 22(2): 5–53. doi:10.2307/2539366. Stegmiller, I. (2014). Legal Developments in Civil Party Participation at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. Leiden Journal of International Law 27(2): 465–77. doi:10.1017/S0922156514000028. Stensrud, E.E. (2009). New Dilemmas in Transitional Justice: Lessons from the Mixed Courts in Sierra Leone and Cambodia. Journal of Peace Research 46(1): 5–15. doi:10.1177/0022343308096152. Tabeau, E. and Kheam, T. (2009). Demographic Expert Report: Khmer Rouge Victims in Cambodia, April 1975–January 1979, a Critical Assessment of Major Estimates. ECCC Doc. D140/1/1. 30 September. Takahashi, K. (2004). Role of Reconstruction Assistance in the Developing Countries after Warfare. Kobe University Economic Review 50: 85–101. Tek, F.L. (2011). Justice at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Court of Cambodia? Peace Review 23(4): 431–7. doi:10.1080/10402659.2011.625738. Thayer, C.A. (1998). The United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia: The Restoration of Sovereignty. In Woodhouse, T., Bruce, R., and Dando, M. (eds) Peacekeeping and Peacemaking: Towards Effective Intervention in Post-­Cold War Conflicts. Hampshire and New York: Palgrave. Thayer, N. and Chanda, N. (1993). Cambodia: Shattered Peace. Far Eastern Economic Review 156(6): 10–11. Thion, S. (1986). The Pattern of Cambodian Politics. International Journal of Politics, 16(3): 110–30. Transparency International (2018). Corruption Perceptions Index 2017. transparency.org/ cpi. Accessed September 2018.

Cambodia   79 Un, K. (2005). Patronage Politics and Hybrid Democracy: Political Change in Cambodia, 1993–2003. Asian Perspective 29(2): 203–30. UNAIDS (2016). AIDS Info. aidsinfo.unaids.org. Accessed February 2016. UNAIDS (2017). Ending AIDS: Progress Towards the 90–90–90 Targets. UNAMIC (2003). Cambodia—UNAMIC: Background. peacekeeping.un.org/en/mission/ past/unamicbackgr.html. Accessed September 2018. UNDP Cambodia (2009). The Global Economic Downturn: Opportunity or Crisis? Phnom Penh: UN in Cambodia. UNTAC (2003). Cambodia—UNTAC. peacekeeping.un.org/mission/past/untac.htm. Accessed August 2018. van der Lijn, J. (2006). Walking the Tightrope: Do UN Peacekeeping Operations Actually Contribute to Durable Peace? Amsterdam: Rozenberg Publishers. Wallace, M. (2010). Hero Profile: Aki Ra. The Journal of ERW and Mine Action 14(3): 1–3. Article 10. Whalan, J. (2013). How Peace Operations Work: Power, Legitimacy, and Effectiveness. Oxford: Oxford University Press. World Bank (2014). Where Have All the Poor Gone? Cambodia Poverty Assessment 2013. Washington, DC: World Bank. World Bank (2016). World Development Indicators. data.worldbank.org/data-­catalog/ world-­development-indicators. Accessed September 2018. World Bank (2018). World Development Indicators. data.worldbank.org/products/wdi. Accessed September 2018.

3 Kosovo Superficial involvement in a co-­opted peacebuilding

Introduction The strategic context of international peacekeeping operations had significantly changed when the UN entered Kosovo. Following the surge of domestic security and humanitarian crises in the early 1990s, the UN responded with little experience outside its traditional observational tasks. The UN involvement from the late 1980s until the 1990s, which included both success in conducting elections (for example, in Cambodia, Mozambique, and Namibia) and failure in responding to humanitarian crises (for example, in Rwanda, Somalia, and Bosnia), prompted a reassessment of its role in international peace and security. Accordingly, the UN reformed its tasks to encompass more complex mandates such as capacity-­building for good governance, human rights monitoring, and security sector reform. It is in this new era of peacebuilding when the UN deployed the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) in 1999. With the expansion of UN peace missions, one element remains consistent within the UN rhetoric on international peace and security—the liberal assumption that democracy, market economy, human rights, the rule of law, and regional or international cooperation are the favourable conditions for peace to thrive. This liberal principle in peacebuilding is evident in the objectives and plans stipulated in Security Council Resolution 1244 authorizing the deployment of UNMIK in Kosovo. UNMIK’s general mandate is the “establishing and overseeing [of] the development of provisional democratic self-­ governing institutions to ensure conditions for a peaceful and normal life for all inhabitants of Kosovo” (S/RES/1244 1999: para 10). The resolution also called for the cooperation and coordination of international organizations in “[developing] a comprehensive approach to the economic development and stabilisation of the region affected by the Kosovo crisis … in order to further the promotion of democracy, economic prosperity, stability and regional cooperation” (ibid.: para 17). These stipulations are depictions of the tenets of liberal peacebuilding embedded in UNMIK’s mandate, alongside the tasks of the European Union (EU) and the Organization for Security and Co-­operation in Europe (OSCE) regarding security sector reform, the rule of law, human rights, and market economy.

Kosovo   81 Yugoslavia’s history was a cycle of unification and disaggregation resulting in a tug-­of-war among ethnic groups pulling on their own nationalist narratives. The decades following the Second World War saw the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, led by Josip Broz Tito, dominate Yugoslavia’s political landscape. Tito transformed Yugoslavia from a disunited region composed of various ethnicities into a one-­party state under the banner of “Brotherhood and Unity”. However, his death in 1980 stirred nationalist agendas within Yugoslavia. His successor, Slobodan Milošević, lifted a heavy hand on nationalist sentiments, including those from Albanians in Kosovo who launched demonstrations demanding that Kosovo be made a republic.1 In response, Milošević abolished Kosovo’s autonomy in 1989, placed it under military occupation, and replaced all forms of political freedom with discrimination. A peaceful resistance led by Ibrahim Rugova and his party, the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK for its Albanian abbreviation of Lidhja Demokratike e Kosovës) managed to organize a “parallel system” to maintain the everyday community life of Albanians in Kosovo while Serbia controlled state structures.2 Meanwhile, a militaristic pro-­ independence guerrilla movement, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA; also Ushtria Çlirimtare e Kosovës or UÇK in Albanian), emerged during the 1990s. The international community initially considered the KLA a terrorist organization, a convenient label for Serbia to justifiably, and in some cases disproportionately, attack the KLA. A massacre of 45 ethnic Albanians in Račak village in Kosovo on 15 January 1999 pressed the international community to address the conflict immediately. The UN Security Council condemned the massacre four days later (SC/6628 1999). NATO (1999b) also declared its preparedness to take necessary measures to halt the crisis unless Serbia withdrew its armed forces and heavy artilleries from Kosovo, which were affecting more civilians than KLA members. The massacre propelled a round of consultations and negotiations culminating in a peace conference in Rambouillet in Paris in February 1999. Coercive diplomacy failed when Milošević refused to sign the draft agreement, claiming that NATO’s involvement was premised on its sinister plan to attack and occupy Yugoslavia and NATO had favoured the separatist and terrorist KLA. NATO’s Operation Allied Force launched air strikes against Yugoslavia on 14 March 1999.3 The bombing of strategic military infrastructure in Belgrade and Kosovo lasted for almost three months until Milošević agreed to the deployment of a UN mission in Kosovo. By the end of the campaign, an estimated 863,000 refugees had fled from Kosovo, 590,000 were internally displaced, and 90 per cent of the Albanian population had become refugees (IICK 2000: 90).4 On 10 June the Security Council passed Resolution 1244 authorizing the deployment of UNMIK with a general mandate of: [providing] an interim administration for Kosovo under which the people of Kosovo can enjoy substantial autonomy within [Yugoslavia], and which will provide transitional administration while establishing and overseeing the development of provisional democratic self-­governing institutions to

82   Kosovo ensure conditions for a peaceful and normal life for all inhabitants of Kosovo. (S/RES/1244 1999: 3) In May 2000 UNMIK established the Joint Interim Administrative Structure (JIAS) to serve as its local counterpart. The Provisional Institutions of Self-­ Government (PISG; hereinafter referred to as the provisional government) later replaced the JIAS after the nationwide elections in May 2001 and the subsequent adoption of the Constitutional Framework (UNMIK/REG/2001/9 2001). The Constitutional Framework stipulated permanent representation of ethnic minorities in Kosovo’s General Assembly. Out of 120 seats, 20 were reserved for non-­ Albanian Kosovo communities: 10 for Serbs, 4 for Roma/Ashkali/Egyptian representatives, 2 for Turkish, and 1 for a Gorani representative (ibid.). Kosovo remains a multi-­ethnic society with a majority of Albanian ethnicity. In the 2011 census, 91 per cent of the population was of Albanian ethnicity, and they dominate almost every aspect of Kosovar society (Kosovo Agency of Statistics 2017: 32). The remaining 9 per cent are of Serb, Bosniak, Turk, Romani, Ashkali, and Egyptian ethnicities. In addition to its higher fertility rate compared to other ethnic groups, the Albanian population grew significantly from 1981 to 2011, especially after the Kosovo War when the Yugoslav forces withdrew and the majority of the Serb population emigrated out of fear of revenge and discrimination. The Serbs have enclaves in some parts of Kosovo with the largest in North Mitrovica. In alignment with Serbia’s authority, North Mitrovica refused to recognize Kosovar institutions until the 2013 Brussels Agreement, which stipulates that Serb municipalities will be integrated into Kosovo’s legal institutions with certain guarantees of protection for Serbs. This issue is far from resolved, and I will include some recent developments pertaining to this in Chapter 5. What was definitive from the beginning was UNMIK’s enormous task of uniting an ethnically divided society through a liberal peacebuilding project.

Short-­lived negative peace The security situation in Kosovo improved quickly after NATO’s intervention, with the humanitarian assistance pillar concluding successfully as early as June 2000. The NATO Kosovo Force (KFOR) was tasked to establish a secure and stable environment for the population and UNMIK’s operations. It oversaw the complete withdrawal of Yugoslav forces from Kosovo and prevented their return, as the Military Technical Agreement (also known as the Kumanovo Agreement) between NATO and Yugoslavia/Serbia required (IICK 2000; Reinhardt 2000). The withdrawal of Yugoslav forces left a security vacuum, however, thereby requiring speedy recruitment of local security forces and rebuilding of the security sector. Former combatants were demobilized and integrated into the new security institutions. UNMIK established the Kosovo Protection Corps to provide civilian emergency services, such as disaster response, search and rescue, humanitarian assistance, demining, and rebuilding

Kosovo   83 infrastructure (UNMIK/REG/1999/8 1999). The Corps absorbed 5,000 of the 20,000 KLA members (Nelson et al. 2003: 12), while the majority of the rest were successfully reintegrated back to civilian life through the reintegration programme of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) (Di Lellio 2005). The Corps was later replaced by the Kosovo Security Forces in 2009, which NATO declared in 2013 as fully operational and capable of delivering its security responsibilities (NATO 2013). As of February 2018 KFOR still has some 4,031 deployed troops (reduced from its initial deployment of 50,000) to maintain a safe a secure environment and provide support to the development of Kosovo’s security structures (NATO 2018). On the policing side, CivPol handled the maintenance of law and order and assisted the OSCE in recruiting and training local police officers. The Police School was opened in September 1999 and trained the first batch of 176 candidates becoming the first members of the Kosovo Police Service (Kosovo Police 2015). Some of the demilitarized KLA members also became members of the Kosovo Police. CivPol completed the gradual transfer of its policing tasks to the Kosovo Police in 2009. The European Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX) maintains support and training for local police officers and assists at management and strategic levels (EULEX 2018). With social and political conditions normalized, crimes consequently declined. The war and economic collapse used to feed criminal activities, but with increased stability and application of the rule of law, organized groups have fewer incentives and opportunities to commit crimes (Leggett 2008). These developments led to an improved perception of overall security and encouraged the movement of ethnic minorities within Kosovo (“Digest” 2006). In 2004, while UNMIK was running to its fifth year, a major unrest swept the capital, Prishtina. It started with the shooting of a Serb teenager by Albanians on 15 March and the drowning of three Albanian children in the Ibar River the following day. The river separates the Serb-­dominated northern part of Mitrovica from the Albanian-­dominated part in the south. The Albanians poured onto the streets to protest the drowning incident, which soon erupted into riots participated by more than 50,000. The newly built security institutions failed to contain the riots and protect the people, leaving 8 Serbs and 11 Albanians dead and more than a thousand wounded, including 120 KFOR soldiers and CivPol officers and 58 local police officers (HRW 2004). Hundreds of buildings were destroyed or burned down, mostly houses belonging to Serbs, Roma, and Ashkali, and Serbian Orthodox churches and monasteries, displacing 4,100 non-­Albanians (ibid.). The incident exposed the international security forces’ weaknesses in conducting policing tasks (Bernabéu 2007). Human Rights Watch (HRW 2004) cited the lack of coordination among CivPol, KFOR, and Kosovo Police and their overlapping responsibilities as factors to their failure to produce an immediate and clear response to the initial violence (see also, Heinemann-­ Grüder and Grebenschikov 2006). KFOR was in the process of handing over some of its responsibilities to CivPol when the riots broke out. The incident put

84   Kosovo to the test the ability of international and local security forces to deter hostilities and protect ethnic minorities, and they failed. Human Rights Watch (HRW 2004) collected eyewitness accounts detailing how the security forces were outnumbered, and some of them refused to assist the Serbs who were under attack. Although the newly trained and under-­equipped local police officers quickly took on their role and worked professionally and courageously to protect and evacuate the Serb communities, there were also accounts of some police officers turning a blind eye towards the criminal acts committed by the Albanians against the Serbs. The riots magnified disputed queries regarding the post-­conflict rebuilding of security institutions. First, while the prevalent, albeit overstated, narrative about the cause of the riots was the seemingly irreconcilable ethnic hatred between Albanians and Serbs (Hehir 2006, 2010), a more profound reason was the systemic failures of the international administration, which fed the Albanians’ frustration expressed through violence. Instead of promoting multi-­ethnicity, the practice of ethnic categorization is counterproductive (Hehir 2006), and the same is true in bringing ethnic groups together under a unified security force. Although members of ethnic minorities received training and a recruitment quota was enacted, these measures failed to ease ethnic tensions. Good and competent Serb candidates who used to work for the former Yugoslavia were eliminated from the process because the atrocities and oppression against Albanians committed by the Serbian government were automatically associated with Serbs as a whole, according to Keith Carr, a former UNMIK CivPol officer (personal interview, 2013). He also said that some Serbs refused to cooperate with internationally-­ supported institutions dominated by Albanians, especially from the Kosovo Protection Corps/Kosovo Security Forces, which was largely a revamped version of the KLA. Second, it raised questions about how much time is needed to establish effective institutions and whether they presuppose stable negative peace. There are no definite answers to these questions, but they challenge the recommendation for a longer time frame for institutions to have a significant contribution to stability.5 The security institutions established in Kosovo failed to maintain stability and provide security during the riots even five years after the start of UNMIK’s mission. Perhaps more than time is the quality of local security forces, as well as the international peacekeeping and police forces who train them, that has more considerable influence in the (re)building of security institutions. John Duncanson who served in various capacities for UN CivPol in Kosovo observed how the UN was hiring international officers based on ranks without ensuring that they had the proper qualifications for the job (personal interview 2014). This observation also came out during my interviews in Cambodia and Timor-­Leste. The incident also exposed the institutional failure of the international security forces to adapt to the changing security perspective of the people—from military or physical security to socio-­economic security. Growing discontent among Albanians over their future in terms of employment and income fuelled the riots, in addition to the pending political status of Kosovo (personal interviews 2014). They had not seen improvements in their economic well-­being even years after

Kosovo   85 the arrival of the internationals. While the Serbs and other ethnic minorities remained worried about their physical security and saw the presence of KFOR as their defence from Albanian extremist aggression, most of the Albanian population felt insecure by limited economic opportunities (Welch 2006: 231). The riots in Kosovo validated Newman’s (2011: 1752) warning about the likelihood of members of the population, who feel that their basic needs are unmet, disrupting the peacebuilding process. The riots hastened UN-­facilitated talks between Kosovo and Serbia about the former’s status. UN Special Envoy Martti Ahtisaari proposed Kosovan independence subject to international supervision and fulfilment of Kosovo’s obligations pertaining to human rights, local self-­government and decentralization, religious and cultural heritage, economic and property issues, the security sector, the constitution and elections (S/2007/168/Add.1 2007). Belgrade, unsurprisingly, rejected the Ahtisaari Plan, and the Security Council was unable to adopt it because of Russia’s vetoing of any proposal unacceptable to Serbia. Russia vetoed against a new resolution to replace Resolution 1244. Instead, the Security Council called for another series of negotiations. As Albin Kurti (personal interview, 2014), a politician in Kosovo and leader and founding member of the political party Lëvizja Vetëvendosje! (Movement for Self-­Determination), describes it: Resolution 1244 manifests how the highest in the world decided about us. The entire world came here and yet we got isolated from the world. That was the world consensus; it was neither the will of the people nor the freedom of the country. It was the lowest common denominator. Kosovo welcomed the Ahtisaari Plan and unilaterally declared independence on 17 February 2008. The declaration proclaimed Kosovo as a democratic, secular, and multi-­ethnic republic. In 2010 the International Court of Justice (ICJ 2010) ruled that the declaration of independence did not violate international law or the Constitutional Framework UNMIK promulgated. UNMIK remains operational to this day but with reduced authority given the declaration of independence and the presence of EULEX. The EU, while maintaining its neutrality over Kosovo’s status, started the deployment of EULEX in December 2008 to facilitate the strengthening of the rule of law in Kosovo. It works to contribute to the maintenance of stability and to promote Kosovo’s accession to the EU (Council Joint Action 2008/124/CFSP 2008). Kosovo is now a member of the IMF and the World Bank and working towards EU membership. As of September 2018, 111 countries have recognized Kosovo’s independence, while some EU member states (Cyprus, Greece, Romania, Slovakia, and Spain) and other countries in the world (for example, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, India, Indonesia, and Mexico) have not done so. Security Council members are yet to make a unified decision on the matter of Kosovo’s independence.

86   Kosovo

Co-­opted peacebuilding Kosovo’s declaration of independence did not change the domestic players on the political field—the elite UNMIK partnered with. In establishing the security institution, UNMIK and KFOR had to work with those who might cultivate instability. Although UNMIK reached out to more moderate politicians such as Rugova in negotiating a 25 per cent quota for former policemen of the LDK, 40 per cent of the Kosovo Police officers were still former KLA combatants (Duclos 2016).6 As Wolfgram (2008) aptly put it, the West collaborated with the “men with guns” for the sake of “crude stability”. This exclusive involvement led to a narrow representation in and dented the demilitarization process. For example, at least 22,000–30,000 weapons were still unaccounted for by 2003 even after the KLA handed over a number of heavy weapons and small arms and efforts to curb the flow of arms into Kosovo (Khakee and Florquin 2003: 14). UNMIK had a mandate to demilitarize the KLA and other armed groups in Kosovo, and the KLA signed an agreement with NATO outlining the steps needed for the cessation of hostilities and phased demilitarization and transformation of the KLA (NATO 1999a). But a survey in 2006 revealed at least 317,000 firearms in the illegal possession of individual citizens and groups in Kosovo (SEESAC 2006b). The government has continued to discover, confiscate, and destroy small arms and rifles in recent years (Gashi and Musliu 2012; “Kosovo Turns Thousands” 2014). Kosovo has a history of gun culture. “An Albanian with a gun never fears anyone” is one of the many local proverbs elucidating the importance Albanians give to guns as a source of power, pride, and protection (SEESAC 2006a; ­Arsovska 2015: 220). The gun culture in Kosovo gained more appreciation after the KLA caught international attention through weapons, such that when the Kosovo Protection Corps absorbed the KLA members, it merely became a re-­ branded KLA because it carried the same structure and organization (Ker-­Lindsay 2012: 397). Side-­lining the military leadership of the KLA members who are considered heroes by the Albanian population would have created instability and incited hostility towards the international presence. Co-­opting the former KLA members into the newly built security institutions was a sound strategy for avoiding possible severe security consequences caused by KLA’s and their supporters’ discontent. This co-­option, however, bestowed the KLA the authority and legitimacy to continue bearing arms and allowed them to dominate the government, consequently hindering the democratization of Kosovo’s security sector. Co-­option in peacebuilding is the strategy of integrating non-­state armed actors into a post-­conflict political setting in the hope of aligning their attitudes and preferences with peacebuilding goals (Hofmann and Schneckener 2011). While it intends to build peace, critics argue that co-­option and its political motivations may reify, instead of resolving, the causes of conflict and prevent the transformation of local structures that have perpetuated conflict and inequality (Richmond and Franks 2009; Campbell 2011). Only after the 2004 riots when UNMIK started considering local ownership of the security sector. From

Kosovo   87 UNMIK’s standpoint, the security sector was successfully transferred to local actors by allowing the KLA leaders assume security responsibilities with less international control and fewer limitations than in the early days of UNMIK. The KLA dominated the security sector, with the blessing of UNMIK, while moderate non-­KLA voices and perspectives only had a peripheral influence on the process. The incorporation of other local perspectives into the development of the security sector was done to tick the boxes, remarked Abit Hoxha, a Kosovo security sector expert (personal interview, 2013). He said the approach was based on the preferences and priorities of internationals and the security-­ related civil society organizations were barely consulted when implementing the projects. The international actors employed these strategies to calm the KLA, once labelled as a terrorist group by the same international actors. Although Rugova’s LDK won the most votes during the first parliamentary elections in 2001, it was a narrow victory, and the percentage of the LDK’s representation has continued to reduce since then. The LDK had a major political presence in Kosovo, and Rugova served as the president of Kosovo until his death in 2006, but former KLA leaders also held and continue to hold important positions in the government. They have formed political parties and become presidents and prime ministers. Two of the current major parties in Kosovo, the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK for its Albanian abbreviation of Partia Demokratike e Kosovës) and the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK for its Albanian abbreviation of Aleanca për Ardhmërinë e Kosovës), came out of the demilitarized KLA. Agim Çeku, the KLA commander during the Kosovo War, has commanded the Kosovo Protection Corps, served as prime minister and is the current minister of security forces. With these political developments, it can be argued that the LDK’s influence throughout Rugova’s presidency might have been weaker than it seemed since it has formed coalitions with other political parties that branched out of the KLA—the AAK in 2004 and the PDK in 2010— and sat alongside prime ministers who were former KLA members. A new political party called the Social Democratic Initiative (or simply called NISMA for its Albanian translation NISMA Social Demokrate, also formerly Initiative for  Kosovo), led by former KLA commander Fatmir Limaj, who was indicted for war crimes and later acquitted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), has now joined the PDK and the AAK. These three political parties have formed a political alliance under the PANA Coalition to challenge the moderate coalition headed by the LDK. The PANA Coalition won the most votes in the 2017 parliamentary elections. The co-­option of KLA members has serious consequences on the pursuit of justice in Kosovo. Like in Cambodia, the selection of suspects for trials in Kosovo is highly politicized. The only difference is that the ICTY has conducted trials of high-­level politicians in Kosovo, while the Khmer Rouge Tribunal in Cambodia has not attempted to try suspected war criminals from the current ruling party. The UN established the ICTY in 1993 to deal with war crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s conflicts. This difference can be considered progress regarding transitional justice in peacebuilding. However,

88   Kosovo UNMIK decided to support the politicians the ICTY indicted and provided them with protection during the trials on the basis that the ICTY’s pursuit of criminal justice could hurt UNMIK’s goal of keeping stability (Lyck 2007). The conflicting approaches of the ICTY and UNMIK are a controversial limitation in pursuing justice in post-­war Kosovo with far-­reaching impact. In 2005, at the height of talks about Kosovo’s final status, the ICTY indicted Ramush Haradinaj for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Haradinaj, a former KLA member and the prime minister of Kosovo at that time, stepped down and submitted himself to custody. Risks of violence and popular unrest intensified among Albanians who consider Haradinaj a war hero (Limani et al. 2005). Despite international intelligence reports of Haradinaj’s responsibility for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and organized crime, UNMIK protected and supported him and emphasized his contribution to the peacebuilding process, specifically in fulfilling the conditions for Kosovo’s final status (“UN Administrator Urges” 2005). In 2006 the ICTY reported to the UN Security Council how the unsatisfactory cooperation of UNMIK during Haradinaj’s indictment discouraged potential witnesses for the case. UNMIK’s negligent handling of witnesses led to a loss of confidence in the system’s ability to protect them. The ICTY also expressed dissatisfaction with UNMIK’s deliberate obstruction of access to relevant documents (S/2006/353 2006). Since both UNMIK and the ICTY are multinational administrations authorized by the Security Council, methods of bringing about compliance traditionally applied to member states were inapplicable and ineffective (Lamont 2010). Haradinaj is only one of several former KLA members who have faced allegations of and been indicted for war crimes, and the ICTY repeatedly raised issues of non-­compliance and non-­cooperation on the part of UNMIK during these indictments (ICTY 2003). Haradinaj was acquitted in 2008, but a retrial was passed, and in May 2012 he was acquitted of all counts of the indictment (ICTY 2012). Haradinaj is the current leader of the AAK and prime minister of Kosovo. Another prominent ex-­KLA political figure associated with war crimes is Hashim Thaçi, the current president and former prime minister of Kosovo. He has denied the Council of Europe (CoE) allegations about his involvement in the organized crime of trafficking organs, weapons, and drugs during the Kosovo War (Marty 2011). The CoE (ibid.: 14) report describes Thaçi as: the renowned political operator and perhaps most internationally recognised personality of the KLA … undoubtedly owed his personal elevation to having secured political and diplomatic endorsement from the United States and other western powers, as the preferred domestic partner in their foreign policy project in Kosovo. This form of political support bestowed upon Thaçi, not least in his own mind, a sense of being ‘untouchable’ and an unparalleled viability as Kosovo’s post-­war leader-­in-waiting. The chief prosecutor of the EU’s Special Investigative Task Force (SITF ), tasked to investigate the CoE’s allegations and other war crimes and organized

Kosovo   89 crimes in Kosovo during the war, has warned that Thaçi’s position as president of Kosovo would not make him immune to prosecution (Collaku 2016). In 2015 the Kosovar authorities and the EU agreed to establish the Kosovo Specialist Chambers and Specialist Prosecutor’s Office to carry out the judicial proceedings of the allegations (Republic of Kosovo 2015). The Specialist Chambers, seated in The Hague, is an ad hoc court attached to the court system of Kosovo and follows both domestic laws and customary international law and international human rights law. It is mandated to adjudicate individual criminal responsibility committed between 1 January 1998 and 31 December 2000. In a public perception survey conducted in 2017, 76.4 per cent of ethnic Albanian respondents view the Specialist Chambers’ prosecution of war crimes and crimes against humanity associated with the KLA as unfair (Warren et al. 2017). The same survey reveals that 51 per cent of ethnic Albanian respondents are willing to protest if former KLA members are indicted and 36 per cent willing to act to prevent the prosecution of former KLA members. The negative peace/ security-­versus-justice dilemma UNMIK faced during its earlier years lingers to this day. UNMIK’s priority was the maintenance of stability in Kosovo especially after the 2004 riots and amid the ongoing talks on Kosovo’s future status. It successfully preserved stability by partnering with and protecting former KLA members. However, UNMIK also traded the liberal basis of its mandate by failing to comply with international law, uphold human rights, and promote democratic institutional processes. The co-­option of the KLA seeped into Kosovo’s governance and consequently slowed down the democratization of state institutions. Instituting a judicial mechanism for political leverage undermines the mechanism’s credibility and weakens public confidence in the rule of law, which may continue after the internationals leave. Former KLA members continue to have significant social legitimacy and political influence in Kosovo today. Florina Duli, former political advisor to Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-­General (SRSG) of UNMIK, articulates the illiberal origins of Kosovo’s current political configuration: “UNMIK gave legitimacy to those politicians because they treated them as their counterparts and gave them visibility, but these are the elite who established networks of organized crimes; my hope is for a change in the political elite” (personal interview, 2014).

Trial without justice Co-­opting the KLA led to short-­term stability, at least until the 2004 riots. At the same time, it also contributed to a sense of insecurity among ethnic minorities, especially the Serbs (Lorenz 2000). The Serbian state’s prejudices towards Albanians backlashed against Serbs in Kosovo after NATO intervened (Beurmann 2008). With institutions staffed with former KLA members, hatred and revenge against ethnic Serbs persisted, and human rights violations against them and other ethnic minorities were sometimes underprioritized. In 2008 Human Rights Watch identified the protection of minorities from violence and their poor living conditions as the most pressing human rights issues in Kosovo (HRW 2008).

90   Kosovo The low number of minority group returns was a grave concern, and the aftermath of the 2004 riots saw large-­scale human rights deprivations against non-­ Albanians with regard to life, physical integrity, and property (Friedrich 2005). Discrimination, as well as poverty, social deprivation, and political instability, discouraged the return of displaced ethnic minorities (Troszczynska-­van Genderen 2010). Hundreds of thousands of minority group members are still in protracted displacement situations within Kosovo and Serbia, with limited available processes and assistance for them to return and enjoy full human rights (Derks-­ Normandin 2014). The overall security situation in Kosovo has improved, but the local perception of security was varied. A UNDP survey conducted in 2013 in Kosovo reported 62 per cent of Albanians generally satisfied with Kosovo’s security institutions and generally felt safe to travel, even in Serb-­majority municipalities, except for Mitrovica, while only 16 per cent of Serbs expressed satisfaction with the security institutions (Hetemi et al. 2013). Serbs generally felt safe travelling except in areas heavily affected by the 1999 conflict but were hesitant to use Kosovo’s public transportation. The other ethnic minorities did not report serious security concerns except for some living in Mitrovica because of the municipality’s overall tense security situation (ECMI Kosovo 2013). Violent incidents occasionally occurred between Albanians and Serbs, particularly in Mitrovica. The improved security situation did not apply to all ethnic groups and all locations. As Gazmen Salijević (personal interview, 2014), project officer at the European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI) Kosovo, described in 2014: You can now see Serbs walking around and buying from Albanian markets, and people speaking Serbian. They have crossed that area of trust, but there are still some places in Kosovo, in small towns and villages, where you need to be careful. Here in Prishtina, it is okay, but I will not speak Serbian in the Gjakova and Drenica regions where our [former] prime minister [Thaçi] is from. The government needs to emphasize trust-­building and reconciliation. (Personal interview, 2014) Insecurity and discrimination also seeped into institutions of justice. The Kosovo War left behind a judicial system in ruins and a society with a weak rule of law. Most of the Serb lawyers who served in the former Yugoslavia had fled, refused to cooperate with UNMIK, or were viewed by the Albanian population as unacceptable for the role (OSCE 1999b). Also, Albanian lawyers had not yet returned or been identified at the start of UNMIK’s mission, and some were inexperienced as Serbia had previously forced them out of the judicial institutions (KCSS 2011). Pillar III of UNMIK, led by the OSCE, was mandated to ensure independence, impartiality, and accountability of Kosovo’s justice system, particularly in cases involving ethnic, gender, and community discrimination, through monitoring, reporting, and assisting in implementing legislation in accordance with the rule of law standards (OSCE 1999a). UNMIK established a hybrid justice system comprised of international and national judges and

Kosovo   91 p­ rosecutors, with domestic courts applying municipal laws with respect to international human rights law, investigating violations of international law, prosecuting those responsible, providing reparations to victims, and restoring the rule of law (UNMIK/REG/2000/6 2000; UNMIK/REG/2000/64 2000; UNMIK/ REG/2001/8 2001). By prosecuting lower profile offenders, the system complements the work of the ICTY. Following Kosovo’s declaration of independence, UNMIK and the OSCE handed the bulk of their functions related to the operation and development of the judiciary to EULEX. EULEX dealt with the then ongoing cases related to war crimes, terrorism, organized crime and high-­level corruption, and other serious crimes. It had executive powers to investigate and prosecute serious and sensitive crimes. EULEX judges and prosecutors are embedded in Kosovo institutions and serve in accordance with Kosovo law, and the panels consist of a majority of international judges. The mandate of EULEX was extended in 2010 and again in 2012 to reflect the downsizing of its staff and restructuring of its divisions (Council Decision 2010/322/CFSP; Council Decision 2012/291/CFSP). The plan is to hand over gradually its competencies to Kosovo’s judicial system. After two more extensions (Council Decision 2014/349/CFSP 2014; Council Decision 2016/947/CFSP 2016), in 2018, EULEX’s mandate was again extended until June 2020 but with a more limited executive role as Kosovo assumed executive responsibility for all investigations, prosecutions, and trials (Council Decision (CFSP) 2018/856 2018). EULEX’s role focuses now on monitoring and operational support. International administrations, such as UNMIK, face a dilemma when confronted with the complex challenges of post-­conflict peacebuilding: how to establish peace and security and pursue justice according to international standards and obligations while respecting local aspirations and ensuring local involvement in the process? UNMIK’s incorporation of local lawyers and judges early on is commendable, but it also exemplifies the drawbacks of local involvement. The locals were not technically and emotionally qualified to fulfil their duties without biases, specifically ethnic biases. According to Betts et al. (2001: 384), UNMIK could have first identified and trained local personnel, while competent internationals delivered judicial responsibilities, before integrating them into the courts. These drawbacks resulted in courts becoming venues for revenge. A legal system monitor observed that during the early years of UNMIK some local lawyers and judges were not intentionally biased but their decisions were tainted by emotions (personal interview, 2013). He also added that there was a simplification of proceedings—Albanians versus Serbs—which became a pattern that influenced the collection and use of evidence. The personal and emotional biases of local lawyers and judges and their insufficient experience in using forensic evidence resulted in prejudiced decisions. He recounted the following: There were serious cases of misconduct like releasing a defendant who was charged with the murder of four or five Serbs. There were eyewitnesses and sufficient evidence against him, but he was released after a very hasty

92   Kosovo proceeding by a judge who was obviously acting biasedly and breaking the procedures. It was a decision made by two panel members instead of three. They were in such a hurry to release this person who was a senior KLA fighter. In one of his dealings with families of defendants, he recalled a striking incident mirroring the bias of the system: It was from one of these groups of Serbs who was detained in the very last few days of the fighting when the [US soldiers] had already moved in to [Kosovo]. Obviously, [these Serbs] had not been killing anyone. There were Albanians who were killed on the streets, but it turned out that they were killed by the [US soldiers]. But the [legal] machinery was prosecuting them because they were Serbs. There was a false assumption within UNMIK that the violation of human rights would stop alongside the expulsion of the Yugoslav forces. “They failed to understand that many Albanians did not object to atrocities committed against ethnic Serbs in a historical culture of centuries of revenge”, said Nora Ahmetaj, executive director of the Centre for Research, Documentation and Publication, an NGO in Kosovo advocating for transitional justice (personal interview, 2014). She believes that those who served in the system under the former Yugoslavia are not necessarily against Albanians. Furthermore, as discussed earlier, since the conflict and Serbian oppression were still fresh in the minds of the people especially during the first few years of UNMIK, the Albanian judges were always biased against ethnic Serbs. As a consequence, court decisions were always discriminatory against the Serbs and other ethnic minorities, and Albanian suspects were often released while Serbs committing similar offences were detained (Hartmann 2003). Revenge was manifested in the re-­establishment of Kosovo’s institutions, including the judicial system (Carolan 2008). Simply staffing the tribunals with local judges and local lawyers without certifying their competencies is a type of local involvement that is not substantive because it does not enable or empower the local counterparts to promote the agenda of a liberal justice system—human rights and good governance. It was a superficial or token involvement done to create a façade of ownership. According to Perriello and Wierda (2006), local counterparts were not involved in the design and implementation of the programmes related to the development of the judiciary. They added how the international presence, while filling the shortcomings of Kosovo’s judicial system, unintentionally impeded the development of long-­term confidence in the domestic legal system. This lack of confidence was partly caused by the internationals’ failure to impart knowledge, particularly on human rights law, relevant to the development of domestic law (Cerone and Baldwin 2004). As a result, the judgements of the courts were often “characterised by brevity (the average length of decisions was three to four pages), poor legal reasoning, absence of citations to legal authority, and lack of interpretation

Kosovo   93 concerning the applicable law on war crimes and human rights issues” (OSCE Mission in Kosovo 2002: 48). A critical issue related to the lack of confidence in the judicial system is the ineffective witness protection programme despite UNMIK’s regulation on the protection of witnesses. According to Ahmetaj, those who testified in the courts received threats or were bribed (personal interview, 2014). She said, when a witness testified against a former KLA member, the community would say, “no, he is a commander; he would not have done that”. It is the community itself rejecting the values of justice, Ahmetaj added. UNMIK and OSCE were aware of the problem as potential witnesses against the KLA have later changed their testimonies, become unwilling to testify, or worst, have been shot dead (Qirezi 2005; OSCE Mission in Kosovo 2007). Witnesses felt vulnerable because those who held power in institutions that should protect them were the ones they were testifying against. This issue also confronts the new Specialist Chambers today (Haxhiaj 2017; Higgins and Hopkins 2018). It is a spillover from UNMIK’s decision to share power with the KLA. Ethnic communities perceive the history of Kosovo’s conflict differently, and to echo Burema’s (2012: 17) warning, “if the past remains divided there is little hope of building a shared future”. The contrariety in narratives between Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo indicates the necessity for community-­level reconciliation and truth-­seeking mechanisms. Kosovo faces issues overridden by ethnic tensions and therefore requires institutions and approaches that celebrate, instead of fixing, its multi-­ethnicity. The role of the international community is crucial in encouraging and supporting truth and reconciliation efforts (Sverrisson 2006). However, Albanian elites are the internationally ordained local counterparts and thus dominate the peacebuilding process, while Serbs and other ethnic minorities are disenfranchised. It may be unintentional but, as Franks and Richmond claim (2008: 98–9), “the internationals have become complicit in building a majoritarian and ethnicized peace” in Kosovo. UNMIK’s ethnic categorization of Kosovo’s citizens, in addition to its shortcomings in providing security and resolving Kosovo’s status, fed ethnic violence, argues Hehir (2006). The frameworks applied and institutions built in Kosovo endorsed by the internationals have perpetuated ethnic tensions and, consequently, eclipsed the prospects for reconciliation. The exclusive local involvement in flawed judicial institutions undermined the liberal rhetoric of the international community regarding respect for international law and the promotion of human rights. International and local elite weakly pursued justice and reconciliation in Kosovo. UNMIK’s incorporation of local actors into the rebuilding of the judicial system resulted in a biased delivery of justice in which other ethnic groups are marginalized. Moreover, while the history of ethnic division hampers reconciliation, it is the internationals’ reinforcement of these divided ethnic narratives, specifically their politicization of justice and their narrow and outdated interpretation of Kosovo’s society, that allows this division to persist. The traditional form of justice in Kosovo internationals often cite as the reason why implementing liberal justice is difficult is the Kanun of Lekë

94   Kosovo ­ ukagjini. The kanun is a body of traditional Albanian customary law governing D the social norms and conventions of Albanian life (Tarifa 2008).7 It is largely interpreted as “blood for blood” or blood feuds. During the time of communist rule in Albania from 1944 to 1991, the kanun was outlawed, and the number of revenge killings decreased (Sadiku 2014: 89). With the decline of communism in Albania and a weak rule of law in Kosovo during the war, blood feuds resurfaced and the kanun was often modified and reinterpreted in more violent and exaggerated ways (Littlewood 2002: 90; Arsovska and Craig 2006: 236). The kanun is a unique Albanian expression of morality based on justice, honour, and respect but its interpretation often stifled its emphasis on mediation, pardoning, and reconciliation. In fact, it specifies how a killing can be paid for either by blood or through mediation and pardoning (Valiñas and Arsovska 2012: 190). Recent news cited informal applications of the kanun, fuelling cycles of violence and obstructing reconciliation (Morina 2016b; Kakissis 2018). The kanun has provided a local version of law and order in distant past, but members of the younger generation have not even read it (Janssens 2015) while “most urbanites and educated people would prefer [the kanun] consigned to the history books because it points to the failure of Kosovo to make a modern state” (Judah 2008: 29). Some Albanians I talked to in Kosovo believe that nobody practices the kanun anymore. Much like ‘ethnic hatred’, the kanun seems to have become a convenient scapegoat for the inability of internationals and their local elite counterparts to install justice, human rights, and the rule of law. Animosity and prejudices persist in Kosovo today although to a lesser degree. For example, some of the Albanians I met in Kosovo associated criminality with Serbs and a lack of discipline with the Roma. On the other hand, there are positive signs that may eventually quell these damaging narratives. When I was visiting Prizren, a city in the south of Kosovo with a long history of ethnic integration, Musa Vezgishi, the founder of the Peace and Human Rights Council, a local NGO established to support reconciliation and integration processes, pointed out to me the Serbs who were freely walking the streets. Although this observation is far from being a manifestation of wide-­ranging ethnic integration, this is a noteworthy difference compared to the situation in Mitrovica, where car owners remove their Kosovar government-­issued plate numbers before they drive across the border to the northern side, and Serbs remain cautious when crossing the border to the Albanian side.8 The history of ethnic diversity and harmony in Prizren challenges recent policy frameworks for decentralization, which include establishing autonomous municipalities dedicated to Serb ethnic communities (Republic of Kosovo 2008). According to McKinna (2012), international organizations and the government of Kosovo should be aware that while the decentralization policy denotes a determined aspiration towards multi-­ ethnicity, policies prioritizing stability and separation over multi-­ethnicity will only result in greater isolation of ethnic groups from each other. Policies such as this must be carefully considered in the context of Kosovo since decentralization, which is seen to be a bottom-­up approach, is often peddled as a strategy for conflict resolution and peacebuilding (see also, Kälin 2004; Brancati 2006;

Kosovo   95 World Bank 2011). Instead of a multi-­ethnic state, there is a potential for Kosovo to head towards becoming a territory of ethnically homogenous enclaves (McKinna 2012). Although improvements are still needed in the areas of education, health, and employment, Prizren is an outstanding example and inspiration for the rest of Kosovo about the possibility of a multi-­ethnic society with law and order and human rights protection for all.

Lopsided development Much like the security and justice components of peacebuilding in Kosovo, economic reconstruction has also been tainted with ethnic tensions and hedged by the status talks. Kosovo was one of the poorest regions and, because of the short but devastating Kosovo War, it remained poorer than the other former Yugoslav republics. In 1999 it had the lowest GDP per capita of US$816 (World Bank 2018). Economic surveys of available data before 1999 revealed Kosovo’s generally isolated economy with its trading output coming mainly from the rest of Yugoslavia (“Yugoslavia: Kosovo Economy” 1998). Due to insufficient economic opportunities in the official economy and public sectors, Kosovo’s black market became as large as its official economy, supported considerably by financial inflows from abroad, mostly from migrant workers’ remittances. The war took a heavy toll on Kosovo’s already weak and self-­insufficient economy, further damaging agriculture, industries, housing, and human capital. Agricultural land was left idle, and the industrial and manufacturing sectors stopped production such that, when UNMIK arrived, economic activity was based largely on trading scarce goods at high prices (S/1999/779 1999). Mining and agriculture have been vital industries for Kosovo since ancient times. Fifty-­three per cent of Kosovo’s area is agricultural land. Kosovo has mineral deposits of lignite, lead, zinc, silver, and copper. Lignite or brown coal, in particular, contributed to 97 per cent of Kosovo’s electricity in 2005 (Republic of Kosovo 2012). The Trepça Mines in Mitrovica was a socially-­owned enterprise (SOE), which used to provide 70 per cent of all Yugoslavia’s mineral wealth and employ 20,000 workers. It was once the most profitable corporation in Kosovo and one of the biggest companies in Yugoslavia. However, the mines did not benefit Kosovo as much as the other Yugoslav republics. The mines became a subject of anti-­Serbian and pro-­Kosovar autonomy protests in the 1980s for the Albanian nationalist movement, which demanded an explanation for Kosovo’s economic lagging behind the rest of Yugoslavia (Vukovic and Weinstein 2002). UNMIK’s development mandate aimed to stabilize Kosovo’s macroeconomic conditions, provide basic public utilities and services, and lay the foundations for private sector-­led recovery and long-­term growth (Mitra 2001). UNMIK’s Pillar IV (Reconstruction and Economic Development) under the EU was responsible for fulfilling this mandate. This development mandate was rooted in the ideals of a liberal economy as it promoted sustainable development of a market economy and regional integration through free trade agreements.

96   Kosovo UNMIK established economic institutions to serve as foundations for enabling Kosovo’s economic activities. It successfully transferred some competencies on formulating and implementing economic policies to the provisional government and established the Central Fiscal Authority to manage the Kosovo Consolidated Budget, including tax collection and domestic revenue administration (Naegele 2010: 202–4). UNMIK also acted as the intermediary between Kosovo’s institutions and other international and regional economic institutions to promote Kosovo’s integration into economic arrangements, such as the free trade agreement with Albania and the Central European Free Trade Agreement. The consolidated budget, foreign donations, and economic agreements helped fund the rehabilitation and reconstruction of Kosovo’s public utilities and the provision of basic services (ibid.: 205). However, the political uncertainty over Kosovo’s future status excluded Kosovo from regional initiatives and stalled legislation for economic development, such as the restructuring of the SOEs, thus discouraging foreign investors (Perritt Jr. 2004: 261–2). UNMIK’s presence provided opportunities for the people to re-­engage in economic activities (Sanjeev Mishra, a former UNMIK civil affairs officer in charge of finance, budgeting, and economic development in the province of Peja, personal interview, 2013). However, most of the population did not benefit from the modest improvement of Kosovo’s economy. Inequality between the rich and the poor and the urban and the rural populations was increasing. Kurti explained that only those who already had an economic advantage were able to enjoy the benefits of the international presence in Kosovo (personal interview, 2014). For example, UNMIK employed locals, rented houses, and patronized businesses belonging to higher income households. Kurti also added how the nature of UNMIK’s mission failed to move beyond the prioritization of stability and security instead of shifting its attention towards economic progress as demanded by the people. The World Bank reported in 2007 the overall economic stagnation in Kosovo due to of a lack of progress in living standards (Bellaa et al. 2007). Kosovo was still fraught with poverty and unemployment from 1999 to 2008 despite international assistance. As mentioned earlier, most of the interview participants believe that economic discontent contributed to the 2004 riots as the majority of the population did not see significant improvement in their lives. In 2004 43.7 per cent of the population lived below the national poverty line, and unemployment was at 39.7 per cent (ibid.). In 2005 the poverty incidence in Mitrovica was the highest of all the regions; from 2004 to 2005, poverty incidences for Serbs more than doubled and were higher than Albanians (ibid.). Other ethnic minority groups also experienced higher incidences of poverty than ethnic Albanians and the national rate. The animosity between Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo intensified economic disparity as the former sought “redress in the form of economic parity” while the latter continued to perceive discrimination “despite having more favourable characteristics and returns”, claim Bhaumik et al. (2006: 771–2). Inequality was more than just an economic perception at that time as the actual provision of basic services was laden with ethnic tensions. Inequality among ethnic groups is

Kosovo   97 most glaring in the health sector. During the emergency humanitarian phase, the World Health Organization (WHO), together with donors, coordinated with international agencies and local authorities to reform the health sector (UN Kosovo Team 2012). A UN staff and a local counterpart jointly administered the Department of Health and Social Welfare, the predecessor to the current Ministry of Health. After the consolidation of the provisional government, a local minister and a permanent secretary started managing the health sector with the monitoring and advice of a chief counsellor from UNMIK (Mustafa et al. 2014). The WHO then shifted back to its traditional role of advising local health authorities while continuing to address requests for emergency health interventions (UN Kosovo Team 2012). The reorganization of the healthcare system in Kosovo and the reforms pushed forward by the international community right after the conflict encouraged the establishment of health institutions and frameworks for healthcare provisions that are now integrated into the current structure of the government (Mustafa et al. 2014). One element left out through the reforms in the health sector was the ethnic factor, which has also influenced the other peacebuilding components as discussed earlier. The dominance of the Albanian political elites in state administration overlooked the ethnic dimension of the healthcare system. The following statements are based on Bloom and his colleagues’ (2006) analysis of the consequences of the failure to incorporate the inter-­ethnic issues in the healthcare system due to the hasty handover of healthcare responsibilities from the international to local authorities. The potential for post-­conflict inter-­ethnic retaliatory violence and resistance to non-­Serbian authorities discouraged ethnic Serbs from getting involved in the reconstruction process, including in the health sector. When Albanians took over the administration, Serbs and other ethnic minority groups began feeling unsafe after reports of abuse and harassment in several healthcare institutions ran by Albanians. Other ethnic minority groups, such as the Roma, Ashkali and Egyptians, preferred to seek service from Serbian-­controlled healthcare facilities. In contrast, the Bosniaks, Croats, and Goranis had integrated into the post-­conflict healthcare system. And again, the politicians’ preoccupation with the negotiations about the future status of Kosovo slowed down the development and implementation of policies that ensure healthcare for everyone. To address these ethnic issues, the government passed the Law on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Communities and their Members in Kosovo in 2008. It comprises provisions for ethnic minorities to have equal political, economic, and social rights, including access to basic healthcare (Republic of Kosovo 2008: Art 10). The government also developed guidelines for health reform in order to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). It passed the Law on Health Insurance in 2014 to serve as the legal basis and framework for a mandatory health insurance scheme funded through general tax contributions and mandatory insurance premiums (Republic of Kosovo 2014). The implementation of these policies relies on sufficient funding, but the health sector is underprioritized and underfunded. In 2015 the World Bank reported

98   Kosovo slow reform and modernization of the health sector in Kosovo and poor health sector indicators (World Bank 2015: 8). UNMIK, together with other international agencies such as the WHO and the World Bank, was able to channel funds and put in place a policy framework for long-­term reform and development of the health sector. However, issues of authority, mandate, and leadership hampered the advancement of these initiatives (Shuey et al. 2003). The transfer of responsibilities from international to local authorities, although quick and smooth, neglected the prevailing inter-­ethnic issues. While it is commendable to hand over responsibilities to local authorities and agencies as soon as possible, insufficient and hasty preparation can also undermine the potential for reconstructing systems and institutions that can provide equal access to basic services. This shortcoming has resulted in a lopsided development favouring those who are affiliated with the new local authorities while marginalizing those who are not. After more than a decade, Kosovo’s economy has not fully recovered from the devastations of the war. Kosovo is still one of the poorest countries/­territories in Europe with 17.6 per cent of the population living below the poverty line of €1.82 per day and 5.2 per cent living in extreme poverty of only €1.30 per day (World Bank and Kosovo Agency of Statistics 2017). High levels of poverty, inequality, and unemployment accompany Kosovo’s modest GDP growth rate (Cipollone et al. 2018). Remittances from the diaspora serve as the backbone of Kosovo’s economy, which have helped to keep the economy afloat amid recessions, in addition to foreign aid and domestic spending by international staff (Elezaj et al. 2016). Although the employment rate has modestly improved, it remains high at 32.9 per cent as of August 2018, pushing jobseekers to migrate. Unemployment rates are also significantly higher for ethnic minorities, specifically the Roma (60.22 per cent), Ashkali (60.46 per cent), and Egyptians (80 per cent) (UNDP 2012). “We are unemployed because of our ethnicity; no one wants to hire Roma”, Ganish Gashi tells reporter Morgan Meaker (2018). Sentiments like Gashi’s should urge the Kosovar authorities, as well as international organizations that are supporting them, to address the age-­old issue of ethnic discrimination in Kosovo. It also reminds peacebuilders of the unintended consequences of exclusive involvement of a majority group in a multi-­ethnic society with a history of ethnic conflict.

Declining legitimacy It has been two decades since UNMIK first stepped into Kosovo. UNMIK’s role and legitimacy have transformed over the years. One of the most common themes coming out of my interviews was how UNMIK exercised authoritarian powers in order to keep a short-­term stability. The SRSG had the “maximum civilian and executive powers envisaged and vested in him by the … Resolution 1244 and the final authority in their interpretation” (S/1999/779 1999: para 44). As the executive, legislative, and judicial authority in Kosovo, he had the right to veto any decision taken by UNMIK and within Kosovo as long as it was in

Kosovo   99 accordance with applicable laws and regulations (UNMIK/REG/1999/1 1999). Up until 2008, the SRSG remained the final decision-­making authority in Kosovo despite the establishment of the provisional government and the adoption of the Constitutional Framework. Some also viewed UNMIK’s approach as authoritarian in the sense that it failed to engage with the civil society in Kosovo and narrowed its consultation to its chosen local actors. They described UNMIK’s presence as postcolonial with a very closed system of governance. A top-­level UNMIK official confirmed instances when UNMIK was not consultative in the past (personal interview, 2014). He gave the example of a former SRSG who dismissed the views of civil society. The SRSG was cautious in allowing the involvement of personalities he judged as incompetent in public service and civil society members he felt were not critically constructive. The civil society perceived this approach as heavy-­handed, but the UNMIK official believes that the problem might have been the way the SRSG conveyed his decision to the public instead of his intention. However, UNMIK did not apply this selective measure to the political elite. UNMIK did involve the local actors in Kosovo. When UNMIK arrived, it immediately incorporated local counterparts into the planning of Kosovo’s transition, recalled Sabri Kiçmari, who used to be the minister for local governance under the provisional government and political advisor for foreign policy (personal interview, 2013). Alexander Borg-­Olivier, the chief legal advisor of UNMIK from 2000 to 2008, described how UN officials visited cities and towns to identify individuals who would serve as local counterparts (personal interview, 2014). They went to municipalities, gathered information from the communities, appointed an international to serve as mayor of the town, and appointed a local counterpart whom the community respects. They employed a co-­ leadership arrangement between the international and the local authorities until UNMIK was able to identify the real representatives of the people. Borg-­Olivier was also responsible for developing the legislative framework for the government of Kosovo. He said, proposals and ideas from the political parties, even from Serbs who came to the first meeting but did not attend the subsequent ones, were invited to ensure that their interests were covered in a “balanced framework that gives full protection and safeguards all the communities” (Borg-­ Olivier, personal interview, 2014). It cannot be denied that UNMIK was able to establish strong relationships between international and local actors in planning the government’s structure. However, further questions are: who were these locals; what did they represent; and how were they involved? UNMIK’s consultation with locals was exclusive to those capable of keeping or stirring the stability—the KLA—who are now prominent civilians in the political landscape even though they were combatants during the war. UNMIK’s involvement of local actors was also exclusive to those educated abroad and with privileged social status (personal interviews, 2014). Ergo, there was no inclusive bottom-­up consultation or grassroots participation. In cases when UNMIK consulted with civil society, opinions that were not complementary to their plan were not taken into consideration, according to Ariana Qosaj-­Mustafa, a senior

100   Kosovo researcher in a think-­tank organization working for the promotion of democracy and democratic values in Kosovo (personal interview, 2014). Gëzim Visoka, a scholar of peace and conflict studies who served as a senior political advisor to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kosovo and published extensively about Kosovo’s peacebuilding, concurred how UNMIK solicited grassroots perspectives by arranging consultations and roundtable discussions but without significant impact on UNMIK’s decisions (personal interview, 2014). Similarly, Kurti described the consultation and dialogues as superficial acts occurring only between internationals and local elites who were more concerned with fulfilling imposed international criteria than with asking what the people needed (personal interview, 2014). He implied in the following statements the intentional disqualification of the people who were not internationally acknowledged as citizens of a sovereign state. “Once you ask someone what he wants, you turn him into a subject, a citizen. We were considered inhabitants of Kosovo whose status was still unresolved. We were dwellers in our country and not citizens of our republic” (Kurti, personal interview, 2014). Flawed local involvement in Kosovo eroded civil society’s trust in the international and local authorities, according to Duli, also a former member of a civil society movement that voiced concerns regarding representation in the government (personal interview, 2014). She gave the example of the OSCE sidestepping its mandate of strengthening and diversifying the civil society in Kosovo. In drafting the electoral legislation, which is the basis of liberal democracy, the OSCE set up a system with only one constituency, which failed to give geographical representation in the composition of the parliament. Instead of ethnic identity as primary political categories, geographical representation would have been an alternative democratic means to ensure participation of ethnic minorities (Hehir 2006: 207). Duli believes that the OSCE opted for this system out of convenience instead of genuine local involvement (personal interview, 2014). They recommended six electoral zones for equal representation, but the OSCE ignored their recommendation. “There was no dialogue, not even one meeting, to say at least that they were sorry and that they did not want to listen to us”, she said. As a result, politicians from the same geographical area occupied the majority of government positions after the first national elections in 2001. Alongside UNMIK’s flawed local involvement was a short-­sighted implementation of its mandates. One example of this is manifested in the return of refugees through property restitution. A personal interview with David Chillaron-­Cortizo (2013), a former lawyer for the Housing and Property Directorate (HPD) from 2001 to 2007,9 revealed that while the goal of property restitution was achieved with 99.8 per cent of the claims implemented, the return of refugees did not happen. He said: Carrying out an eviction was only the first step, and the second step was the return [of the refugees]. Did return happen? [The answer is] no. It is like saying we are very good at surgery but saving the life of the patient is a different matter.

Kosovo   101 Albanians who had a more sympathetic assessment of UNMIK pointed out the local misperception of the nature of UNMIK’s mission. UNMIK was limited by its mandate because of the political realities regarding Kosovo’s status, while the people of Kosovo had high expectations of UNMIK. “[The Albanians’] plan was to build an independent Kosovo, but that was not the UN’s mandate, which was to manage the security situation and [to prevent a return] to war” (Kiçmari, personal interview, 2013). For example, UNMIK’s role was not to create jobs, but when the people found themselves without jobs, they blamed the international presence and expressed their discontent through violence (staff at the OSCE Mission in Kosovo, personal interviews, 2014). UNMIK failed to solve the deep-­seated causes of conflict because it was not mandated to do so in the first place. UNMIK bartered the ideals of liberal peacebuilding for stability. As one former UNMIK official said, “the Western world traded off democracy for the price of stability” (personal interview, 2014). UNMIK may have been successful in maintaining stability, but its preoccupation with stability prevented it from adapting to the changing security situation of Kosovo. Florian Qehaja (personal interview, 2014), the executive director of the Kosovar Centre for Security Studies (KCSS), a think-­tank organization focusing on security sector reform, explains below the changing security landscape of Kosovo and why the UN did not adapt to it: The UN is only open to discussions about building up security institutions if it serves the interest of preserving an ‘exaggerated stability’. [While it is true that] the primary mandate of UNMIK through Resolution 1244 is to preserve peace and security, the region has changed now. There is no more interest in conflict and war, at least from this point, and there is no indication of that. Somehow, the tendency of keeping all the discourses about preserving peace and stability is outdated. You really cannot talk with the Kosovars now about preserving the overall stability in the region in the same way as back in 1999 because things have already drastically changed. The virtue of neutrality also distanced the UN and other international organizations from the present undertakings of Kosovo. The mechanisms of UNMIK are linked to Resolution 1244, which emphasizes neutrality over Kosovo’s status. The international organizations involved in the transition took on this position of neutrality after Kosovo declared independence. The OSCE, for example, does not have the mandate to give a position regarding the declaration of independence (staff at the OSCE Mission in Kosovo, personal interviews, 2014). This cost UNMIK and the OSCE influence and legitimacy over Kosovar society. According to Visoka, Kosovo does not want the UN’s involvement anymore because it does not recognize Kosovo’s right to self-­determination (personal interview, 2014). He is adamant of a successful international-­local partnership towards achieving transformative goals other than setting up institutions unless international organizations respect and recognize Kosovo’s right to self-­determination (see also Visoka and

102   Kosovo Bolton 2011). He argues that this delay feeds the nationalist agenda of Albanian and Serb elites, consequently inciting ethnic tensions in a conflict that is otherwise largely rooted in self-­determination and statehood (Visoka 2017: 14–15). Regrettably, “under present circumstances, [UNMIK officials] are hostages of the Security Council, and the Kosovar government’s unwillingness to deal with [UNMIK] is because [its] mere presence is a dent on their sense of sovereignty” (UNMIK official, personal interview, 2014). Borg-­Olivier laments over the deterioration of UNMIK’s role and legitimacy because of its virtue of neutrality. Resolution 1244 has provided the necessary guidelines and parameters for Kosovo’s post-­conflict reconstruction, but he understands that it was an open-­ended resolution because the exit strategy of UNMIK was dependent on the resolution of Kosovo’s political status. He also recognizes Kosovo’s exercises of autonomy in state administration while the UN’s neutrality is holding Kosovo back from participating in the international arena. Borg-­Olivier’s following statements (personal interview, 2014) hint at an elegy for UNMIK’s legacy in Kosovo: The UN moved away from being the centre of everything—the giver of freedom, stability, peace, and security, and all the elements necessary for Kosovo to negotiate their status. Instead of being the centre of relevance and attention, it became a contradiction in terms of not knowing why it is still present. It is a shame. If we want this kind of intervention to succeed in the future, we have to be careful that they always enjoy the support and consensus of those whom the intervention was intended for.

Conclusion UNMIK was as controversial as the NATO intervention that cleared the way for its deployment because of Kosovo’s unclear status. Despite the comprehensiveness of UNMIK’s mandate, its neutrality over the issue of Kosovo’s statehood has not afforded itself a long-­term and inclusive approach in responding to the evolving security concerns of the people. Its prioritization of short-­term stability resulted in institutions short of well-­defined and long-­term direction and a fragile, negative peace absent of the political, social, and economic elements of liberal peace. The discontent of Albanians over their unimproved economic situation despite international assistance and the imposing presence of international organizations, coupled with their exasperation over Kosovo’s future status, sparked the 2004 riots expressed through ethnically motivated violence. The incident highlighted the fragility of security institutions with superficial local involvement. The internationals co-­opted the former KLA members into the newly built institutions but failed to hand over substantial security responsibilities and to democratize the security sector. The riots also demonstrated how security, as a component of peacebuilding, is interrelated with other peacebuilding components of development, justice and reconciliation, and, specifically in the case of Kosovo, a more defined outlook of its political status.

Kosovo   103 UNMIK was faithful to its virtue of neutrality but not to its decision to co-­opt the former KLA members. Some of the interview participants view UNMIK’s undemocratic administration as the precursor to a kind of peace dominated by the ethnic majority’s political elite while disenfranchising ethnic minorities. The political legitimacy UNMIK bestowed upon the local elite allowed the alienation of ethnic minorities and the everyday people of Kosovo from the peacebuilding process. UNMIK limited its involvement of the local to former KLA members to the extent that it gave them support and protection during their indictments. Not only do Albanian political elites govern the security institutions, they also dominate the development sector, leaving ethnic minorities feeling unsafe and with limited economic opportunities and access to basic services such as healthcare. The locals UNMIK partnered with were unable to reflect the aspirations and interests of the people outside their own ethnic group. Without a common narrative to deal with the past that is acceptable to all ethnic groups, the newly built institutions and mechanisms of security, justice, and development have become venues for ethnic rivalry instead of a shared pursuit of peace. Despite the liberal rhetoric and design for peacebuilding in Kosovo, international actors traded democracy for stability, co-­opted those who might incite instability at the cost of democratic values, and tolerated the abuse and corruption of those they co-­opted. UNMIK tried incorporating the views of other groups but in doing so, as Visoka fittingly expounds, “it abandoned liberties and democratic processes and imposed something [with which] no one was completely happy but were only partially accommodating of different perspectives” (personal interview, 2014). UNMIK, therefore, was a successful conflict manager in maintaining stability and ensuring physical security but a poor example of what it preached about liberal democracy and lasting peace. The inherent complexity of Kosovo’s history contributed to the difficulties of achieving UNMIK’s mandates. At the same time, the “missing political settlement between former enemies” curbs Kosovo’s socio-­economic development (Ernst 2011: 135). The conflict in Kosovo was exploited by competing ethno-­nationalist narratives and, unfortunately, ethnic segregation is still a significant feature in Kosovo’s political, social, and economic spheres. For a society where ethnic groups have lived harmoniously in the past, the outcome of ethnicized peace is evidently divisive. The benefits of peace will stay in the hands of the elite and, to some extent, some sectors of the ethnic majority, who benefit from the narratives of ethnic discord unless the government of Kosovo implements mechanisms of inclusive justice and pursues extensive reconciliation. Moreover, the rewards of peace will remain inequitably distributed among the population unless the government seriously addresses the discord among ethnic groups and will remain hijacked by political elites unless the international community recognizes Kosovo’s right to self-­determination. The case of Kosovo demonstrates how an exclusive and superficial local involvement shaped a peacebuilding process that was neither liberal nor peacebuilding.

104   Kosovo

Notes 1 Historically-­based administrative units were organized into six socialist republics of Yugoslavia: Bosnia-­Herzegovina, Montenegro, Slovenia, Macedonia, Croatia, and Serbia. Kosovo and Vojvodina became an autonomous region and a province, respectively, under Serbia. 2 See Maliqi (1996) and Clark (2000) for the history of the Albanian movement in Kosovo. 3 NATO’s operation sparked controversy about military intervention because of the absence of UN Security Council authorization despite its purported humanitarian intention. 4 There were different estimates of the casualties of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, but the IICK reported 10,000 deaths, mostly Albanians, and 3,000 missing. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) estimated that 1,571 were in Serbian prisons by March 2000 (IICK 2000: 2, 120). 5 For example, the majority of the interview participants in all case studies recommended a longer time frame for establishing stable and sustainable institutions. 6 It can be argued that the Kosovo Police was more insulated from the political interference of KLA-­derived political actors than the Kosovo Security Force because of Rugova’s involvement and lower and regulated quota for former KLA members into the former’s composition (Skendaj 2014: 115). 7 Lekë Dukagjini was an Albanian prince who ruled northern Albania, including Kosovo, in the fifteenth century. 8 In December 2016 authorities in Mitrovica started building a two-­metre high concrete wall beside the bridge over the Ibar River. They claimed that the construction was “purely rhetorical and implies no aggression”, but Kosovar officials ordered an immediate ban on the construction (Morina 2016a). 9 UNMIK established the HPD and the Housing and Property Claims Commission (HPCC) in 1999 to achieve “efficient and effective resolution of claims concerning residential property” in Kosovo (UNMIK/REG/1999/23 1999: 1). The Kosovo Property Agency (KPA) later took over these offices and their tasks in 2006 as mandated by UNMIK (UNMIK/REG/2006/10 2006).

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Kosovo   107 IICK (2000). The Kosovo Report: Conflict, International Response, Lessons Learned. New York: Oxford University Press. Janssens, J. (2015). State-­Building in Kosovo: A Plural Policing Perspective. Antwerp: Maklu. Judah, T. (2008). Kosovo: What Everyone Needs to Know. New York: Oxford University Press. Kakissis, J. (2018). In Kosovo, War Rape Survivors Can Now Receive Reparations. But Shame Endures for Many. NPR, 6 April. Kälin, W. (2004). Decentralized Governance in Fragmented Societies: Solution or Cause of New Evils? In Wimmer, A., Goldstone, R.J., Horowitz, D.L., Joras, U., and Schetter, C. (eds) Facing Ethnic Conflicts: Toward a New Realism. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. KCSS (2011). Re-­Establishment and Reform of the Justice System in Kosovo 1999–2011. Prishtina. May. Ker-­Lindsay, J. (2012). The UN and the Post-­Intervention Stabilization of Kosovo. Ethnopolitics 11(4): 392–405. doi:10.1080/17449057.2012.697652. Khakee, A. and Florquin, N. (2003). Kosovo and the Gun: A Baseline Assessment of Small Arms and Light Weapons in Kosovo. Pristina and Geneva: UNDP and Small Arms Survey. June. Kosovo Agency of Statistics (2017). Statistical Yearbook of the Republic of Kosovo. Kosovo: Prishtina. Kosovo Police (2015). Kosovo Police History. kosovopolice.com/en/history. Accessed January 2017. Kosovo Turns Thousands of Seized Firearms into Manhole Covers (2014). Associated Press, 2 December. Lamont, C.K. (2010). International Criminal Justice and the Politics of Compliance. Surrey: Ashgate Publishing Limited. Leggett, T. (2008). Crime and Its Impact on the Balkans and Affected Countries. Slovakia: UN Office on Drugs and Crime. March. Limani, Z., Hajrullahu, M., and Xharra, J. (2005). Talk of Haradinaj Indictment Unnerves Kosovo. Institute for War and Peace Reporting, 21 February. Littlewood, R. (2002). Trauma and the Kanun: Two Responses to Loss in Albania and Kosova. International Journal of Social Psychiatry 48(2): 86–96. doi:10.1177/00207 6402128783136. Lorenz, R.F.M. (2000). The Rule of Law in Kosovo: Problems and Prospects. Criminal Law Forum 11(2): 127–42. doi:10.1023/A:1009435500362. Lyck, M. (2007). International Peace Enforcers and Indicted War Criminals: The Case of Ramush Haradinaj. International Peacekeeping 14(3): 418–32. doi:10.1080/1353331 0701422968. Maliqi, S. (1996). The Albanian Movement in Kosova. In Dyker, D.A. and Vejvoda, I. (eds) Yugoslavia and After: A Study in Fragmentation, Despair and Rebirth. London: Addison Wesley Longman Publishing. Marty, D. (2011). Inhuman Treatment of People and Illicit Trafficking in Human Organs in Kosovo. Parliamentary Assembly Council of Europe. 7 January. McKinna, A. (2012). Kosovo: The International Community’s European Project. European Review 20(1): 10–22. doi:10.1017/S1062798711000275. Meaker, M. (2018). Unemployment Keeps Kosovo’s Roma on the Margins. Duetsche Welle, 17 February.

108   Kosovo Mitra, S. (2001). Economic and Social Reforms for Peace and Reconciliation: Kosovo, Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) (Kosovo). World Bank. 1 February. Morina, D. (2016a). Kosovo Bans Building of Serb Wall in Mitrovica. Balkan Insight, 8 December. Morina, D. (2016b). Kosovo’s Reconciliation Councils Struggle to End Blood Feuds. Balkan Insight, 4 November. Mustafa, M., Berisha, M., and Lenjani, B. (2014). Reforms and Challenges of Post-­ Conflict Kosovo Health System. Materia Socio-­medica 26(2): 125–8. doi:10.5455/ msm.2014.26.125-128. Naegele, J. (2010). The Case of the United Nations Mission in Kosovo. In Feichtinger, W., Gauster, M., and Tanner, F. (eds) Economic Impacts of Crisis Response Operations: An Underestimated Factor in External Engagement. Vienna: National Defence Academy. NATO (1999a). Military Technical Agreement between the International Security Force (‘KFOR’) and the Governments of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Republic of Serbia. 9 June. NATO (1999b). Press Release (99) 12: Statement by the North Atlantic Council on Kosovo. 30 January. NATO (2013). The Kosovo Security Force Now Self-­Sustainable. nato.int/cps/en/natohq/ news_101890.htm?selectedLocale=en. Accessed September 2018. NATO (2018). Key Facts and Figures. KFOR. February. Nelson, B.F., Johnson, H.J.J., and McCloskey, J.A. (2003). Balkans Security: Current and Projected Factors Affecting Regional Stability. In Watkins, C.S. (ed.) The Balkans. New York: Nova Science Publishers. Newman, E. (2011). A Human Security Peace-­Building Agenda. Third World Quarterly 32(10): 1737–56. doi:10.1080/01436597.2011.610568. OSCE (1999a). 237th Plenary Meeting, PC Journal No. 327, Agenda Item 2, Decision No. 305. 1 July. OSCE (1999b). Observations and Recommendations of the OSCE Legal System Monitoring Section: Report 2-the Development of the Kosovo Judicial System (10 June through 15 December 1999). Prishtina. 17 December. OSCE Mission in Kosovo (2002). Kosovo’s War Crimes Trials: A Review. September. OSCE Mission in Kosovo (2007). Witness Security and Protection in Kosovo: Assessment and Recommendations. November. Perriello, T. and Wierda, M. (2006). Lessons from the Deployment of International Judges and Prosecutors in Kosovo. New York: ICTJ. March. Perritt Jr., H.H. (2004). Economic Sustainability and Final Status for Kosovo. Journal of International Law 25(1): 259–319. Qirezi, A. (2005). Kosovo: Witness Protection Fears Grow. Institute for War and Peace Reporting, 6 September. Reinhardt, K. (2000). KFOR and UNMIK: Sharing a Common Vision for Kosovo. NATO’s Nations and Partners for Peace 1: 12–16. Republic of Kosovo (2008). Law No. 03/L-­047: On the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Communities and Their Members in Kosovo. 13 March. Republic of Kosovo (2012). Mining Strategy of the Republic of Kosovo 2012–2025. Prishtina: Ministry of Economic Development. Republic of Kosovo (2014). Law No. 04/L-­249: On Health Insurance. 10 April. Republic of Kosovo (2015). Law No. 05/L-­053: On Specialist Chambers and Specialist Prosecutor’s Office. 3 August.

Kosovo   109 Richmond, O.P. and Franks, J. (2009). Liberal Peace Transitions: Between Statebuilding and Peacebuilding. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. S/1999/779 (1999). Report of the Secretary-­General on the United Nations Interim Administration in Kosovo. UN Security Council. 12 July. S/2006/353 (2006). Letter Dated 29 May 2006 from the President of the International Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons Responsible for Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia since 1991, Addressed to the President of the Security Council UN Security Council. 31 May. S/2007/168/Add.1 (2007). Comprehensive Proposal for the Kosovo Status Settlement. UN Security Council. 26 March. S/RES/1244 (1999). On the Situation in Kosovo. UN Security Council. 10 June. Sadiku, M. (2014). The Origins of the Kanun: Exploring the Development of the Albanian Customary Law. Balkan Araştırma Enstitüsü Dergisi 3(2): 77–95. SC/6628 (1999). Security Council Strongly Condemns Massacre of Kosovo Albanians in Southern Kosovo. UN Security Council. 19 January. SEESAC (2006a). ‘The Rifle Has the Devil Inside’: Gun Culture in South Eastern Europe. Belgrade. SEESAC (2006b). SALW Survey of Kosovo. Belgrade. 24 August. Shuey, D.A., Qosaj, F.A., Schouten, E.J., and Zwi, A.B. (2003). Planning for Health Sector Reform in Post-­Conflict Situations: Kosovo 1999–2000. Health Policy 63(3): 299–310. doi:10.1016/S0168-8510(02)00121-5. Skendaj, E. (2014). Creating Kosovo: International Oversight and the Making of Ethical Institutions. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Sverrisson, H.B. (2006). Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Kosovo: A Window of Opportunity? Peace, Conflict & Development (8): 1–26. Tarifa, F. (2008). Of Time, Honor, and Memory: Oral Law in Albania. Oral Tradition 23(1): 3–14. doi:10.1353/ort.0.0017. Troszczynska-­van Genderen, W. (2010). Rights Displaced: Forced Returns of Roma, Ashkali and Egyptians from Western Europe to Kosovo. New York: HRW. October. UN Administrator Urges Calm in Kosovo after Premier is Indicted for War Crimes (2005). UN News Centre, 8 March. UN Kosovo Team (2012). World Health Organization. unkt.org/en/un-­agencies/who/. Accessed July 2015. UNDP (2012). Kosovo Human Development Report 2012: Private Sector and Employment. UNMIK/REG/1999/1 (1999). On the Authority of the Interim Administration in Kosovo. UNMIK. 25 July. UNMIK/REG/1999/8 (1999). On the Establishment of the Kosovo Protection Corps. UNMIK. 20 September. UNMIK/REG/1999/23 (1999). On the Establishment of the Housing and Property Directorate and the Housing and Property Claims Commission. UNMIK. 15 November. UNMIK/REG/2000/6 (2000). On the Appointment and Removal from Office of International Judges and International Prosecutors. UNMIK. 15 February. UNMIK/REG/2000/64 (2000). On Assignment of International Judges/Prosecutors and/ or Change of Venue. UNMIK. 15 December. UNMIK/REG/2001/8 (2001). On the Establishment of the Kosovo Judicial and Prosecutorial Council. UNMIK. 6 April.

110   Kosovo UNMIK/REG/2001/9 (2001). On a Constitutional Framework for Provisional Self-­ Government in Kosovo. UNMIK. 15 May. UNMIK/REG/2006/10 (2006). On the Resolution of Claims Relating to Private Immovable Property, Including Agricultural and Commercial Property. UNMIK. 4 March. Valiñas, M. and Arsovska, J. (2012). A Restorative Approach for Dealing with the Aftermath of the Kosovo Conflict-­Opportunities and Limits. In Aertsen, I., Arsovska, J., Rohne, H.-C., Valiñas, M., and Vanspauwen, K. (eds) Large-­Scale Violent Conflicts: Kosovo, DR Congo and the Israeli-­Palestinian Case. New York: Routledge. Visoka, G. (2017). Shaping Peace in Kosovo: The Politics of Peacebuilding and Statehood. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Visoka, G. and Bolton, G. (2011). The Complex Nature and Implications of International Engagement after Kosovo’s Independence. Civil Wars 13(2): 189–214. doi:10.1080/13 698249.2011.576158. Vukovic, M. and Weinstein, A. (2002). Kosovo Mining, Metallurgy, and Politics: Eight Centuries of Perspective. Journal of the Minerals, Metals and Materials Society 54(5): 21–4. doi:10.1007/BF02701690. Warren, M.J., Koliqi, K., Maksimović, N., and Stappers, M. (2017). Public Perception of the Kosovo Specialist Court: Risks and Opportunities. Pax, Centre for Peace and Tolerance, Integra & Impunity Watch. Welch, A.C. (2006). Achieving Human Security after Intra-­State Conflict: The Lessons of Kosovo. Journal of Contemporary European Studies 14(2): 221–39. doi:10.1080/ 14782800600892275. Wolfgram, M.A. (2008). When the Men with Guns Rule: Explaining Human Rights Failures in Kosovo since 1999. Political Science Quarterly 123(3): 461–84. doi:10.1002/j.1538-165X.2008.tb00631.x. World Bank (2011). World Development Report: Conflict, Security, and Development. Washington, DC: World Bank. World Bank (2015). Kosovo: Country Snapshot. Prishtina. April. World Bank (2018). World Development Indicators. data.worldbank.org/products/wdi. Accessed September 2018. World Bank and Kosovo Agency of Statistics (2017). Consumption Poverty in the Republic of Kosovo 2012–2015. Prishtina. April. Yugoslavia: Kosovo Economy (1998). OxResearch Daily Brief Service. 26 May.

4 Timor-­Leste Exclusive involvement in a fragile peacebuilding

Introduction Timor-­Leste, like Kosovo, was the recipient of a more complex international administration than the traditional UN peacekeeping operation. Timor-­Leste did not have a functioning government akin to the one the UN negotiated with in Cambodia. It also did not have the uncertainties over status that the UN had to deal with in Kosovo. But similar to Cambodia and Kosovo, the UN’s mandate in Timor-­Leste embodied the liberal principles of peacebuilding.1 Timor-­Leste is a milestone in the liberal peacebuilding agenda because of the broader scope and depth of UN activities on the ground and more proactive engagement of local actors compared to Cambodia and Kosovo. Security Council Resolution 1272 stated: the need for [the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor or UNTAET] to consult and cooperate closely with the East Timorese people in order to carry out its mandate effectively with a view to the development of local democratic institutions, including an independent East Timorese human rights institution, and the transfer to these institutions of its administrative and public service functions. (S/RES/1272 1999: 3, no. 8) Timor-­Leste was a Portuguese colony for over two centuries until a military coup toppled the authoritarian regime in Portugal in 1974 leading to its withdrawal from its colonies. A pro-­independence party called the Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor (Fretilin for the Portuguese abbreviation of Frente Revolucionária de Timor-­Leste Independente) served as the de facto government and enjoyed a majority of public support because of its social and political programmes.2 Fretilin’s armed wing was the Armed Forces for the Liberation of East Timor (Falintil for the Portuguese abbreviation of Forças Armadas de Libertação de Timor-­Leste). The short-­lived government of Fretilin ended when Indonesian forces landed along the shores near Dili, Timor-­Leste’s capital, on 7 December 1975 and started the 24-year occupation of its neighbour resulting in an estimated 102,000 (+/–12,000) conflict-­related deaths (CAVR

112   Timor-Leste 2005: part 6.1, para 8). With mounting international pressure to resolve the issue of Timor-­Leste, Portugal and Indonesia agreed to entrust to the UN the responsibility of organizing and conducting a “popular consultation” through the United Nations Mission in East Timor (UNAMET) (S/RES/1246 1999). On 30 August 1999, 98 per cent of registered voters went to the polls, and 78.5 per cent of them rejected the option of special autonomy under Indonesia, thereby voting for independence. Violence ensued when pro-­integration militias, with the support of the Indonesian National Armed Forces (TNI for the Indonesian abbreviation of Tentara Nasional Indonesia), launched attacks on towns, villages, and populations. The violence surrounding the referendum resulted in more than 1,400–500 civilian deaths, forced the deportation of 250,000 civilians, forced the internal displacement of 300,000, and caused the burning of 60,000 houses (CAVR 2005). Indonesia, compelled by the UN and concerned with its own domestic issues, accepted the assistance offered by the Australian-­led International Force for East Timor (INTERFET) to begin a large-­scale emergency humanitarian relief effort. It eventually recognized the result of the popular consultation. The Security Council passed Resolution 1272 on 25 October 1999 establishing UNTAET’s role in administering Timor-­Leste and preparing it for independence. Its general mandate was to: provide security and maintain law and order throughout the territory of Timor-­Leste; establish an effective administration; assist in the development of civil and social services; ensure the coordination and delivery of humanitarian assistance, rehabilitation and development assistance; support capacity-­building for self-­government; and assist in the establishment of conditions for sustainable development. (S/RES/1272 1999: 2–3) Despite its more comprehensive mandate and more initiatives for local involvement, UNTAET failed to deliver the promises of liberal peacebuilding in Timor-­Leste. When crisis engulfed Dili in 2006, four years after UNTAET declared its mission a success, the fragile security institutions almost collapsed as local security forces fought against each other. The incident questioned the sustainability of the kind of peace UN missions (re)build in post-­conflict societies. The UN successfully established key state institutions, but they were unable to serve their purposes, partly due to the absence of robust capacity-­ building mechanisms during the transition. Like Cambodia and Kosovo, local involvement was exclusive to the political elite, allowing a small group of people to manoeuvre the composition and direction of the newly built ‘liberal democratic’ institutions. Exclusive local involvement heightened the political rivalries within an already fragmented Timorese leadership. This narrow approach to local involvement spilled onto the peacebuilding components of security, justice and reconciliation, and development resulting in fragile liberal institutions fraught with governance and socio-­economic issues.

Timor-Leste   113

Fragile peace The UN Mission of Support in East Timor (UNMISET) succeeded UNTAET to provide assistance to core administrative structures, to provide interim law enforcement and assist in the development of new law agency enforcement, and to contribute to the maintenance of Timor-­Leste’s overall security (S/RES/1410 2002; S/RES/1480 2003; S/RES/1543 2004; S/RES/1573 2004). It concluded in May 2005 and was immediately succeeded by a small political mission, the UN Office in Timor-­Leste (UNOTIL), which was tasked with overseeing the consolidation of state institutions until May 2006 (S/RES/1599 2005). However, one month before the conclusion of UNOTIL’s mission, a security crisis erupted in Dili when military protests turned violent, and the newly built security institutions almost collapsed. The aftermath of the crisis saw 38 killed, 69 wounded, and more than 150,000 displaced (UN Independent Special Commission of Inquiry for Timor-­Leste 2006: 42). The Security Council extended UNOTIL’s mission for another month in light of the situation (S/RES/1677 2006). In response to the Timorese government’s request for UN’s assistance in controlling the crisis, the UN authorized the deployment of an Australian-­led International Stabilisation Force (ISF ) and the UN Integrated Mission in Timor-­Leste (UNMIT) (S/RES/1704 2006). UNMIT’s overarching mandate was to address the political, humanitarian, and security crisis and to enhance stability, democratic governance, and political dialogue in Timor-­Leste. After six years, the ISF commenced the withdrawal of its forces from Timor-­Leste in November 2012, and UNMIT completed its mission the following month. The 2006 security crisis brought to light the dangerous dynamics of sociopolitical groups that represented and exploited the deep-­seated tensions in Timor-­ Leste. The crisis started with peaceful protests by 159 soldiers on issues of mismanagement and discrimination within the newly established East Timor Defence Force (F-­FDTL for the Portuguese abbreviation of Falintil-­Forças de Defesa de Timor Leste). From the second day of the protest onwards, the crowd grew in numbers as anti-­F-FDTL veteran groups, disgruntled ex-­combatants, disenfranchised clandestine activists during the Indonesian occupation who organized into martial arts groups (MAGs), and local gangs joined the demonstrations. These “political security groups” felt left out during the establishment of local security forces (Rees 2004), and they took advantage of the situation to violently express their discontent. The UN Independent Special Commission of Inquiry for Timor-­Leste (2006: 74) investigated the crisis and published the following conclusion: The violent events of April and May were more than a series of criminal acts. They were the expression of deep-­rooted problems inherent in fragile State institutions and a weak rule of law. The events exposed many deficiencies and failures, particularly in the two institutions at the centre of the crisis, F-­FDTL and PNTL [or the Timorese police force], along with the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of the Interior [that were in charge of]

114   Timor-Leste their oversight. The absence of comprehensive regulatory frameworks and the bypassing of existing institutional mechanisms, even if underdeveloped, contributed significantly to the emergence and growth of the crisis. One of the reasons the internationals failed to cast light early on and promptly address the looming and deeply-­rooted internal insecurity in Timor-­Leste was its preoccupation with security threats from the militias along the border with Indonesia’s West Timor. These pro-­integration militias aimed at reversing the result of the referendum by committing violence against the refugees, posing the  highest security threat during the first months of UNTAET’s mission (S/RES/1338 2001). Information on militia activities in some villages increased after UNTAET’s Peacekeeping Force took over security responsibilities from INTERFET. Ishizuka (2000) pointed out how local militias perceived the Peacekeeping Force as less capable, in addition to UN’s non-­coercive nature of peace enforcement, and therefore easier to infiltrate than the better trained INTERFET.3 The TNI continued supplying arms to the militias despite several Security Council reiterations.4 The Indonesian government ignored the issue of militia threats and declined to protect the refugees. Only after the political developments in Jakarta did the Indonesian government become more cooperative about providing protection for the refugees. Falintil wanted to join the border patrols, but there was no decision yet at that time on how to deal with its members (Ishizuka 2000). Before the referendum, Falintil leader Xanana Gusmão ordered the members to remain in cantonment and resist fighting with the TNI and militia groups. Falintil members generally complied and remained in cantonment even during the post-­referendum violence. There was hesitation within the UN over planning a DDR process for Falintil because it might be seen as a way of providing assistance to an armed rebel group (Hood 2006). Should the Falintil be treated as “an illegal armed group to be disarmed or the nucleus of a defence force?” (Martin and Mayer-­Rieckh 2005: 134). Considered as the heroic resistance group which some Timorese leaders were part of, Falintil expected to keep its role as the de facto army of the country. UNTAET’s indecisiveness over Falintil’s status, compounded by the worsening conditions in the cantonment area, contributed to the growing disgruntlement and breakdown of discipline among Falintil members. The discontent in the cantonment could have been mitigated if former Falintil members had been able to participate in operations to combat security threats along the border. This strategy would have fed not only the need for security from militia attacks but also the Falintil members’ demand for an acknowledgement of their struggle and their purpose and opportunities in the peacebuilding process. Securing the border between Timor-­Leste and West Timor is one of UNTAET’s main achievements despite initial shortcomings (International Institute for Strategic Studies 2001). The Peacekeeping Force ultimately proved to be a professional, well-­composed, and robust military arrangement capable of providing and maintaining security by deterring militia threats (Smith and Dee 2003). However, UNTAET’s preoccupation with border security overshadowed the

Timor-Leste   115 looming tension within the local security forces. The international actors did not foresee the gravity of the divisions and rivalries among the groups of local actors who were involved in providing security, in implementing the DDR process, and in rebuilding the defence and police forces. They also chose not to incorporate the local capacities of the existing armed forces when addressing the militia threats. Notwithstanding the establishment of security institutions in Timor-­ Leste, the UN overlooked the importance of internal cohesion within the security institutions it rebuilt and failed to address the political factionalism that influenced the effective provision of security. This emphasis on institution-­building without understanding the dynamics of the local actors who control these institutions created a fragile peace that lasted only until 2006.

Fragmented leadership The 2006 security crisis unmasked not only the fragility of the security sector but also the factionalism within the newly built security institutions. The first outbreak of this factionalism was between the lorosa’e (those coming from the eastern districts of the country and mostly police officers) and the loromunu (those coming from the western districts and mostly military officers). The F-­FDTL petitioners were loromunu. Some scholars believe that political rivals evoked this so-­called division to back up their political confrontations even though it had no sociopolitical authenticity, especially outside Dili (for example, Hicks 2009). When Gusmão gave a speech in March 2006 and construed the dismissal of some of the F-­FDTL members as unjust, he attributed the problem to the lorosa’e-loromunu divide within the F-­FDTL. The prejudiced distinction between the two revolved around the assertion by the lorosa’e that the loromunu contributed less to the resistance during the Indonesian occupation (Simonsen 2009). The loromunu resented the lorosa’e for taking over the good houses in Dili, which were burned down during the crisis (ibid.). Another taciturn layer of factionalism scratched open during the crisis was the political cleavage in the Timorese leadership, specifically between Gusmão and Mari Alkatiri. Gusmão was the charismatic guerrilla leader of Falintil dubbed as the “Mandela of the East” after his capture in 1992 and imprisonment in Indonesia until 1999. Alkatiri was the leader and one of the founding members of Fretilin exiled in Mozambique during the Indonesian occupation. The root of this political cleavage was ideological: Alkatiri belongs to the radical left and Gusmão belongs to the more moderate centre (Shoesmith 2003). Falintil was the armed wing of Fretilin until December 1987 when Gusmão declared it independent from Fretilin and emphasized its fight for national independence and political freedom instead of any political ideology (Niner 2001). Gusmão subsequently established and served as the president of the National Council of Maubere Resistance (CNRM for the Portuguese abbreviation of Conselho Nacional da Resistência Maubere), an umbrella organization which later developed into the National Council of Timorese Resistance or (CNRT for the Portuguese abbreviation of Conselho Nacional de Resistência de Timor) with a

116   Timor-Leste non-­partisan nationalist strategy. According to Shoesmith (2003), during the first year of UNTAET’s administration, attempts to patch up the differences between Gusmão and Alkatiri under the CNRT failed to resolve the practical issues of governance and the animosity between the two. For Alkatiri, Fretilin was the true representative of the Timorese people and the single major party that should retain control of the government. Gusmão, on the other hand, repudiated Fretilin’s privileged status over other political parties and advocated for a multiparty democracy. In August 2000 Fretilin withdrew from the CNRT and campaigned independently for the Constituent Assembly elections. CNRT lost political clout, and Fretilin won 57 per cent of the seats during the 2001 elections. Rebuilding the security sector in Timor-­Leste exposed the layers of local involvement. The UN built security institutions, and the local actors were successful in steering the direction of policies related to security. But who were these local actors, though, what was their nature, and to what extent was their involvement? Like in Cambodia and Kosovo, it was mostly the political elite, particularly those aligned with the ‘heroes of the resistance’, who were influential in UNTAET’s decision-­making. This exclusive involvement induced the creation and legitimization of a political elite and the disenfranchisement of individuals and groups who were not part of it. A human rights international officer for UNTAET (personal interview, 2014) recalled how: the UN was very messy when they first came in terms of local engagement; they did not know whom to talk to and very quickly they got surrounded by a particular group which was quite clever at keeping [other] people out. This elite, however, was far from united. The political factionalism between Gusmão and Alkatiri seeped into the rebuilding of security institutions, specifically the selection of members for the defence and police forces. UNTAET passed a regulation in January 2001 on the establishment of F-­FDTL with the mission of “providing for the military defence of East Timor, its people and its territory; and providing assistance to the civilian community at the request of the civilian authorities during natural disasters and other emergencies” (UNTAET/REG/2001/1 2001: sec 2.). UNTAET authorized the F-­FDTL High Command, composed of former Falintil commanders who were loyal to Gusmão, to conduct the recruitment process. As a result, appointments and selections were often partial and politicized instead of expertise- and experience-­ based (Hood 2006).5 For example, the recruitment of the first battalion portrayed an imbalanced composition as lorosa’e members outnumbered the loromunu (Ball 2002). A sizeable minority of those who were left out felt spiteful towards Gusmão and the F-­FDTL High Command and moved their leanings towards Fretilin (Rees 2004). Seven months after the creation of the F-­FDTL, UNTAET passed a regulation in August 2001 on the establishment of the East Timor Police Force (PNTL for the Portuguese abbreviation of Polícia Nacional de Timor-­Leste) with the main

Timor-Leste   117 purpose of maintaining law and order within the country (UNTAET/ REG/2001/22 2001). Similarly to how it partnered with Falintil commanders in the selection of officers, UNTAET also narrowed its consultation to a select group of CNRT members for the composition of PNTL (Hood 2006). Moreover, the delayed deployment of the UNTAET CivPol and pressure from key member states to withdraw the international security forces as soon as possible called for an expedited process for the recruitment and training of local police officers. Although the accelerated process was done to immediately hand over the policing responsibility to the local police, it did not provide for an adequate background check and training period (Goldstone 2012). This hasty decision influenced the composition and quality of the PNTL. Some recruited police officers had been part of the Indonesian National Police or POLRI, which was an unacceptable decision for Timorese who had suffered under the brutality and human rights violations of the Indonesian officers, and for resistance members who had fought for independence. The selection of former POLRI officers was justified on the basis of their experience and familiarity with policing duties,6 even though some of them had questionable skills given their lowly ranks in the POLRI (Hood 2006). Recruited former POLRI officers had shorter training periods compared to the new cadets. Instead of the regular three-­month training, which in itself was too short to prepare police officers adequately, former POLRI officers only underwent four weeks of training (ibid.). The disgruntled ex-­combatants organized themselves into “political security groups” and challenged the legitimacy of the F-­FDTL (Scambary 2009). They formed under the umbrella Association of Ex-­Combatants 1975 (AC75) headed by Rogerio Lobato, a founding member of Fretilin and brother of Nicolau Lobato,7 the country’s national hero. Rogerio Lobato was also appointed as minister of the interior in 2002 and therefore was in control of the local police force. These groups expressed anti-­UN and anti-­F-FDTL sentiments and participated in the violent rampage during the 2006 crisis (Rees 2004; Scambary 2009). An increase in direct and indirect clashes between their members accompanied the establishment of the F-­FDTL and PNTL (Rees 2004). Lobato, Alkatiri’s ally, transformed the PNTL into a highly militarized institution to compete with the F-­FDTL (Lemay-­Hébert 2009). The UN Independent Special Commission of Inquiry for Timor-­Leste (2006) found Lobato guilty of unlawful movement, possession, and use of PNTL weapons by illegally arming civilians during the crisis, with a reasonable suspicion that Alkatiri also knew about the distribution of weapons. The Commission also found then F-­FDTL Commander Taur Matan Ruak and Minister of Defence Roque Rodrigues guilty of having knowledge of and approving unlawful movement, possession, and use of F-­FDTL weapons. The formation of the F-­FDTL and PNTL had striking contrasts. The lack of consolidation of the two security forces was evident in the way they were planned and established. First, political considerations delayed the development of the F-­FDTL while administrative and logistical setbacks slowed down the creation of the PNTL. Second, UNTAET treated the transfer of security responsibilities differently for F-­FDTL and PNTL. It was flexible and tolerant for the

118   Timor-Leste Peacekeeping Force to F-­FDTL but constrained and pressing for CivPol to PNTL (Goldstone 2012). The subsequent missions inherited similar practices and were unable to improve the two security institutions (Lemay-­Hébert 2009). Third, while F-­FDTL was mainly composed of former Falintil members, PNTL had some police officers who had served during the Indonesian occupation. Fourth, the F-­FDTL was loyal to Gusmão while the PNTL was loyal to Alkatiri. The uneasy marriage of the differences between F-­FDTL and PNTL, aggravated by their internal sociopolitical cleavages, did not sit well in the newly built security institutions and soon gave birth to a violent conflict between the two major security institutions of Timor-­Leste. Nelson Belo (personal interview, 2014), the founder of Fundasaun Mahein, an NGO in Timor-­Leste working on issues related to the security sector, described below the missed opportunity to unite the political factions and its repercussion: Internationally, the UN mission here was a success. But for the Timorese, it was a big failure. If it were successful, there should not have been a crisis in 2006. We knew that there would be many factions after the Indonesians left, and we recommended to the internationals how they could tackle this because they had the resources, but they did not. It means that when they were here, they also set up a time bomb and it exploded in 2006.

International-­local encounters The emergency context during the early phase of UNTAET’s mission was too constricted for local involvement. Some segments of civil society viewed UNTAET as an authoritarian body with centralized decision-­making power. According to a human rights international officer for the Human Rights Unit of UNTAET, mechanisms for local consultation were absent, later resulting in resentment from members of the civil society who felt that UNTAET was not interested in seeking their opinions (personal interview, 2013). The local NGOs working with her relayed their negative perception of UNTAET, specifically regarding the disengagement of the UN leadership from the sentiments and views of the local population. Charles Scheiner, founder and researcher at La’o Hamutuk,8 an NGO advocating for social and economic justice in Timor-­Leste since 2000, also commented that the top leaders of UNTAET were from UN agencies with expertise in addressing emergency humanitarian issues rather than sustainable peacebuilding (personal interview, 2014). Scheiner characterized UNTAET as a “benevolent dictatorship” unable to create democratic institutions because it was undemocratic in the first place. UNTAET focused more on its role as an administrator by governing Timor-­Leste and overlooked the transitional context of its mandate of preparing Timor-­Leste for self-­governance (Scheiner, personal interview, 2014). Previous assessments also reveal that UNTAET, specifically the Governance and Public Administration pillar, was seen to be too Dili-­centric and detached from the other districts (Smith and Dee 2003; Nixon 2012). The pillar’s task was to re-­establish governance at the

Timor-Leste   119 central and district levels, generate public and social utilities, establish the rule of law, and encourage and regulate private investments (Smith and Dee 2003). The emergency context excused UNTAET for leaving no room for inclusivity, but its initial disengagement harboured frustration among local actors who wanted to be involved early on. A common reflection by the people I interviewed in and about Timor-­Leste was the superficial involvement of local actors. UNTAET, in general, equated local involvement with information dissemination instead of assigning its local counterparts substantive roles. A Timorese who worked for an international organization on various social issues during the transition observed that, although UNTAET established local structures and appointed local counterparts at the levels of village and sub-­district administration, the Timorese had lesser substantive responsibilities compared to their international counterparts (personal interview). UNTAET did not have a formal structure to allow the Timorese to substantively participate in the decision-­making process (Suhrke 2001). The lengthy negotiations and political compromises on power­sharing arrangements between international agencies and local leadership diluted the role of the Timorese in the administration (Chopra 2000). This exclusive local involvement partly explains why most Timorese involved in the transition did not share UNTAET’s view of a successful rebuilding of Timor-­Leste. In response to criticisms that it was not providing sufficient avenues for local involvement, UNTAET started the ‘Timorization’ of the transitional government in 2000 by incorporating Timorese with more substantive decision-­making roles into its governing structures. The East Timor Transitional Administration (ETTA), composed of Timorese representatives, replaced UNTAET’s Governance and Public Administration pillar. The National Council replaced the National Consultative Council to reflect the increased local membership. The councils were the primary mechanisms for representing the Timorese people to UNTAET (UNTAET/ REG/1999/2 1999; UNTAET/REG/2000/24 2000). UNTAET formed these bodies to assign governance responsibilities to the local counterparts. Local involvement, however, was exclusive to the political elite that emerged from the resistance, and they dominated the consultations and discussions with UNTAET. The composition of the Constituent Assembly, which UNTAET assigned with the preparation and passing of a constitution for an independent and democratic Timor-­Leste, was a reflection of this exclusivity (UNTAET/REG/2001/2 2001). Although the Assembly was democratically elected, Fretilin, the largest and most influential party at that time, dominated its composition. Wallis (2013: 135–6) argues that Fretilin’s dominance in constitution-­making allowed for a historical narrative favourable only to Fretilin members while disenfranchising other security groups, such as the “clandestine resistance” movement composed of younger Timorese. This limited participation in the constitution-­making process instigated regional divisions of local actors partly causing the 2006 security crisis (Wallis 2014: 318). This intentionally substantive but practically exclusive process of involving local elites attenuated the contributions of other equally legitimate groups.

120   Timor-Leste The exclusive involvement of the local elite was inevitably flawed. For one, the short stint of UNTAET did not leave enough time to reflect on the outcomes of the consultations, according to Sue Ingram, district administrator and director of transition planning of UNTAET (personal interview, 2013). There was an assumption within UNTAET that the mission was working in a political vacuum, which was not the case for Timor-­Leste because members of the resistance movement had already gained political legitimacy and public support, especially during the Indonesian occupation. Ingram believes that the complexity of Timorese politics was not well understood because UNTAET did not exercise greater flexibility in ensuring proper support in advancing the institutions down to community levels. Another observation came from a human rights international officer regarding how UNTAET set up the National Consultative Council, which had no national constituency and lacked technical expertise (personal interview, 2014). She noted the absence of streamlined policies on how the consultation should be carried out, resulting in inconsistent outcomes. For example, the Timorese had substantive roles in terms of writing and passing legislation but not in the crucial peacebuilding components of security, justice and reconciliation, and economic development. Even the communication between UNTAET and the Timorese leadership had gaps and misunderstandings, said Ana Pessoa, former cabinet member for the interior and justice minister for ETTA (personal interview, 2014). The logic and priorities of the international community differed from the Timorese leadership’s, she said. The disjuncture of international and local priorities distorted the views on and approaches to peacebuilding in Timor-­Leste making the implementation of rebuilding programmes slow and confusing. Furthermore, the internationals were composed of several actors—the UN leadership, the UN agencies, states, international organizations, donors, and individuals—pursuing different agendas and employing different techniques. This difference manifests the complex interactions between international and local actors and the need for caution in assigning rigid dichotomies between internationals and locals, who were also fragmented from within and with each other. The local leadership was itself divided as demonstrated in the events prior to the 2006 security crisis. The dangerous assumption that Timor-­Leste was a homogenous society created further fragmentation. UNTAET initiated the Timorization process without sufficient awareness and readiness to handle local rivalries (Cummins 2015). The fragmentation of views and priorities painted the gradations of local involvement since the locals with whom the internationals were consulting also had varying priorities and perspectives. UNTAET delegated responsibilities to some bureaucrats and former guerrilla members who were unqualified and unable to connect with the rest of the population (Pushkina and Maier 2012: 339). For example, the local elite comprised of older, Portuguese-­speaking expatriates who were seen to have had interests and priorities detached from the majority of the Timorese population who lived during the  Indonesian occupation and therefore mainly spoke Bahasa, the Indonesian language. The adoption of Portuguese and English as national and working

Timor-Leste   121 l­anguages, respectively, was designed for the convenience of the local elite and the participants of high-­level negotiations. While most ordinary people use Tetum, the country’s lingua franca, and Bahasa, also a working language, English and Portuguese, which are considered the languages of the elite, were imposed and created issues in disseminating information. Although the positive result of this choice was the development of Tetum and the improvement of language curricula in the educational system, the Portuguese-­speaking elite commanded the local voice during the discussions with the internationals. Language, therefore, became a political tool in Timor-­Leste’s peacebuilding process (Timorese academic, personal interview, 2014). UNTAET had positive legacies in Timor-­Leste notwithstanding its shortcomings. The local perception of UNTAET’s peacebuilding record was not entirely negative. First of all, the international presence gave Timor-­Leste a sense of urgency to unite for rebuilding, a top government official believes (personal interview, 2014). He acknowledges UNTAET’s tenure as a breathing space and a period of consolidation for Timor-­Leste after years of fighting and exile. The UN and other international organizations provided the foundation for jumpstarting the development of state institutions and training the Timorese in preparation for self-­governance (Pessoa, personal interview, 2014). The election, which was a landmark societal undertaking after years of suppression, was successfully held. Basic services for the population resumed, and the education system was re-­established because of the support of the UN and the international community (Armindo Maia, former Minister for Education and Culture and the first rector of the National University of Timor-­Leste, personal interview, 2014). Furthermore, gender perspectives have become crucial considerations in the legislation because of the active involvement of Timorese women in rebuilding and the support they received from UNTAET and relevant international agencies (three women’s rights activists, personal interviews, 2014). Resolution 1272 did not have a mandate about the protection and promotion of women’s rights, but the Timorese women stepped up to change this. According to Laura Abrantes (personal interview, 2014), a former member of Women’s Network of Timor-­Leste (Rede Feto Timór Lorosa’e or simply Rede Feto), women from all over the country gathered together in 1999 before the meeting with the Special Rapporteur for Human Rights to voice their concerns and express their activism.9 “It is not a part of the Timorese culture that women are very vocal because Timor-­Leste has a very patriarchal system, but women have started raising their voices because of their experiences and education”, she said. Sherrill Whittington (personal interview, 2013), the head of UNTAET’s Gender Affairs Unit at that time, confirmed the women’s initiative and the UN’s receptive attitude towards their advocacy. The women wanted to have strong political participation, and they were determined to be involved in the peacebuilding process. Whittington and the other women’s rights activists I interviewed also commended the positive reception of UNTAET’s SRSG, Sergio Vieira de Mello, towards women’s concerns. The SRSG was always ready to hear their concerns and support the women’s initiatives. These dynamics did not materialize in the

122   Timor-Leste cases of Cambodia and Kosovo. The Gender Affairs Unit linked the women’s organizations into the Governance and Public Administration pillar where the organizations brought in their platform of action. Whittington added that while UNTAET and the other organizations helped logistically, the Timorese women themselves developed their platform of action, underwent the procedures in the government, and implemented the programmes. They accepted what came out of the process because they were substantively involved at all stages. The initiatives of the Gender Affairs Unit in Timor-­Leste influenced subsequent UN missions in other post-­conflict societies. Resolution 1325, the first resolution on Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) (S/RES/1325 2000), alongside the other seven resolutions related to gender perspectives in peacebuilding, now requires a gender-­training course for military and civilian peacekeepers, which was inspired by the activities of UNTAET’s Gender Affairs Unit (Whittington, personal interview, 2013). The WPS Agenda is now an important tool for the UN missions to guarantee women’s inclusion in conflict resolution and peacebuilding. Needless to say, assessments of gender mainstreaming in Timor-­ Leste’s peacebuilding are not always positive (Charlesworth and Wood 2001; Smith 2015). The Timorese women had also lost in negotiating a quota in the 2001 elected parliament. But the incredible thing about the Timorese women, according to a researcher of gender issues in Timor-­Leste, was their determination. “After they lost … they did not go home and wash the dishes; instead, they got ready for the next elections, had more training … and negotiated for further changes” (personal interview, 2013). Timor-­Leste still needs to address issues of gender violence today (Warner 2015), and the Timorese women, with the dedication and activism they demonstrated during the transition period, are now working on these issues.

Incomplete justice The fragmentation within the local leadership also spilled over to the pursuit of justice. Some of the Timorese leaders decided to pursue political reconciliation with Indonesia over the public demand for justice for the crimes committed by Indonesian government officials. While Alkatiri wanted to hold Indonesian officials accountable, Gusmão, on the other hand, encouraged friendship and reconciliation and underscored the benefits of having a stable bilateral relationship with its neighbour (Bowman 2004). As one Timorese who used to work as an administrative assistant for UNTAET’s Peacekeeping Force (personal interview, 2014) said about how she feels regarding justice and reconciliation in Timor-­ Leste: It was very hard. Our leaders informed the communities that these militias are also our brothers and that they are also part of Timor-­Leste, so we have to have reconciliation. Some people accepted it, and some did not. It is hard for some of them because some had their family members killed by the militias but we also have to respect that…. The UN brought us peace; that is the

Timor-Leste   123 positive thing. The negative thing is until now the militia leaders are still free. What can the UN do about that? Justice is not yet here. Our leaders should have a conversation about justice. Fourteen years after Timor-­Leste’s independence, high-­level officials in the Indonesian military guilty of orchestrating a series of systematic violence and killing are yet to be held accountable. But in contrast to UNTAC and UNMIK, UNTAET had a clearer mandate and support for justice and reconciliation. Resolution 1272 “stresse[d] the importance of reconciliation among the Timorese people” and explicitly “condemn[ed] all violence and acts in support of violence in East Timor, call[ed for] their immediate end, and demand[ed] that those responsible for such violence be brought to justice” (1999: para 16). UNTAET’s Human Rights Unit, together with INTERFET, collected and preserved evidence of serious crimes, and established a Special Panel in June 2000 with exclusive jurisdiction over serious crimes committed surrounding the 1999 referendum (UNTAET/REG/2000/15 2000). When UNTAET’s mandate was extended for another year, Resolution 1338 reiterated the need to bring to justice those responsible for serious crimes by addressing the deficiencies in the administration of justice (S/RES/1338 2001). The pursuit of justice and reconciliation was a key component of UNTAET’s peacebuilding mandate. UNTAET established the Special Panels (hereinafter referred to as the Panels) in Dili to hold accountable the perpetrators of serious crimes and violence surrounding the 1999 referendum. The regulation that established the Panels made references to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and also incorporated the Indonesian law that was enforced in Timor-­Leste before UNTAET arrived (UNTAET/REG/2000/15 2000). UNTAET established the Serious Crimes Unit soon after to investigate and prosecute cases of serious crimes in one of the Panels. The Panels had exclusive jurisdiction over serious criminal offences and sat within the District Courts of Dili from 2000 to 2006. They exercised jurisdiction over genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, murder, sexual offences, and torture committed between 1 January 1999 and 25 October 1999. The Panels completed 55 trials, convicted 84 individuals of crimes against humanity and other charges, and acquitted 3 of all charges (S/2005/310 2005). The Panels heard mostly only low-­level cases involving militia members from Timorese villages because it did not have the power to extradite indictees from Indonesia (S/2005/458 2005). A total of 270 arrest warrants had been issued, and 4 had been denied (S/2005/310 2005). The most serious inconsistency between the Panels and the Timorese justice system transpired when a warrant of arrest was issued against General Wiranto, TNI’s commander-­in-chief during the referendum, and other military officers, TNI’s commander-­in-chief during the referendum. The Timorese side of the judiciary delayed the issuance of the warrant, and the UN later disowned it. The handling of the arrest warrant for Wiranto et al. implied the judiciary’s unwillingness to prosecute senior Indonesian officials and the Panels’ lack of judicial independence from the Timorese government.

124   Timor-Leste Indonesia established an ad hoc tribunal on its own in Jakarta to deal with human rights offences committed by Indonesians in Timor-­Leste. However, it limited its investigations to four major events in 1999 and excluded other events such as the widespread burning of houses and looting, massive deportations, and major killings and massacres. It was a political decision for the protection of the Indonesian military and government instead of a genuine interest in the pursuit of justice. Out of the 18 indictments, 12 were acquitted and 6 were found guilty of committing grave human rights violations (HRW 2006). Five of these convictions were reversed in 2004. The only conviction was that of Eurico Gutteres, a Timorese militia leader, who was sentenced to ten years in prison (in 2008 Indonesia’s Supreme Court acquitted Gutteres after his appeal and released him from prison). International human rights organizations and civil society groups in Timor-­Leste described the tribunal as a joke, a sham, and a show trial (HRW 2002; ETAN 2005). But for the UN and the Indonesian government, the tribunal was a diplomatic success for dodging possible confrontation and conflict with Indonesia (Bowman 2004). The trials were not carried out in good faith, and the tribunal was established to serve the purpose of satisfying political imperatives instead of serving justice to victims (de Bertodano 2004). Assessments of the Panels and the Jakarta tribunal are generally negative (for example, Bhuta 2003; Kingston 2006; Kent 2012b). The structural and procedural issues that plagued the Panels did not help transform the judicial system of Timor-­Leste into an effective tool for justice. The only positive assessment of the Panels was its overall efficiency in investigating and prosecuting cases (Reiger and Wierda 2006), but it fell short of holding accountable the high-­level officials who ordered the systematic human rights abuses in Timor-­Leste and of providing justice for the victims. The UN leadership and part of the national leadership projected to the Timorese people and the international community the idea that post-­conflict peacebuilding in Timor-­Leste fully respects the rule of law and human rights. However, they did not intend to actualize this idea for realpolitik reasons. The misleading intention behind the establishment of formal institutions of justice inevitably led to flawed practices. For example, an expert sent by the UN to investigate problems within the Serious Crimes Unit reported the lack of qualifications and professionalism of several individuals in the Unit. Although UNTAET acknowledged the observations in the report, it did not implement the recommendations, and the individuals identified remained in their positions (La’o Hamutuk 2001). In July 2001 UNTAET passed a regulation establishing the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation (CAVR) with the mandate of finding out the truth of human rights violations during the Indonesian occupation, fostering community-­level reconciliation, and recommending measures to further promote human rights (UNTAET/REG/2001/10 2001). The CAVR was a result of a proposal from a workshop on transitional justice participated by Timorese civil society, the Roman Catholic Church, and community leaders. The UNTAET Human Rights Unit and the first National Congress of CNRT supported the recommendation and sought assistance from UNTAET. The CAVR employed

Timor-Leste   125 voluntary community reconciliation process to promote reconciliation through reintegrating people who had committed less serious harmful acts back into their  communities. The CAVR facilitated village-­based, participatory, and community-­based hearings that combined practices of traditional justice, arbitration, mediation, and aspects of criminal and civil law. It extensively incorporated customary law with three-­quarters of its community reconciliation hearings adopting local dispute resolution practices (Shaw and Waldorf 2010). A total of 1,371 perpetrators completed the community reconciliation process, and participants claimed that it contributed to the maintenance of peace and resolution of disputes in their communities (CAVR 2005). The community reconciliation process was based on the concept of nahe biti, a Tetum phrase meaning “stretching the mat”. This local concept encourages meetings and discussions between opposing parties to reach an agreement as a part of an evolving process of linking the past and the future for the purpose of achieving stability, peace, tranquillity, and honesty (Babo Soares 2004). Nahe biti is the Timorese equivalent of reconciliation that could be fitted into a formal and state-­based process of reconciliation (ibid.). The CAVR afforded settings for substantive community involvement in justice and reconciliation. Despite its time constraints and reliance on international donors, the CAVR became a Timorese institution led and staffed by Timorese and drew its conclusions and recommendations based on the stories of everyday Timorese (McRae 2006). Hugo Fernandes, former head of the Truth-­Seeking Division of CAVR, confirmed how the CAVR safeguarded balanced, representative, inclusive, and independent processes (personal interview, 2014). CAVR’s commissioners were respected figures in Timor-­Leste and represented major sectors of society, and even included a former pro-­integrationist, Fernandes said. The reconciliation mechanisms contributed to the easing of tensions in many communities, and many requested its continuation.10 The CAVR’s mandate did not conclude without criticisms. For one, little attention was paid to the needs and rights of individual victims. Its approach to reconciliation was conventional because it did not go beyond collective reparation and reconciliation and overlooked individual accountability, particularly of state actors (Nevins 2007). In addition, many victims were not fully aware of or involved in the CAVR’s processes and saw little significance of the CAVR in their lives (Robins 2012). The international community and national elites often assume that truth-­telling leads to healing, and this assumption is not always applicable to the victims’ perspectives, such as in Timor-­Leste where the population is also concerned with meeting their basic needs and social and economic rights rather than transitional justice (ibid.). While these critiques are noteworthy, it is necessary to recognize that first, the CAVR was meant to foster community-­level reconciliation rather than to assign individual guilt and provide individual reparation. Second, the CAVR’s community reconciliation process did not reach all parts of the country because it only operated for four years, hence the requests for its continuation. Third, there had been a local demand for truth, as manifested in the emergence of local initiatives for memorializing the

126   Timor-Leste past, such as the construction of monuments and commemorations of massacres (Wallis 2012). Victims and their families view material reparation as being as important as retributive justice (Kent 2012a). Local initiatives emerged because of public dismay about the shortcomings of formal institutions of justice, but the demand for truth did not override the socio-­economic needs of the people. In short, the Timorese simultaneously and equally demand retributive and restorative forms of justice. In 2005 the CAVR published its final report titled Chega!, which means “no more, stop, enough!” in Portuguese. It included a 44-page part solely devoted to a comprehensive and detailed list of more than 200 recommendations for Timor-­ Leste and other international actors on reforms and initiatives to prevent the reoccurrence of human rights abuses in Timor-­Leste (CAVR 2005). The Chega! National Centre or Centro Nacional Chega! is an independent institution established, albeit rather belatedly, in 2017 with the objective of implementing these recommendations. However, some of these recommendations are yet to come to fruition. Both the Timorese and Indonesian governments have not formally acknowledged all the recommendations because of their rejection of one of those: to establish an international tribunal that will try the perpetrators from Indonesia (Amnesty International 2005).11 Anticipating the CAVR’s recommendation, both governments jointly established the Commission of Truth and Friendship (CTF ) to feign compliance with public demand for justice and international law. The two governments decided to establish the CTF to pacify international and local demands and recommendations for an international tribunal brought out of the public dissatisfaction with the Panels in Dili for being unable and unwilling to try the high-­level Indonesian military officials. After the publication of the CAVR’s report, Gusmão showed hesitation over publicly disseminating it (C. Evans 2012). Prodded by the outrage of civil society and the international community, and convinced that the CTF would nonetheless sidestep CAVR’s recommendations, Gusmão eventually presented it to the parliament in the same year and to the UN Secretary-­General in 2006. However the advancement of these recommendations has moved slowly, and the parliament has either delayed debates on or deferred laws that would implement some of the recommendations in the report, such as those pertaining to the creation of national reparation and the establishment of an Institute of Memory (ICTJ 2010). The major contribution of the CTF was Indonesia’s acknowledgement that its government and officials committed gross human rights violations against civilians in Timor-­Leste surrounding the 1999 referendum (Perry 2009).12 However, this conclusion was no longer news. International organizations and local civil society criticized the CTF for being redundant, given that the CAVR had already published its final report (ANTI 2008). The CTF rebutted the criticism on the basis that its mandate did not cover the determination of individual responsibility, perhaps a preconceived mandate to support its intended goal of guaranteeing impunity for involved Indonesian officers. It concluded that human rights violations carried out by individuals were the responsibility of the state and their institutions (CTF 2008). However, without an international tribunal, the state

Timor-Leste   127 and its institutions cannot be held accountable. Instead, the CTF made recommendations on reforming state institutions and promoting a culture of accountability. The CTF ’s investigations fortified the case for the impunity of high-­level military officers in Indonesia. Then newly-­appointed UN Secretary-­General Ban Ki-­moon strongly opposed the CTF ’s recommendation to provide amnesties for Indonesian human rights violators and war criminals, and the UN boycotted the CTF ’s proceedings (UN News 2007). The Indonesian foreign minister ignored UN’s criticisms and reiterated CTF ’s purpose of reconciliation and not prosecution (Global Policy Forum 2007; Khalik 2007). The CTF was a façade of transitional justice. It promoted friendship between Timor-­Leste and Indonesia but only of their respective elites within political boundaries. Its purpose was to enhance Indonesian and Timorese bilateral relation, which is, fortunately, treading a positive track. Years after the publication of the CTF ’s final report, both governments have still to adopt its recommendations, especially on the disappeared persons, memorialization projects, and reparation for victims (Amnesty International 2014; Strating 2014). Putting things into political perspective, Timorese politicians calculated friendship over justice as a more reasonable option for Timor-­Leste with respect to its diplomatic relations with Indonesia, a more powerful and influential player in the region. The decision makers in Timor-­Leste had the herculean responsibility of balancing several political imperatives: the need to repatriate refugees without antagonising Indonesia; the maintenance of stability along the border with West Timor; the physical redevelopment of the country; and the drive of powerful Western states to maintain Indonesia as a key ally over the pursuit of prosecutions of its military. (Kent 2012a: 86) The decision of the Timorese leadership was not entirely wrong. In fact, these political imperatives had been achieved to varying degrees. However, these considerations should have been balanced vis-­à-vis the clamour of the local population for justice at least in the form of reparations victims deem appropriate. The Timorese want more than remembering the past; they want to see those responsible for the most serious crimes being brought to justice (Grenfell 2005). Also, as much as reconciliation, they want reparations, but their government’s ‘friendship’ with Indonesia thwarts their right to reparations. Indonesia has acknowledged its responsibility for the human rights violations it committed, but it remains indifferent to reparation efforts put forward by civil society and other international organizations. As if complicit in this indifference, a part of the Timorese political leadership does not exert its right to reparation (C. Evans 2012). The Timorese government has not yet sought reparation from the Indonesian government on behalf of the victims because the intention of the Timorese government was to seek the truth rather than to demand compensation or apology (Horta 2009). In Timor-­Leste, the pursuit of justice and reconciliation has been an arena for international and local actors to advance the priorities they

128   Timor-Leste thought was best for the country. For the UN missions and Timorese leadership, the priority was reconciliation and good relations with Indonesia. On the other hand, international and national human rights organizations and local civil society want those most responsible for human rights violations to be tried in court, and they demand fitting reparations. As Fernandes contemplated, the Timorese believe that reconciliation should come with justice, which is different from the view of the politicians that Timor-­Leste should be reconciled with Indonesia regardless of whether it is right or wrong, just or unjust (personal interview, 2014). Despite the establishment of several mechanisms and institutions for justice and reconciliation, the politicized and non-­representative involvement of the Timorese elite obstructed the pursuit of justice. Similar to Cambodia and Kosovo, the case of Timor-­Leste showed the imperfections of a top-­down approach to liberal peacebuilding focused on technical institution-­building. Timor-­Leste had three mechanisms for the purpose of transitional justice: the Panels in Dili, the CTF tribunal, and the CAVR. While the attainment of full justice in Timor-­Leste requires more than one mechanism (Kent 2012b), multiple mechanisms with expansive goals that do not correspond to public demand also do not deliver. A new mechanism was established in every situation when previous mechanisms proved to be ineffective or did not satisfy political imperatives. Justice remained elusive, however, because of unrealistic goals with limited resources, the weak political will of decision makers, and the inherent challenges of a country coming out of a long history of violence and conflict (Cohen and Lipscomb 2012). Like in Cambodia and Kosovo, the pursuit of justice and reconciliation in Timor-­Leste was elite-­centred and politicized. The priority after independence was national reconciliation and to gain a sense of national unity, according to a top government official of Timor-­Leste (personal interview, 2014). “Our victory is as big as our ability to embrace the enemy. Our victory is determined by our ability to unite the Timorese without past burdens”, he conveyed. However, while political reconciliation with Indonesia was necessary, it should be the kind of reconciliation not only between political elites but also between their peoples. Pouring into this already muddled concoction was the division of the local leadership over how to deal with the crimes of Indonesian government officials. Alkatiri and Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo13 supported recommendations for an international tribunal while Gusmão and José Ramos-­Horta preferred political reconciliation with Indonesia. Even though it did not represent the sentiment of the population, Gusmão’s decision to prioritize stable relations with Indonesia over prosecuting its high-­level officers was to exhibit a symbolic gesture for the population to emulate and embrace reconciliation. In a Grace Phan (2007) documentary, Gusmão uttered the following statements in a rather sombre manner: Many people complain and accuse [me] and the State of forgetting the suffering of the past, forgetting the sentiments of the victims. I always say that

Timor-Leste   129 during a liberation struggle, we cannot use the term ‘victims’; they are all heroes. You must understand that during our recent history, atrocities were committed on all sides. It was not only Indonesian soldiers that killed Timorese; Timorese killed Timorese too. The relationship between Timor-­Leste and Indonesia is currently stable. Perpetrators of less serious crimes have been tried in both Dili and Jakarta and have served their minimum sentences. Former militia members who committed less serious crimes have been reintegrated into their communities through local forms of transitional justice. Victims were able to share their stories, and the truth has been established. Reconciliation has been fostered at both national and international levels, but justice has been delayed and reparations for victims and their families, particularly in the form of economic assistance and material provision, continue to be an issue requiring national attention. During my conversation with Scheiner (2014), he reminded me that the Timorese are also facing another kind of injustice, the economic and social type. These issues also need responsiveness, especially as the development gap is widening despite revenues from natural resources. It is never too late to pursue justice for the tragedy of the past, but the Timorese leadership should also not be late in providing a just society for its people and future generations.

Captured development Timor-­Leste is one of the poorest countries in Southeast Asia. Its economy is predominantly agricultural, based on subsistence and informal activities, with coffee as its primary cash crop and industry. Three centuries of Portuguese colonization stunted its development. Portugal did not improve the public and economic infrastructure of Timor-­Leste despite benefitting from the latter’s natural resources, primarily from the lucrative exports of sandalwood. Some of the Timorese I conversed with believe that Indonesia’s annexation was better for Timor-­Leste in terms of economic development than Portuguese colonization as the Indonesian government started building public infrastructure to coax Timorese in supporting their country’s annexation. The Timorese economy depended on Indonesian financial transfers during the latter’s occupation but the violence after the referendum destroyed most of Timor-­Leste’s physical infrastructure and markets for goods and services (Carnahan et al. 2005). As one international who was working for an NGO during the transition remarked, UNTAET arrived in Timor-­Leste and saw “a country burned down to ashes with smoke still drifting in the air” (personal interview, 2013). UNTAET’s development mandate consisted of coordinating rehabilitation and development assistance and assisting in the establishment of conditions for sustainable development (S/RES/1272 1999). Setting the conditions for sustainable development meant advancing the local economy for which a functioning private sector was a prerequisite (Carnahan et al. 2005). Timor-­Leste is rich in oil and coffee, and tapping these resources helped UNTAET fulfil its development

130   Timor-Leste mandate. The presence of an international mission revived Timor-­Leste’s economy through the resumption of commerce, services, and other physical reconstruction efforts. While exports remained weak until an increase from US$345,000 in 1999 to US$583 million in 2012, imports grew steadily from US$994,000 in 1999 to US$661 million in 2012 (Simoes and Hidalgo 2011). However, GDP per capita growth registered high volatility throughout the years ranging from its highest 58.2 per cent growth rate in 2004 and its lowest negative 27.8 per cent in 2014 (World Bank 2018). The economy has only seen modest and fluctuating growth since 2014. In 2018 Timor-­Leste’s GDP per capita growth rate was negative 9.9 per cent but was projected to slightly increase in the following years (ibid.). UNTAET, with IMF ’s financial advice, anticipated the need to stabilize the currency in Timor-­Leste (Valdivieso et al. 2000). Indonesian banks previously monopolized the financial sector, and the Indonesian rupiah was virtually the only circulating currency (ibid.). Due to the post-­referendum violence, the banking and payment system halted, shifting all transactions to a cash basis and allowing the circulation of other currencies, such as the US and Australian dollars, and other Southeast Asian currencies (ibid.). The IMF recommended against the introduction of a national currency until a functioning financial market and policies were in place (Valdivieso and López-Mejía 2001). UNTAET took on the recommendation and adopted a single currency to eliminate inefficiencies and distortions caused by the use of multiple currencies. It endorsed the use of the US dollar, after considering other currencies and consulting with their respective monetary and fiscal authorities, because of its “stable value, widespread international use, and convertibility” (ibid.: 11–12). The decision to use the US dollar as the official currency, which Timor-­Leste uses to date, helped stabilize economic distortions and kept the inflation rate low (de Brouwer 2001). UNTAET established the Central Payments Office to provide efficient payments and sound banking systems (UNTAET/REG/2000/6 2000). The Office was transformed into the Banking and Payment Authority in East Timor as the next step in creating a central bank. Its primary objective was “to achieve and maintain domestic price stability” (UNTAET/REG/2001/30 2001: sec 5.1). It also aimed to “foster the liquidity and solvency of a stable market-­based banking and financial system, execute the foreign exchange policy of [Timor-­Leste], and to promote a safe, sound and efficient payment system” (ibid.: sec 5.2). In 2011 it was transformed into the Central Bank of Timor-­Leste—a move designed to improve the supervision and management of the state budget, to control the activities of private banks for accounting and transparency purposes, and to ensure sustainable independence for the Petroleum Fund (Central Bank of Timor-­Leste 2011). UNTAET was also successful in obtaining donor and investor support, instituting a system for balancing the national budget, and enforcing tax and regulatory systems. At the start of UNTAET’s mission, Timor-­Leste became a popular international aid recipient. After the Timorese leadership requested joint

Timor-Leste   131 and coordinated international support for reconstruction, the World Bank organized a Joint Assessment Mission to identify reconstruction priorities, estimate funding, and prescribe long-­term development objectives. A donor conference held in Tokyo in 1999 appropriated the report and pledged a total of US$522 million in grant aid for Timor-­Leste’s reconstruction covering the following two years: US$149 million for the World Bank’s trust fund for reconstruction and US$215 million for UNTAET’s trust fund for civil service capacity-­building (Cliffe 2003). Taking into account the large inflow of international aid, the IMF encouraged fiscal responsibility and the Timorese leadership targeted self-­ funding for government operations after UNTAET (“Development Issues” 2002). With a pledged financial support for reconstruction, UNTAET also passed regulations on budget and taxation. In January 2000 UNTAET established the Central Fiscal Authority (CFA) to manage the country’s budget and to develop, adopt, and execute Timor-­Leste’s Consolidated Budget, which was separate from UNTAET’s budget (UNTAET/REG/2000/1 2000). In the same year, UNTAET established a taxation regime which included the creation of the East Timor Revenue Service within the CFA (UNTAET/REG/2000/18 2000). This regulation was amended in 2002 after the First Constitutional Government took office, replacing the CFA with the Ministry of Planning and Finance. Timor-­Leste is abundant in coffee, but the violent incidents of 1999 disrupted the coffee industry. In 2000 the Division of Agriculture under ETTA analysed the potential of the coffee industry and recommended its economic viability alongside a series of steps to be taken, such as organic certification for Timorese coffee, to enable it to compete in the international market (Moreno 2000). In the same year, around 48,000 farmers were involved in the coffee industry, and Timor-­Leste was producing between 8,000 and 10,000 tons of dry coffee, amounting to US$20 million annually (UNTAET 2000). UNTAET contributed to the resuscitation and improvement of the coffee industry by training farmers, providing processing tools, and disseminating techniques for harvesting, processing, and storing coffee through radio broadcasts and information campaigns (ibid.). UNTAET also passed a regulation on presumptive income tax on coffee exports (UNTAET/REG/2000/12 2000). However, efforts were minimal and under-­prioritized. For example, road repairs were mainly carried out on primary roads, and not on those important for coffee farmers in transporting their crops to the market (Pomeroy 2001). Even with the massive inflow of reconstruction aid and programmes, Timor-­ Leste’s economic growth remains modest and its standard of living low. It ranked 133rd out of 188 countries in UNDP’s Human Development Index (HDI) in 2014 with a value of 0.605 out of 1.0 (Jahan 2016: 200). This is a minute improvement from its HDI value of 0.468 in 2000. In 2017 Timor-­Leste’s Gross National Income (GNI) per capita based on the Atlas method, which measures the standard of living in a country, was US$1,790 (World Bank 2018). Although Timor-­Leste is faring better than most of the least developed and disrupted countries, its average GNI per capita of US$990 in 2017 was the lowest recorded since 2007, and the trend is declining (ibid.). The revenue from the country’s oil

132   Timor-Leste reserves is yet to be felt by the everyday people. The 610,00-square kilometre Timor Sea located between Timor-­Leste and Australia has considerable reserves of oil and gas. During the Indonesian occupation, Indonesia signed the Timor Gap Treaty with Australia in 1989 regarding shares of resources and profits from oil exploration in the Timor Sea, but this treaty was considered illegal by international law and evaporated in 1999 after the referendum (La’o Hamutuk 2003). Prior to that, Australia profited from Timor-­Leste’s oil and gas reserves in exchange for recognizing Indonesian sovereignty over Timor-­Leste (see, for example, Nevins 2002; Anderson 2003). The reconstruction period under UNTAET saw the significance of the natural resources in the Timor Sea. Both UNTAET and the Timorese leadership agreed on the continuation of oil company contracts and developments as a source of national revenue. UNTAET negotiated with Australia and signed the Timor Sea Arrangement in July 2001 specifying the shares of petroleum production: 90 per cent for Timor-­Leste and 10 per cent for Australia. The Arrangement was transformed into the Timor Sea Treaty between Timor-­Leste and Australia signed in May 2002. However, this treaty only covered the Joint Petroleum Development Area (JPDA), thereby allowing Australia to solely continue developing seabed resources outside this area (La’o Hamutuk 2003). There are speculations that the shift in Australia’s cooperation from Indonesia to the UN was not meant to represent Timor-­Leste’s interests but a way to benefit from the Timor Sea’s resources through employment opportunities, national revenues, and regional investments (for example, Ishizuka 2004). On 22 March 2016, 40,000–70,000 Timorese staged a protest outside the Australian Embassy in Dili following smaller demonstrations organized by the Movement Against the Occupation of the Timor Sea (Lane 2016). They protested the Certain Maritime Arrangements in the Timor Sea (CMATS) treaty signed in 2006 and enforced in 2007 between Timor-­Leste and Australia regarding the shares of revenues that would be generated from the Greater Sunrise field, of which 80 per cent lies outside the JPDA and remains untouched. While the agreement gave Timor-­Leste an increase in shares of upstream revenues from the previous 18–72 per cent arrangement in favour of Australia to 50–50 per cent shares, it came with the condition that neither country would call for permanent maritime boundaries for the next 50 years or longer. On 11 April 2016 the Timorese government initiated a compulsory conciliation under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) aimed at concluding an agreement on permanent maritime boundaries with Australia. The Timorese leadership believes that previous Australian governments exploited Timor-­Leste’s vulnerability as a new and weak nation through the CMATS, which siphoned most of the revenues that could have funded the state budget for three years (Allard 2016). Initially, Australia refused to negotiate arguing that, if UNCLOS principles were applied, much of the territory in the Greater Sunrise would fall within Indonesian territory, although the Timorese government announced that it would settle its territorial boundaries with Indonesia separately. The case of the Timor Sea is an example of the perils of liberal

Timor-Leste   133 peacebuilding when an external state uses its influence and peacebuilding responsibility to satisfy its state interests instead of promoting the benefits of a liberal economy to a post-­conflict society’s economic sovereignty. In March 2018 the governments of Timor-­Leste and Australia signed a historic maritime agreement from the conciliation proceedings determining the entitlement and ownership of the oil reserves, including those in the Greater Sunrise estimated at US$53 billion, according to international law and discounting Australia’s previous territorial claims (Australia and Timor-­Leste 2018; UN Conciliation Commission 2018). It was a victory for Timor-­Leste. However, some experts believe that delimiting the boundaries to include the JPDA is insignificant considering its almost depleted reserves and unclear plans for the development of infrastructure that will harness the reserves in Greater Sunrise (Strating 2018). The Timorese government is firm in having the gas pipelines directed to Timor-­Leste for processing although independent valuations, including that of the Conciliation Commission, describe such plan as economically unviable. As Damon Evans (2018) asserts, unless the Timorese leadership, mainly pertaining to Gusmão as the chief negotiator during the conciliation proceedings, swallows their pride and accepts that a pipeline to Darwin in Australia’s northern territory is more commercially profitable for Timor-­Leste, its territorial win over the Timor Sea will not generate maximum revenues needed for the country’s economic development. Meanwhile, the Timorese government is now prioritizing efforts to implement the treaty, plan for the development of the Greater Sunrise, and channel to the country the resources from the Timor Sea. Oil and gas revenues used to exceed Timor-­Leste’s non-­oil GDP, but recent falling prices and depleting fields placed the government budget into a deficit for the first time since 2005 when oil reserves started generating revenues. Mismanagement of oil revenues may lead to the economic paradox called the “resource curse”, which happens when a country cannot sustain economic growth and development despite the abundance of non-­renewable natural resources (Auty 1993; Sachs and Warner 1999), and Timor-­Leste may be at risk of experiencing this (Seymour 2000; Lundahl and Sjöholm 2008).14 The risk is high when a national economy relies on a single commodity with high price volatility, such as oil and gas. It was, therefore, a wise move for the Timorese government to establish the Petroleum Fund (hereinafter referred to as the Fund) in 2005 to generate more income by saving and investing petroleum revenues. The Petroleum Fund Law stipulates that the annual estimated sustainable income (ESI) is 3 per cent of the total petroleum wealth, which the government can use to finance the state budget.15 The ESI is calculated every year based on a conservative set of assumptions about petroleum output and prices, reflecting international best practices and internationally recognized standards, and certified by an independent auditor. All revenues from the Timor Sea are transferred to the Fund and invested abroad in financial assets except for transfers to the central government budget. In 2016 the annual petroleum revenue was US$224 million, bringing the Fund’s balance to US$15.8 billion (Timor-­Leste Ministry of Finance 2017: 2).

134   Timor-Leste The Timorese government considers the Fund as the cornerstone of its economic policy. The Fund is a sustainable initiative given that oil reserves are finite resources and that revenues from the Timor Sea are forecasted to continue falling in the next decade because of lower global prices and production. However, since 2008, the government has exceeded its ESI withdrawals from the Fund. The government’s withdrawal until 2016 totalled to US$8.5 billion, which is US$3 billion more than the cumulative ESI (Timor-­Leste Ministry of Finance 2017: 6). The local civil society, the IMF, the World Bank, Fretilin, and the Petroleum Fund Consultative Council (PFCC)16 have criticized the government’s ESI withdrawals (La’o Hamutuk 2018). The oil and gas reserves will not be able to sustain Timor-­Leste for long and the Fund may be fully spent by 2026 (Scheiner 2015: 92). Several studies cautioned the government’s unnecessary spending of public money and inefficient management and control of infrastructure projects (for example, Drysdale 2008; Scheiner 2015; Nygaard-­Christensen 2016). Transparency International also raised its concern over corruption and public spending in Timor-­Leste: While the growth in oil revenues has allowed the government to invest in much-­needed infrastructure and human development initiatives, it has also created new opportunities for corruption and administrative malpractice, as reflected in the increasing number of high-­level corruption cases being brought before the courts. (Bosso 2015: 1) In 2014 Gusmão controversially expelled foreign lawyers and judges from Timor-­Leste, one day before the trial of Finance Minister Emilia Pires on corruption charges. Tempo Semanal (2012) reported Pires charged with breaching the law for awarding contracts through a direct award or without a tender to a company owned by her husband. Gusmão’s decision suspended the trial of Pires, including eight other cabinet members. Foreign governments and international investigators denounced Gusmão’s decision as a tactic to protect his ministers from corruption charges and avoid further investigations that might connect to allegations of him awarding government contracts to his family and friends. In 2017 the District Court in Dili sentenced Pires to seven years in prison. Pires denied the allegation, claimed an unfair trial, and appealed for a retrial in a Portuguese court. If the corruption allegations are true, the political elite, whose power and legitimacy were cemented during the transition, is not only monopolizing the political landscape in Timor-­Leste but is also mismanaging the country’s petroleum revenues for personal interests. It is possible for the same political elite, the heroes who fought for independence, to derail the country’s path towards sustainable economic development. If the government does not combat corruption and increase its institutional capacity to implement its planned development projects, these governance issues could undermine what the country has achieved so far in terms of resource management, such as functioning democratic institutions, defined procedures, and international compliance,

Timor-Leste   135 among others (Sýkora 2013). As a young country with an economy highly dependent on the finite oil and gas resources, Timor-­Leste needs to diversify its petroleum-­funded investments to develop its non-­oil economy and support rural development (Harmadi and Gomes 2013). The government should also ensure that the social distribution of petroleum revenues, such as cash payment schemes, is being channelled to the people who need them the most (Wallis 2015). 17

Conclusion The international community describes UNTAET as one of, if not, the most successful UN peacebuilding missions in recent history. UNTAET and the other UN missions in Timor-­Leste that followed it built security institutions, justice and reconciliation mechanisms, and foundations for economic development. INTERFET and UNTAET responded to militia threats and leading members of the resistance group shaped the rebuilding of local military and police forces. Those who were excluded, however, harboured resentment, resulting in divisions and rivalries contributing to the 2006 security crisis. The Panels in Dili dealt with less serious crimes, and the local communities participated in grassroots reconciliation through the CAVR. However, the Timorese leadership, with the support of the UN leadership at that time, decided to sideline the demands of seeing Indonesian government officials being held accountable in favour of political stability. The UN and Timorese leadership cooperated in harnessing the country’s oil and gas reserves to fund the state budget needed especially after the withdrawal of international presence and foreign aid. The market economy has yet to benefit the majority of the population, however, as the local elite captures them in a system prone to corruption. Most of those I interviewed believe that UNTAET focused more on building institutions than on developing the mechanisms for these institutions to function effectively and sustainably. The 2006 crisis is a symptom of this blind spot. The less than three-­year time frame of UNTAET was insufficient time for capacity-­building and left little room for error. Antonio Vitor, a youth leader during the transition, described the implication of this short time frame: “What capacity can you build in two years? It was too short, and if you do not do it properly, you do not solve the problem, but rather you become part of the problem” (personal interview, 2014). Learning from its past experiences and in response to criticisms of its predominantly top-­down approach in previous missions, the UN tried tweaking these shortcomings by expanding its mandates and involving more local actors in Timor-­Leste. Compared to Cambodia and Kosovo, UNTAET in Timor-­Leste had more substantive involvement of its local counterparts by assigning Timorese to all branches and levels of the transitional government. However, exclusive involvement did not always produce peaceful outcomes as manifested in the security crisis. There are several reasons for this peacebuilding glitch in Timor-­ Leste: the local leadership was fragmented and did not represent the public demand for justice, and some of them advanced their personal interests or political priorities over the socio-­economic needs of the people. While the approaches

136   Timor-Leste the international and local actors employed resulted in liberal institutions, they also highlighted the difficulties of delivering the responsibilities of these institutions in a context where international and local actors were burdened by competing political imperatives. Meanwhile, international peacebuilders built liberal institutions but did not sow the liberal values and standards in these institutions. In Timor-­Leste, the local turn could not save peacebuilding because the exclusive involvement of a fragmented political elite did not represent some of the local aspirations for security, justice, and economic development.

Notes   1 While the focus of this chapter is UNTAET’s mandates from 1999 to 2002, the analysis includes initiatives and incidents following UNTAET’s exit, including the UN missions that came after it, because the outcomes of implementing those mandates remained relevant even after the conclusion of UNTAET’s mission.   2 See Niner (2001) for the developments of political parties in Timor-­Leste.   3 INTERFET’s generally triumphant humanitarian intervention is not without criticisms. For example, it would have saved more lives if the forces had been deployed earlier instead of two weeks after the referendum. Its humanitarian support for refugees and ex-­combatants was inadequate, and its unclear law and mandate, especially in dealing with militias, fell short of the expectations of the Timorese people (Wallis et al. 2015). An empirical analysis by Smith and Jarvis (2018: 1) claims that “militia-­perpetrated violence in September 1999 was extinguished prior to the arrival of international military forces”.   4 Resolution 1272 stated that it was Indonesia’s responsibility to provide security in the refugee camps and to ensure the safety of refugees who chose to return to Timor-­Leste. The Security Council reiterated its statement when it passed Resolution 1319: [insisting] the Government of Indonesia take immediate additional steps, in fulfillment of its responsibilities, to disarm and disband the militia immediately, restore law and order in the affected areas in West Timor, ensure safety and security in the refugee camps and for humanitarian workers, and prevent cross-­border incursions into Timor-­Leste. (S/RES/1319 2000: 2)   5 See Sukma (2002) for an overview of the rationale, process, and progress of the establishment of F-­FDTL.   6 For example, CivPol employed the former chief of police from the Indonesian period as a senior Timor-­Leste police advisor/consultant because he was respected by the Timorese communities and was aware of the sentiments of the local population (Peter Baldwin, CivPol officer, personal interview, 2013).   7 Nicolau Lobato was the first commander of Falintil and briefly served as the prime minister of Timor-­Leste in 1975 when the country first declared independence. He led the resistance movement until he was killed in an ambush by the Indonesian forces in 1978.   8 La’o Hamutuk is the Tetum phrase for “walking together”.   9 For more stories of Timorese women’s activism, see Cristalis and Scott (2005). 10 See also Zifcak (2004) for a detailed assessment and measurement of the success of the CAVR. 11 The UN leadership decided against the establishment of an international tribunal early on despite strong evidence that the Indonesian military was responsible for the violence surrounding the 1999 referendum on the grounds of administrative strains from

Timor-Leste   137

12 13 14

15 16 17

the tribunals in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. According to Bowman (2004), however, the main reason was that the UN’s leadership did not want to upset Indonesia. The CTF was criticized for its exclusion of human rights violations before the 1999 referendum and its questionable conduct of public hearings (Hirst 2009). Bishop Belo and Ramos-­Horta share the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize for their peaceful advocacy regarding the conflict in Timor-­Leste. Ramos-­Horta also served as President and Prime Minister of Timor-­Leste. Some scholars (for example, Robinson et al. 2006; Lederman and Maloney 2007) have disputed the negative causality of rich natural resources in economic growth and view the economic paradox as dependent on several factors, such as the relative amounts of resources, good governance, and effective institutions. Petroleum wealth is calculated as the estimated value of the Petroleum Fund at the end of the prior fiscal year plus the net present value of expected annual petroleum fund receipts. The PFCC is composed of former and current Timorese government officials mandated to advise the parliament on the performance, operation, and appropriation of the Petroleum Fund (Democratic Republic of Timor-­Leste 2005). International compliance, in the case of Timor-­Leste, refers to the voluntary standards for revenue transparency in the extractive industries set by the international NGO, the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI). Timor-­Leste is compliant with EITI standards, but a study shows that EITI compliance does not equate to better resource governance or sustainable development (Sovacool et al. 2016).

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Timor-Leste   143 UNTAET/REG/2001/30 (2001). On the Banking and Payment Authority of East Timor. UNTAET. 30 November. Valdivieso, L.M., Endo, T., Mendonça, L.V., Tareq, S., and López-Mejía, A. (2000). East Timor: Establishing the Foundations of Sound Macroeconomic Management. IMF. Valdivieso, L.M. and López-Mejía, A. (2001). East Timor: Macroeconomic Management on the Road to Independence. Finance & Development 38(1): 18–23. Wallis, J. (2012). A Liberal-­Local Hybrid Peace Project in Action? The Increasing Engagement between the Local and Liberal in Timor-­Leste. Review of International Studies 38(4): 735–61. doi:10.1017/S0260210511000787. Wallis, J. (2013). Victors, Villains and Victims: Capitalizing on Memory in Timor-­Leste. Ethnopolitics 12(2): 133–60. doi:10.1080/17449057.2011.632958. Wallis, J. (2014). Constitution Making During State Building. New York: Cambridge University Press. Wallis, J. (2015). Assessing the Implementation and Impact of Timor-­Leste’s Cash Payment Schemes. In Ingram, S., Kent, L., and McWilliam, A. (eds) A New Era? Timor-­Leste after the UN. Canberra: ANU Press. Wallis, J., Rios, J.M.D., Noronha, C., and Soriano Viana, J.J.M. (2015). East Timorese Expectations and Experiences of INTERFET. In Blaxland, J. (ed.) East Timor Intervention: A Retrospective on INTERFET. South Carlton, VIC: Melbourne University Publishing. Warner, X. (2015). New Study Reveals Patterns of Violence against Women in Timor-­ Leste. The Asia Foundation, 9 December. World Bank (2018). World Development Indicators. data.worldbank.org/products/wdi. Accessed September 2018. Zifcak, S. (2004). Restorative Justice in East Timor: An Evaluation of the Community Reconciliation Process of the CAVR. The Asia Foundation.

5 The perils of liberal peacebuilding and pitfalls of local involvement

Context matters This chapter brings together the main themes from the case studies with consideration of their unique histories. Nothing happens in isolation, so it is unfair not to note the distinct contexts, capacities, and cultures of the case studies discussed in Chapters 2, 3, and 4 before analysing the outcomes of liberal peace and local involvement in their peacebuilding processes. These distinctions speak of the evolving dynamics of peace and peacebuilding in the realities of post-­ conflict societies. Nevertheless, finding the similarities and differences across the three cases is essential to derive lessons for future peacebuilding missions. After comparing the implementations and outcomes of the peacebuilding mandates in Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-­Leste, this chapter presents the main findings from this comparison regarding the perils of liberal peacebuilding and the pitfalls of local involvement. This comparative analysis reveals that liberal peacebuilding in the three cases was neither liberal nor peacebuilding because they departed from the values of liberal peace and the holistic origins of peacebuilding. This failure to translate the liberal intention to peacebuilding practice was compounded by a narrow understanding of statebuilding limited to the technical establishment of state institutions and local involvement characterized by illiberal values. Several factors influenced the implementation of UN peacebuilding mandates in Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-­Leste. The timing and duration of the missions, the nature of the conflicts, the context of geopolitics and foreign relations, and the cultures and histories of the post-­conflict societies shaped how the UN transitional administrations provided security, pursued justice and reconciliation, and promoted development. The end of the Cold War and the victory of Amer­ ican liberalism played a pivotal role in how the UN responded to Cambodia and designed the mandates of UNTAC. Although its mandate touched on some social and economic issues, these tasks were meant to assist the main objective of the mission, which was to prepare and conduct the election within a period of one year. This mandate signifies the confidence of the UN at that time that an election would lead Cambodia to a liberal transformation. The UN arrived in Kosovo and Timor-­Leste amid the euphoria of liberal internationalism following

The perils and pitfalls   145 the international community’s failure to respond to the genocide in Rwanda and Bosnia and to effectively respond to the civil war in Somalia. The guilt over inaction and operational mishaps renewed a sense of enthusiasm and responsiveness among intervening actors towards humanitarian crises brought about by internal conflict. As a result, the missions in Kosovo and Timor-­Leste, preceded by humanitarian action, were more ambitious as the international presence stayed longer and encompassed activities other than conducting elections. The nature of the conflicts also influenced the provision of security and the pursuit of justice and reconciliation. Cambodia’s conflict was internal and participated by competing local factions. No foreign forces were actively part of the conflict except for the financial and material support foreign countries provided to the armed factions. Implementing the DDR process and establishing unified security forces were more complicated in Cambodia because the warring parties were all Cambodians. The ‘enemy’ could have been the ‘neighbour’. The security threat was high since the armed factions were situated within communities where they guaranteed people security in return for loyalty. They controlled territories and managed the everyday life of the people within those territories. For Kosovo and Timor-­Leste, forging trust and confidence in the DDR process was easier as soon as the Serbian and Indonesian military forces, respectively, were removed from the territories. Not without flaws, the UN achieved relative success in the DDR of former combatants and establishing security institutions in Kosovo and Timor-­Leste than in Cambodia. The removal of foreign forces or ‘enemies’ proved crucial in encouraging former combatants to undergo a DDR process. When the Khmer Rouge perceived that UNTAC was not completely fulfilling its task of removing Vietnamese forces from Cambodia and favoured the Vietnamese-­backed SOC, it dropped out of the DDR process. Geopolitics and foreign relations also had a decisive function in the peacebuilding mission. For example, in addition to the Australian-­led military intervention, Indonesia’s cooperation after the 1999 referendum contributed to addressing the long-­standing security threats from the militias along Timor-­ Leste’s border with Indonesia. Australia’s political and economic interests in Timor-­Leste encouraged the former to take a leading role not only in responding to the post-­ the transition.1 Similarly, NATO’s intervention in Kosovo led to Milošević’s surrender followed by the withdrawal of former Yugoslav forces from Kosovo, after which former KLA members handed in most of their weapons. The support of the permanent members of the UN Security Council also dictates the direction of the peacebuilding process or the decision to deploy a peacebuilding mission since Security Council resolutions are only passed without a veto by any of the permanent members. When China, Russia, and the US ceased meddling with the domestic politics of Cambodia after the end of the Cold War, the Paris Agreement was finally settled and UNTAC was deployed. In Kosovo, Russia, a close ally of Serbia, only agreed to the installation of UNMIK on the condition that the political solution in Kosovo would not undermine the sovereignty and territorial integrity of then Yugoslavia. Resolution 1244 envisions Kosovo’s substantial

146   The perils and pitfalls autonomy within the former Yugoslavia. UNMIK’s continuing presence, though downsized, still mainly rests on Russia’s non-­recognition of Kosovo as an independent state despite the breakup of Yugoslavia. Finally, culture and history are salient elements shifting the dynamics of a peacebuilding plan. Cambodia and Timor-­Leste are generally homogenous in terms of ethnicity, language, and religion in contrast to the ethnic divisions in Kosovo. Both societies have also established and accepted the conclusive truth about what happened in the past. This difference partly explains why Cambodia and Timor-­Leste have advanced in terms of reconciliation even with the incomplete delivery of justice to those who have committed serious crimes and gross human rights violations in the past. Meanwhile, in Kosovo, despite continuous EULEX support for strengthening the judicial system, genuine and collectively acceptable efforts to push for truth-­seeking initiative and reconciliation procedures are yet to be seen. According to Di Lellio and McCurn (2013), many Albanians in Kosovo perceive any cooperation with a regional effort for reconciliation as equivalent to cooperating with the perpetrator, Serbia.2 Support for grassrootsl­evel mechanisms of transitional justice is also lacking. Zupan (2006) described the local civil society in Kosovo as divided along ethnic lines and differing views on the means of reconciliation.3 To reconcile with the past, it is necessary to establish the truth about what happened in the past (see, for example, Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa 1998; Loyle and Davenport 2016).4 But according to a 2012 UNDP opinion poll, there is no narrative acceptable to both Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo regarding who are the victims and who are the perpetrators (Dumnica et al. 2012). The lack of a national identity5 to unite its people and a conclusive truth about what happened in the past continue to cast a shadow over Kosovo’s prospects for justice and reconciliation.

Providing security The peacebuilding missions in Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-­Leste were mandated to provide security to all members of the populations. In this book, I focused on specific security issues for each case study: the landmines in Cambodia, the ethnic discrimination in Kosovo, and the militia threats in Timor-­Leste. In Cambodia, UNTAC helped establish local operators for mine clearance that were subsequently supported by the Cambodian government and international organizations after UNTAC’s exit. Mine clearance programmes focused on community development by involving local communities and incorporating their needs and priorities. In Kosovo, international and local authorities passed laws and regulations to ensure the protection of the rights of ethnic minorities. However, the international and local security institutions failed to protect some members of ethnic minority groups, especially during the 2004 riots, partly because of the lack of substantive involvement of ethnic minorities and civil society engagement in developing initiatives that benefit all ethnic groups. In Timor-­Leste, UNTAET’s Peacekeeping Force was successful in addressing the militia threats along the border with Indonesia. The emergency context of this

The perils and pitfalls   147 security threat permitted the international actors to act immediately without the need for institutions and local involvement. The case studies reaffirm an intuitive assumption that liberal security institutions for the promotion and protection of human rights are necessary to deliver on the responsibility of providing a safe and secure environment for all members of the population. But the case studies also illustrate how the extensive yet exclusive involvement of local elite in the security sector only produced short-­term and fragile peace. They also exemplify how imperative inclusive and substantive involvement of the local communities and the incorporation of their needs and priorities are for the effective provision of security, except in emergency cases. The acquiescence to Hun Sen’s demands in Cambodia, the co-­option of the KLA in Kosovo, and the partnership with the resistance heroes in Timor-­Leste may have brought general stability, but they also generated new sources of insecurity for those outside their circles. The outcomes of the DDR process were varied across the three case studies, but they were all linked to the (re)building of local security forces. In Cambodia, the DDR failed after the withdrawal of the Khmer Rouge from the process, resulting in the continued arming of the other local factions. The aborted process and the absence of an UNTAC mandate to create a unified security force allowed the CPP to consolidate and monopolize the country’s security sector after UNTAC left. Hun Sen’s military entourage kept growing making it easier for him to exercise authoritarian practices in Cambodia today. In Kosovo, the DDR of former KLA members, who were either reintegrated back into civilian life or absorbed into the newly built security forces, was generally successful. However, the dominance of the ethnic majority, some of whom were still vengeful towards the Serbs, in these new security institutions, compounded by organizational issues, made the protection of ethnic minorities problematic in practice. The ethnic bias of the local security forces was demonstrated during the 2004 riots when some of them exercised selective protection of the people. In Timor-­Leste, the programme of reintegrating former guerrilla fighters was only partially successful. The heroes of the resistance were heavily involved in the creation of the newly built police and military institutions. However, some legitimate security groups who were excluded from the process harboured discontent fuelling the escalation of the 2006 protests to a full-­blown security crisis. In all cases, exclusive involvement ran the risk of inciting violent discontent among disenfranchised parties. Ideally, consent, cooperation, and equal treatment of all former combatants are essential in the establishment and development of the security sector, but the UN transitional administrations discussed in this book had limited authorization to use enforcement measures for those who agitated the process. Table 5.1 summarizes the security components of peacebuilding in Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-­Leste. The analysis of all three cases across several security issues suggests that an absence of a security mandate and the lack of established and effective security institutions to implement such mandate impeded the provision of security for all members of the population. For example, UNTAC in Cambodia had no clear guidelines on how to rebuild the security forces, which contributed to the continuing conflict between the competing factions and ultimately to CPP’s dominance

Ethnic discrimination and insecurity Most KLA members were demilitarized persist despite laws and regulations that and reintegrated either back into ensure the rights of ethnic minorities. civilian life or to the newly built security institutions, but authorities are still confiscating illegal weapons and small arms.

The UN Peacekeeping Force secured the Timorese border with Indonesia and deterred militia threats to protect the population.

Kosovo

Timor-Leste

IOM’s FRAP was successful in assisting its beneficiaries, but those who were excluded harboured discontent.

The DDR failed after the Khmer Rouge withdrew from the process, and the other factions continued arming themselves.

Internationally supported and locally participated mine clearance focused on community development.

Cambodia

DDR

Protection for all

Cases/components

Table 5.1 Providing security during peacebuilding: a summary of the case studies

UNTAET established security institutions but were plagued with divisions and alliances that fuelled the 2006 crisis.

UNMIK created security institutions but the international and local security forces were unprepared to handle the 2004 riots.

UNTAC did not have a mandate and mechanism to consolidate and establish a unified security force. Since the 1997 coup, the CPP is in control of the security sector.

(Re)building of security forces

The perils and pitfalls   149 in the security sector. In Kosovo and Timor-­Leste, the mandate to create a unified security force was clear from the outset, and this served as the foundation to reform the security sector. However, a clear mandate was not the sole determinant of successful provision of security since security was also attached to other social and political issues. The ethnic component of the conflict in Kosovo and the internal fragmentation of the political leadership in Timor-­Leste posed challenges in providing protection to ethnic minorities and in unifying the security forces, respectively. The exclusive and politicized involvement of former KLA members in Kosovo and the heroes of the resistance in Timor-­Leste compounded these inherent difficulties. These kinds of local involvement culminated in illiberal decisions: using the military for political monopoly in Cambodia, discrimination of ethnic minorities in Kosovo, and disenfranchisement of legitimate security groups in Timor-­Leste. International actors treated the security issues in these three post-­conflict societies as stagnant and ignored the evolution of security concerns and local priorities. The Security Council resolutions initially provided clear priorities and focused approaches to the rebuilding process, but the peacebuilding missions failed to adapt to the changing security requirements on the ground. The UN’s infamous brand of bureaucratic and politicized decision-­making restricted the flexibility of the peacebuilding missions. UNTAC failed to reinstate the Khmer Rouge’s participation in the DDR process partly due to the inflexibility and unpreparedness of UN agencies and authorities that were tied to the confines of Resolution 745 to respond to such unexpected events. UNMIK failed to address the growing economic concerns of the Albanians in Kosovo because of its preoccupation with the status talks and virtue of neutrality over Kosovo’s status. Finally, UNTAET’s concern over militia threats along the border with West Timor overlooked the brewing internal insecurity within the newly built security institutions of Timor-­Leste. One of the main themes that came out of my interviews with both international and local peacebuilders was the transitional administrations’ prioritization of short-­term stability over long-­term peace. I am not claiming that stability is not important or that stability and peace are contradictory; in fact, stability is an essential element of peace. Duffield even argues that “the ultimate goal of liberal peace is stability” (2001: 34). In all cases, for a transitional administration to be deployed, or even to be authorized for deployment, stability was a prerequisite for jumpstarting the process of rebuilding a country or territory. However, a preference for stability also needs to evolve along with the changing security landscape and to include a longer-­term outlook that makes stability a permanent characteristic of a post-­conflict society instead of a situation that lingers only alongside the presence of the internationals. The post-­transition violence in Cambodia and Timor-­Leste unearthed unresolved security tensions that shook their fragile stability after the internationals had left. In the case of Kosovo, the riots happened five years after UNMIK started and when the status talks were not progressing. The prioritization of short-­term stability discounts other forms of structural violence and consequently undermines the original conceptualization of

150   The perils and pitfalls peacebuilding. With this reality, I then extend Duffield’s claim by arguing that stability is only a means to achieve peace, which is the ultimate goal of liberal peace, and in the context of peacebuilding, this peace must be holistic. Fearful of a conflict relapse during their tenancy, the transitional administrations decided to co-­opt the ‘men with guns’: Hun Sen and his party in Cambodia, the former KLA members in Kosovo, and the leaders of the resistance in Timor-­ Leste. This decision prevented the missions from moving away from the security status quo that had once dominated the country/territory. While adversaries were successfully removed, the groups the UN transitional administrations partnered with became replacements for previous regimes, carrying with them new forms of security threats directed towards the marginalized groups. This outcome was particularly true in Cambodia where the government’s authoritarian practices were stifling political rights and in Kosovo where the dominance of an ethnic majority, compounded by the political elite’s exploitation of ethno-­nationalist narratives, left ethnic minorities feeling insecure. The local elites have later found avenues to erode the liberal democratic processes and cement the status quo most beneficial to them. International and local actors share the blame in peacebuilding failures for not implementing the liberal intention behind those mandates. Some of the local elite manipulated the liberal institutions to mask their illiberal motives. The outcomes of co-­opted peacebuilding that prioritizes short-­term stability over lasting peace is a compromised democracy in Cambodia, courts of revenge in Kosovo, and captured development in Timor-­Leste. These are examples of local involvement that veered away from liberal values and institutions of representation and equality in the security sector. These security outcomes suggest that the failure of liberal peacebuilding to sustain peace was rooted in its flawed implementation or the lack thereof.

Pursuing justice and reconciliation Resolution 745 in Cambodia had no mandate pertaining to justice and reconciliation. Later, the Security Council resolutions in Kosovo and Timor-­Leste had clearer mandates on how to deal with mass atrocities committed during the conflict. This difference can be considered as an improvement in the design and normative underpinning of the UN transitional administrations. Transitional justice has become an inevitable issue for societies transitioning from conflict to peace. However, in all three cases, transitional justice was emasculated when the preference for short-­term stability overrode justice and human rights. This preference implied how the peacebuilding missions prioritized negative peace over positive peace when they chose to grant impunity to those guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity over reassuring the people that such crimes will never happen again or go unpunished. The Cambodian government has interfered in the Khmer Rouge Tribunal’s selection of suspects to avoid implicating Hun Sen and his cronies for the violence they committed in the past. UNMIK in Kosovo contradicted the ICTY’s judicial process after failing to provide necessary documentation and touting support to the indicted former KLA members. In

The perils and pitfalls   151 Timor-­Leste, the political elite decided to foster reconciliation with Indonesia instead of trying the latter’s government officials in order to maintain a stable bilateral relationship despite public demands for justice and reparations. The UN transitional administrations, and subsequently the elites they co-­opted, equated peace with political stability or the absence of violence, which was preferred over the pursuit of justice to avoid inciting instability from those who needed to be held accountable. Instead of empowering the local population and safeguarding their human rights, political decisions delayed or derailed the pursuit of justice, muzzled local aspirations, and enfeebled their confidence in judicial institutions. A common theme from my conversations with locals was the need for their people to pursue both retributive and restorative forms of justice. Restorative justice is the “process to involve, to the extent possible, those who have a stake in a specific offence to collectively identify and address harms, needs, and obligations in order to heal and put things as right as possible” (Zehr 2014: 73). The assignment of individual guilt and punishment in retributive justice overshadows the totalizing experiences of genocide and massive and systemic human rights violations that require a totalizing response (Fletcher and Weinstein 2002). Since retribution focuses on the punishment of the individual, it does not commonly prioritize victim-­centred reparation. Restorative forms of justice can complement the shortcomings of retributive justice. Public surveys in Cambodia and Timor-­Leste confirm public support for hybrid tribunals and public demand for community-­level reconciliation. Where institutions of justice were unable to bring justice, public demands for memorialization of the past rang louder. The population understands the importance of pursuing justice and reconciliation, but they also want to see international and national efforts directed towards improving their lives. Retributive justice may provide a closure to the past, but restorative justice that includes economic and social reparations will provide the people with confidence and the means to move on to the future. Comparing the justice and reconciliation efforts of the three case studies (see Table 5.2) reveals that although the incorporation of local practices provided institutional legitimacy and encouraged public support for transitional justice procedures (such as the community reconciliation procedure of the CAVR in Timor-­Leste), the involvement of political elites who used the institutions of justice to protect their interests weakened the credibility of these institutions and ultimately impeded the pursuit of justice and reconciliation (such as the CPP’s interference in the Khmer Rouge Tribunal). International actors and the local leadership blocked this pursuit in order to maintain stability (such as UNMIK’s protection of indicted high-­level politicians in Kosovo) or to enhance bilateral relations (such as the political relationship between Timor-­Leste and Indonesia). The local actors who influenced the transitional justice mechanisms did not represent the demands of the general population for justice and reparation. Liberal values, while sometimes incompatible with the local context, may also coincide with local preferences and practices. The locals I interviewed did not express absolute rejection of the pursuit of justice through liberal institutions

Retributive justice

UNTAC did not have a specific mandate on justice and reconciliation. The Khmer Rouge Tribunal started operating in 2007, but the current government interferes in some of its processes.

UNMIK was mandated to provide full cooperation with the ICTY, but it failed to do so during the indictment of highlevel politicians in Kosovo. UNMIK and EULEX courts were established, but the involvement of local lawyers and judges who had ethnic biases resulted in biased judgments.

UNTAET was mandated to bring to justice those responsible for the violence in Timor-Leste but the Special Panels in the courts of Dili and the lack of political will to bring to justice the Indonesian government officials found guilty of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and human rights violations.

Cases/components

Cambodia

Kosovo

Timor-Leste

UNTAET supported the establishment of the CAVR to uncover the truth about the Indonesian occupation and to promote community-level reconciliation using local practices. In 2005 the Timorese and Indonesian governments jointly created the CTF to establish the truth and promote reconciliation but, in reality, it strengthened the case for impunity of Indonesian government officials.

UNMIK did not have a mandate on reconciliation, and national and local initiatives are lacking. Reconciliation between Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo remains moot in the absence of a mutually accepted truth about the past.

Local NGOs have initiated community-level dialogues to foster reconciliation. The tribunal, with the advocacy of local NGOs, started supporting victim-centred reparation programmes and memorialization projects.

Restorative justice

Table 5.2 Pursuing justice and reconciliation during peacebuilding: a summary of the case studies

The perils and pitfalls   153 but rather criticized the incompetency of these institutions in delivering justice fairly and meeting the demands for reparation. For example, in Cambodia, the disappointment over the tribunal is not due to its presence but to its slow proceedings and the political interference of the Cambodian government. Members of civil society in Timor-­Leste are still advocating for the establishment of an international tribunal. In Kosovo, on the other hand, the incorporation of former KLA members into the government and the dominance of Albanians in most sectors of governance curbed the indictment of former KLA members who were allegedly involved in war crimes and crimes against humanity. Fortunately, some members of civil society in Kosovo continue to find ways to bring justice while fostering reconciliation, and international bodies, such as the ICTY and the CoE, exercise their legal authority to hold responsible those proven guilty. The differences and degrees of reconciliation in Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-­Leste were evident when I was conducting my fieldwork. In Phnom Penh, the people I talked to recalled the history of the Khmer Rouge acrimoniously. At the same time, their concerns are more related towards the present challenges in Cambodian society. The temporal distance of the conflict explains the apathy of some, especially the younger Cambodians, for the experiences of the past. On the other hand, the palpable yet uncomfortable animosity, and sometimes even outright hatred, between Albanians and Serbs from my conversations with everyday people in different parts of Kosovo perturbed my neutrality and emotional distance as a researcher. In Timor-­Leste, the way the Timorese recounted their stories gave more weight to the triumph of their struggle for independence than the suffering they had experienced. These observations require higher sensitivity and more nuanced analysis for the peacebuilding component of justice and reconciliation compared to the components of security and economic development. Justice and reconciliation are more personal, subjective, and therefore layered. These differences in these fieldwork accounts mirror the unique contexts of the conflicts these societies have emerged from and raise a warning about overgeneralization and a blanket approach to pursuing justice and reconciliation.

Promoting development Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-­Leste have all experienced economic growth since the end of the conflict and the arrival of the UN missions. Table 5.3 summarizes the outcomes of the development mandates in Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-­Leste per a specific aspect of development most relevant to the mandate of their respective transitional administration. In all three cases, institutions and mechanisms for various aspects of development were established. However, negative consequences are also intrinsic in the process of economic reform that introduces a liberal market economy as well as in hosting a large-­scale international presence over a short period of time. While the presence of UN missions temporarily boosted domestic economic activities through job creation and enterprises catering to the internationals, their

154   The perils and pitfalls Table 5.3 Promoting development during peacebuilding: a summary of the case studies Cases

Development mandates

Cambodia

UNTAC and the local leadership agreed and cooperated on passing a moratorium on the export of logs, minerals, and gems. However, illegal logging remains rampant in Cambodia because of the industry’s connection with corrupt government agencies and officials, while disadvantaging small-time loggers.

Kosovo

International and national authorities passed laws and regulations to ensure equal access to healthcare services, but non-Albanians felt marginalized in the healthcare system.

Timor-Leste

The Timorese government created the Petroleum Fund to save petroleum revenues for future generations, but allegations of government misuse and corruption of these revenues make the Fund susceptible to corruption.

exits also negatively impacted the socio-­economic aspects of post-­conflict development. In Cambodia, HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases became prevalent as international peacekeepers engaged in the sex trade. In Kosovo, international peacekeepers were not just the majority of the patrons of trafficked women, some of whom were minors forced into prostitution, but several investigations also exposed their involvement in the trafficking of women (for example, Amnesty International 2004). In Timor-­Leste women are still seeking support from international peacekeepers who fathered their children. UN peacekeepers have committed sexual violence against women and children in other host countries as well, such as Haiti, Liberia, South Sudan, West Africa, and Central African Republic (Deschamps et al. 2015; A/71/99 2016). In 2016 the Security Council passed Resolution 2272, which condemns the sexual violence committed by UN peacekeepers and requires contributing countries to hold their peacekeepers accountable (S/RES/2272 2016). “[The] resolution recognize[s] that sexual violence by peacekeepers not only inflicts unconscionable harm on individual victims but also undermines the effectiveness of peacekeeping missions and the moral authority of the entire United Nations” (Whalan 2017: 2). However, the lengthy process of examining these cases, the lack of clear and streamlined legislation, and the underlying norms within peace operations are hurdles in disciplining and holding the peacekeepers accountable (for example, Mudgway 2017; Smith 2017). In terms of economic opportunities linked to the international presence, businesses that used to cater to internationals either closed down or struggled to make ends meet after the missions concluded. Hotel owners in Dili told me that business used to be profitable when the internationals were there, but now they are struggling to maintain their hotels and often resort to price hikes to make a profit. During my visit to Valu Beach in the eastern part of Timor-­Leste, the two remaining resorts were almost deserted with only six guests including myself. The fishermen I met at the beach also recounted how they used to make decent

The perils and pitfalls   155 money from transporting tourists, mostly UN personnel, but now they have to rely on seasonal fishing, which is not enough to provide for their families. On my way to Valu Beach, I passed a small bridge built by UNTAET, now dilapidated and marked with a weathered UN logo. It was one of those structures built by the internationals for the internationals but that were not maintained when they left. It is a sombre reminder of the unsustainability of the international presence. The international peacebuilding strategy also treated the everyday needs of the people as secondary to institutional reforms. The moratorium on logging in Cambodia, the establishment of healthcare institutions in Kosovo, and the marketization of oil in Timor-­Leste did not entirely and sustainably benefit the most economically vulnerable. These peacebuilding activities masqueraded a self-­ administering and self-­sufficient state but were proven hollow on the inside. The moratorium in Cambodia disadvantaged small-­time loggers whose main income relied on the forests. The healthcare system in Kosovo failed to foresee how the politicization of ethnic categories could negatively impact the provision of services to ethnic minorities. The oil revenues in Timor-­Leste created opportunities for corruption and unsustainable spending practices. The transitional administrations helped build the exterior structures of the state without mechanisms to ensure that these structures will serve their purposes and withstand malpractices inevitable in disrupted states and post-­conflict societies. The reason for these unsustainable practices lies in the mandate of the Security Council. Development was not originally part of UN peacebuilding operations. A UN official at the Peacebuilding Support Office explained how the mandates of UN missions were created mainly for ensuring the security of the states (personal interview, 2015). These mandates are encapsulated in resolutions approved by the Security Council, which, by its nature, serves the interest of member states mainly in terms of peace and security. Development, on the other hand, is something the Security Council is not designed to address, he said. The creation of the UN peacebuilding architecture was meant to address this shortcoming, but unless the Security Council starts acknowledging the need to incorporate development-­driven agencies and programmes, the mandates of UN missions will remain broad, top-­down, and short-­sighted in terms of economic development, he added. This shortcoming is where the role of other UN agencies and international organizations could come in handy. In Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-­Leste, the IMF, World Bank, WHO, UNDP, IOM, and other international NGOs performed significant functions in setting a longer-­term and more development-­driven direction for post-­conflict economies, specifically in providing recommendations for sustained economic growth, generating revenues, and including other sectors of society in the provision of basic services. Moreover, their partnership with local organizations was instrumental in building capacity and sustaining local involvement. It is easy to conclude that the above-­mentioned economic problems are consequences of the incompatibility of a liberal economy with the local context. After all, introducing liberal economic development in a conflict-­affected society

156   The perils and pitfalls is inherently difficult and may exacerbate development issues. The economic inequalities between the urban and the rural populations, high dependency on foreign aid, and trade imbalances in all three case studies support this conclusion. These economic consequences, however, are also present in already liberalized economies, especially in developing countries. If we look at the case of Cambodia, the government was trying to liberalize the economy even before the internationals arrived, especially after the extreme policy of collectivization carried out by the Khmer Rouge had left the economy in ruins and the country without any industry. Given that Kosovo used to be under a socialist government and Timor-­Leste’s trade was virtually exclusive to its occupier, it is an open question whether these economies had not previously adopted a liberal economy because it was incompatible with the local context or because the conflicts did not provide opportunities for them to do so. On the other hand, statistics show that Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-­Leste achieved economic growth and improved the standard of living of many people after the introduction of a liberal economy. The cessation of conflict was likely responsible for most of these developments, but the impact of liberalization in their economies and their eventual participation in international trade as contributors to positive economic growth cannot be discounted. What is apparent in the case studies, unfortunately, is the involvement of corrupt and biased political elites in newly established economic institutions, which prevented inclusive development that should have benefitted the poorest and most marginalized members of the society. Their exclusive involvement did not represent the aspirations and advance the economic needs of a population that had just experienced conflict and widespread violence.

Is liberal peacebuilding liberal and peace building? Not a single interview participant expressed outright rejection of liberal values or the elements of liberal peace. In fact, one of their criticisms of the UN was its assumption that there was no concept of liberal values in the societies they were administering. Youk Chhang aptly said, the internationals expected that the concept of human rights and democracy would be too foreign for Cambodians (personal interview, 2014). “For a country that had experienced an authoritarian regime, it was natural for us to seek freedom and rights”, he explained. This need for freedom and rights was what made the Cambodians go out early in the summer of 1993, dressed to the nines, to vote despite threats to their safety. Up until now, civil society organizations in Cambodia demand and work towards a stronger human rights culture and are fighting for more government transparency and accountability. The forms and expressions of these liberal values might be different from the Western kind, but they manifest the possibility of local values and practices coinciding with liberal values and standards. For example, while the Albanian kanun justifies blood revenge, although often in exaggerated and misinterpreted ways, it also includes mechanisms of mediation as an option for conflict resolution. Another example is the nahe biti in Timor-­Leste, which is

The perils and pitfalls   157 essentially rooted in a restorative form of justice that later informed and became an integral part of the community reconciliation procedures of the CAVR. Wallis (2018) has noted emerging evidence of the Timorese people’s increasing preference for liberal state institutions over local mechanisms or combinations of local and liberal forms of peacebuilding and statebuilding. What my interview participants complained about was how internationals implemented or transferred these liberal values. In all cases, they criticized locally insensitive implementations of the liberal mandates of UN transitional administrations, such as the hiring of internationals who were unfamiliar with the local background, the weak capacity-­building of institutions, the incomplete handover of competencies and assets, and the slow incorporation of local actors into the peacebuilding process. The UN transitional administrations examined in this book had liberal mandates and goals to transform their host societies from conflict to peace. The Security Council resolutions that authorized their deployment and the regulations passed during their missions reflected the liberal approach of the UN and its commitment to peace and security, human rights, justice, democracy, the rule of law, and the free market. The local political leadership also adopted the same rhetoric and expressed their willingness to comply with liberal standards. However, international and local commitment to these liberal values did not always translate into practice. Peacebuilding in Cambodia was limited to the conduct of the election and institution-­building to the extent that the outcome of the election and the established institutions were exploited by the political elite’s illiberal motives. This compromised liberal peacebuilding resulted in the political elite’s rejection of liberal norms and standards cloaked behind the façade of liberal institutions. UNMIK’s reinforcement of ethnic-­based political units in its peacebuilding agenda in Kosovo afforded the elite from the ethnic majority to dominate the rebuilding process and the newly established institutions. This co-­ opted liberal peacebuilding resulted in the limited adoption of liberal norms and standards as the ethnic groups’ biases shaped the practices and institutions in Kosovo. The fragile liberal peacebuilding in Timor-­Leste was able to keep a relative and brief stability but failed to address the internal divisions plaguing the country. Liberal norms and standards were adopted at the local level but in a limited way as the local leadership was fragmented by political rivalry and differing values and priorities, some of which were against liberal values. In these three post-­conflict societies, the UN successfully built liberal institutions of security, justice and reconciliation, and development during the transitional period, as mandated by the Security Council resolutions, through a top-­down and technocratic approach to institution-­building. However, these institutions fell short of delivering their responsibilities due to weak capacity-­building, which proved unsustainable after the conclusion of the missions and exploitation by the local elite for their illiberal motives. The transferring of responsibilities to local authorities was completed but was done either in haste without ensuring sufficient local capacity, such as in the security institutions of Timor-­Leste, or later than expected because of the virtue of neutrality, resulting in impatience among local actors, such as in Kosovo. In the case of development, which in itself is a

158   The perils and pitfalls long process, the related mandates were short-­sighted as the objectives were meant to be achieved within the short time frames of the missions. Although some of the recommendations were long-­term—for example, environmental sustainability in Cambodia, equality in the provision of services in Kosovo, and sustained economic growth in Timor-­Leste—the workable mandates were focused on building institutions within the transitional period and with less emphasis on how these institutions could continue performing their duties in the long run. By the nature of its charter and the sensitivities of the contexts of domestic conflicts, the UN was only concerned with achieving its operational goals in post-­conflict societies— nothing more, nothing less. Another example of empty institutions because of weak capacity-­building is in the peacebuilding component of justice. Justice was selective in all three cases, which means that it was served only to perpetrators without political clout. This selective application undercuts trust in institutions, which is crucial in institution-­building especially in the context of post-­conflict reconstruction, as Dirk Salomons, a scholar who served in various capacities across the UN system, pointed out (personal interview, 2015). In Cambodia, only the top Khmer Rouge leaders have been indicted in the tribunal while the other former Khmer Rouge members still live in communities, possibly alongside their victims or the families of their victims. Moreover, the political violence committed by Hun Sen and the CPP during the rule of the SOC has been left unexamined. In Kosovo and Timor-­Leste, justice has been served only when there was no political consequence. Low-­level offenders were persecuted, but the influential ‘big fish’ continued enjoying the impunity granted to them. Political stability won over the pursuit of justice. Is liberal peacebuilding in the cases analysed in this book liberal? Despite their liberal design and liberal rhetoric, the UN transitional administrations in Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-­Leste did not prioritize the application of the elements of liberal peace especially when confronted with threats of instability. They also failed to translate the liberal intention behind their mandates into the institutions they helped build. The technical and elite-­driven institution-­building did not take into account the sustainable capacity of these institutions to implement their responsibilities based on the overall liberal design of the peacebuilding mission. UNTAC successfully conducted a democratic election, UNMIK successfully built judicial institutions, and UNTAET successfully established local security forces. However, these newly built institutions have become tools for local elites to obtain legitimacy for their authoritarian ambitions, political aggrandizement, and corrupt practices, respectively. The other question is whether the liberal peacebuilding missions in Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-­ Leste were in fact peacebuilding in the comprehensive sense of the word. In an effort to show that they had ticked the boxes of institution-­building and local involvement, the UN transitional administrations strayed from the original conceptualization of peacebuilding, which was supposed to uproot the causes of conflict and work within its multidimensionality in order to achieve both ­negative and positive peace. The liberal mandates were either abandoned or

The perils and pitfalls   159 deviated from in the end to give the UN deliverables, instead of ensuring the transformation of the post-­conflict society to a holistic and sustainable peace. UNTAC acquiesced to the illiberal demands of Hun Sen, UNMIK co-­opted former KLA members suspected of war crimes, and UNTAET supported the elite’s decision not to indict the Indonesian government officials. The experiences in Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-­Leste back the argument in this book that the failures of liberal peacebuilding are attributable to the UN’s failure to uphold liberal values in establishing effective institutions and in its involvement of local actors. The crisis of liberal peacebuilding is brought by its flawed application, and some of the UN bureaucrats and local elites are also complicit in this failure.

Can the local turn save peacebuilding? The case studies confirm existing assessments that local involvement is imperative to the success and sustainability of a peacebuilding process and validate the need for a local turn in peacebuilding. Some failures of liberal peacebuilding can be attributed to a lack of local involvement and absence of local perspectives. For example, in Kosovo there was little political interest and few grassroots initiatives regarding the establishment of mechanisms for reconciliation. Either by choice or restriction, the lack of local support and involvement in reconciliation mechanisms partly explains why Kosovo remains a divided society, and this division is reflected on or was perpetuated in the other sectors of society and government institutions. Local involvement, therefore, fills the shortcomings of liberal peacebuilding. In Timor-­Leste the local civil society’s recommendation for a mechanism to promote community reconciliation prompted the creation of the CAVR. Also, the active involvement of Timorese women helped in establishing laws and political structures that promote and protect women’s rights. In Cambodia, the participation of local communities in mine action guaranteed the channelling of demining benefits towards community development. Civil society organizations in Cambodia are also finding ways to promote reconciliation in the absence of nationwide efforts. The initiatives of Cambodian NGOs for bringing together victims and perpetrators in community dialogues are cultivating a sense of reconciliation among members of the communities. In Kosovo, even though prospects for reconciliation are yet to be seen, local and regional organizations are initiating projects to memorialize the victims of war. International and top-­down approaches are not necessarily at odds with local and bottom-­up approaches. This observation supports arguments against a binary understanding of international and local encounters in peacebuilding. Local involvement is imperative for complementing the internationally driven and top-­ down initiatives of peacebuilding missions. For example, while the UN transitional administrations played a critical function in reintegrating the economies of Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-­Leste into the global economy or their respective regional economies through free trade agreements, it is ultimately up to the local leadership to maximize and sustain the benefits of such agreements. Furthermore,

160   The perils and pitfalls since there is a tendency for most peacebuilding missions to centralize resources and decision-­making in capitals, it is important for international peacebuilders to visit local communities and incorporate bottom-­up participatory approaches in order to gain local perspectives when determining local requirements and priorities. Internationals need to partner with locals who have the capacity and authority to achieve the goals of the peacebuilding missions. A legitimate and authoritative local leadership is indispensable for implementing some of the sensitive and complicated mandates of UN peacebuilding missions. This kind of leadership is particularly significant in the DDR process of former combatants and the rebuilding of local security forces. A lack of strong and legitimate leadership prevents reaching a consensus, which in turn allows spoilers to derail the process, as in Cambodia. On the other hand, a clear direction and commitment from the local leadership encourage former combatants to participate in the process, as exemplified by KLA members in Kosovo and Falintil members in Timor-­Leste. Examining the potential pitfalls of local involvement sheds light on the multidimensionality of international and local actors and their complex interactions. Peacebuilding actors move from one approach to another. International actors do not necessarily employ liberal/top-­down approaches and local actors do not always initiate everyday/bottom-­up approaches. For example, the political elites in Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-­Leste also performed active roles in the top-­ down approaches introduced by the internationals, although sometimes through political interference. International peacebuilders working for the UN transitional administrations also encouraged and employed more local involvement even if it was not clearly stated in their tasks. Accepting the complexity of a peacebuilding process unveils the complex encounters across different sets of actors who may also be fragmented from within. Peacebuilding encounters could be vertical (between international and local actors) or horizontal (between national government or political elite and civil society or local communities). Instead of treating actors as homogenous and international and local as binary opposites, examining their encounters and the friction arising from those encounters is helpful in explaining the diverse outcomes of peacebuilding processes. Factoring in local involvement in peacebuilding processes does not automatically alleviate the shortcomings of liberal peacebuilding. From the analysis of local involvement in liberal peacebuilding in Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-­ Leste, four common types of local involvement hindered the creation of a post-­ conflict liberal state that embodies the elements of liberal peace. First is exclusive involvement by local actors or political elites the UN deemed capable of maintaining stability and/or inciting instability. Sometimes, the UN had to partner with local elites, who do not necessarily adopt liberal standards, because they have the capacity to help the UN achieve its operational goals (von Billerbeck 2015). The UN transitional administrations in Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-­Leste applied this elite-­centred approach, consequently disenfranchising the other sectors of society that have a legitimate voice in the peacebuilding process. This approach cements an elite-­centred status quo and possibly reinforces an indefinite political domination. The 1993 election in Cambodia was

The perils and pitfalls   161 an opportunity to end the CPP’s unchallenged authority. Giving in to Hun Sen’s hectoring despite CPP’s defeat not only marred the legitimacy of the electoral process but also allowed him to buttress his authority over Cambodian society. There is a danger in limiting local involvement to a particular group of local actors deemed operationally capable but that do not necessarily represent the best interests of the population. For example, staffing tribunals with local judges and lawyers who were emotionally biased posed problems for delivering justice in Kosovo where courts became venues for revenge. The second type of local involvement is the superficial or the token type. Several members of civil society organizations I interviewed expressed their discontent with how the UN consulted the civil society just to tick the boxes but did not seriously consider including their input in the deliberation and writing of peacebuilding policies and programmes. This kind of involvement eventually exhausts enthusiasm and erodes the trust of local actors in participating in the peacebuilding process. Local actors consider this kind of involvement as one-­ sided information-­gathering lacking real dialogue or engagement. A recollection from a Cambodian interpreter and local counterpart in the Human Rights Component of UNTAC captures this superficiality: “I did not read the reports of our officers … [They] just asked for our opinions … but the outcome and analysis, I really did not know” (personal interview, 2014). Exclusive local involvement can also be superficial. Initially, in Timor-­Leste, the political elite UNTAET partnered with did not have substantive involvement in the decision-­making process. In Kosovo, although UNMIK transferred security responsibilities to institutions ruled by former KLA members, the SRSG had absolute authority over the security sector instead of handing over oversight responsibilities to the assembly or parliament. This decision delayed the development and democratization of the security institutions in Kosovo (Qehaja, personal interview, 2014). The third type is local involvement that does not represent the aspirations of the general population. This happens when local counterparts choose to advance personal and political interests that are not aligned with local requirements and priorities, resulting in policies that may hurt the interests of the other members of the population. In an immediate post-­conflict situation there is a tendency to select and invite only one section of the potential local partners. Election is integral in determining representation and legitimate local partnership, but it should not be treated as the culmination of a transitional administration. Election is one of the means, and not the ultimate goal, of a liberal democracy. In Cambodia, despite the UN’s commitment to neutrality, the other factions voiced dissatisfaction about UNTAC’s closer cooperation with the SOC. Furthermore, the post-­election arrangement in 1993 was not liberal because it did not reflect the vote of the people. In Kosovo, UNMIK invited the participation of leaders from the KLA but avoided the other security elites and groups or communities (Qehaja, personal interview, 2014). Rugova’s moderate party was involved in shaping the composition of the local police, but its participation was marginal compared to KLA’s. In Timor-­Leste, resistance leaders dominated the peacebuilding process and excluded other legitimate groups demanding representation.

162   The perils and pitfalls The non-­representative, as well as superficial, involvement of the local elite in Timor-­Leste fanned violent discontent. The fourth type is politicized local involvement in which political interests take precedence over the needs of the people, either at the cost or for the sake of stability. Together with the local political leadership, the UN missions, which are essentially political undertakings, had to balance political imperatives while fulfilling their mandates and tasks. It can be argued that the political leadership is representative of the local population and therefore has legitimacy in the peacebuilding process. In Cambodia, though, the SOC UNTAC partnered with was not democratically elected and its composition and politics were carried onto a government that exerts authoritarian rule in Cambodia today. They gained legitimacy in the eyes of the internationals during the transition but were not always the legitimate representatives of the population given the irregularities of the elections. This involvement resulted in localized but politicized approaches to peacebuilding, which were further cultivated in a post-­conflict environment with a weak rule of law. In Kosovo and Timor-­Leste, UNMIK’s partnership with the KLA despite criminal allegations on the latter and UNTAET’s support of the Timorese leadership’s decision to forge reconciliation with Indonesia undermined the public confidence on liberal institutions of justice. The political aggrandizement of the involved local actors obstructed the liberal goals of pursuing justice and protecting human rights. The cases of Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-­Leste demonstrate that not all types of local involvement produce holistic and sustainable peaceful outcomes. Exclusive, superficial, non-­representative, and politicized local involvement exacerbated the ramifications of the flawed implementation of the liberal peacebuilding agenda. These types help explain why institutionalizing liberal peace sometimes falls short of creating a holistic and sustainable peace despite local involvement. Identifying these types of local involvement also illustrates their interconnectedness. For example, the probability of a politicized involvement is high when local involvement is exclusive to the political elite who, at times, are not representative of the interest of the general population in order to bolster their political interests. The above observations also de-­romanticize the blind preference for the local and the recommendation that locals should play an active role in the peacebuilding process. They further reveal that locals do not have one voice; they also navigate along political, economic, and social lines. All these types of local involvement helped keep stability in Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-­Leste, but only in the short run. In the long run, the local actors, born out of exclusive and non-­representative involvement, captured the dividends of peace to feed their political caches. Moreover, the superficial involvement of local counterparts delayed or stunted local capacities needed for the post-­conflict society to sustain the peace they helped build. These observations are akin to a ‘tragedy of the commons’ but in the context of peacebuilding where elite interests exploit liberal peacebuilding gains at the cost of collective peace. As a way of recommendation and in contrast to the aforementioned types of local involvement, inclusive, substantive, representative, and transformative types

The perils and pitfalls   163 are the ideal goals of peacebuilding, and they are all tied to the liberal peace elements of democracy, justice and human rights, the rule of law, and economic development. Instead of exclusive local involvement, international actors need to ensure that venues for involvement are extensively available for all relevant levels and sectors of society and not just the local elite. This recommendation may not seem easy in practice given the short time frame of most missions and the UN’s prioritization of its operational goals, but it has been done before. As previously discussed, the community-­driven mine action in Cambodia and the participation of women in UNTAET’s legislation built local capacity, promoted local ownership, and encouraged local empowerment. When the UN transitional administrations were hand-­tied to their inflexible mandates, other UN agencies stepped forward to fill in the missing peacebuilding roles. In Kosovo, the United Nations Human Settlements Programme or UN-­Habitat has been conducting participatory approaches to planning and implementing urban development programmes since the end of the conflict in lieu of centralized and top-­down practices (Himaduna 2014; Howard 2014). This inclusive approach “takes into account specific needs of various social groups and is focused on participation, transparency, and accountability” (UN-­Habitat 2006: 2) to mitigate the negative consequences of rapid and unsustainable post-­conflict urbanization, especially in contested lands. The programme was successful in incorporating ethnic considerations and gender perspectives and ensuring equitable representation in the planning stages. This locally contextualized and substantive local involvement has the potential to blur the ethnic divisions that the political elites in Kosovo otherwise draw from. All these examples of inclusive local involvement are also substantive. The local counterparts are not merely providing local information and expertise but more importantly, are actively participating in the development and implementation of policies. Constant and meaningful encounters not only create opportunities for substantive local involvement, but they also assist in identifying local counterparts who represent local needs and aspirations without undermining or hurting the interests of the other sectors and groups of the population. Taking in lessons from the case studies’ examples of local involvement that favoured illiberal priorities, when the local counterparts maintain its public representation, their selfish interests could be subdued by public accountability and the post-­ conflict society’s political imperatives could be balanced by public demands. Instead of a politicized local involvement, a transformative type sees to it that the involvement of a certain group of local actors or serving the interest of that group is not detrimental to the well-­being of other groups. A transformative local involvement requires a locally defined long-­term vision that empowers especially the marginalized groups and sectors of society. These types of local involvement have shown greater potential, at least in the relevant peacebuilding components discussed in this book, in achieving holistic and sustainable peace.

164   The perils and pitfalls

Conclusion The elements of liberal peace are not perfect; in fact, they are sometimes incompatible with or irrelevant to the local context. As examples, the patronage system in Cambodia is not compatible with liberal democracy; the history of ethnic division in Kosovo permeates into the judicial system; and the subsistence-­based and informal economy of Timor-­has been challenging for economic liberalization. However, this does not mean that the patronage system, ethnic division, and subsistence-­based economy are better options because they are rooted in local contexts. The patronage system in Cambodia breeds corruption and perpetuates political violence. The ethnic division in Kosovo creates an environment of insecurity. The subsistence-­based and informal economy in Timor-­Leste overshadows the potential of its resources to compete in international trade. The local contexts may also prove disadvantageous to the achievement of a holistic and sustainable peace. Instead of upholding the liberal values they promote and maximizing the benefits from liberal standards, the internationals submitted to the demands of the political elite in Cambodia even though it meant bypassing the vote of the people. In Kosovo, they supported the dominance of the ethnic majority in rebuilding institutions although it meant reinforcing ethnic divisions and exposing ethnic minorities to political, social, and economic vulnerabilities. In Timor-­Leste, they transferred responsibility for managing petroleum revenues to the government without safeguarding them from corrupt practices that ultimately decrease economic opportunities of the people. Liberal peace was the ideal set by the UN transitional administrations’ mandates designed after the liberal peacebuilding agenda. The inability and unwillingness to meet this ideal were not because of the ideal (considering that it is present in liberal states) but of the inability and unwillingness of responsible actors and institutions to meet such ideal. If a principle is not enforced, is it the fault of the principle or the problem of the principle not being enforced? A closer and retrospective examination of the case studies indicates that the failure of building a holistic and lasting peace in post-­conflict societies was not entirely because of the flaws of the liberal peacebuilding agenda. It is unfair to blame the liberal peacebuilding agenda if this agenda was not implemented completely in the first place. It is also unfair to pass the culpability of failure solely to the liberal peacebuilding agenda if the involvement of the local actors, whose interests were not aligned with liberal values, have exploited and undermined the newly (re)built liberal institutions. Liberal peacebuilding in Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-­Leste was neither liberal nor peacebuilding for two main reasons. First, in some instances, the peacebuilding missions strayed away from the tenets of liberal peacebuilding. Second, local involvement characterized by exclusivity, superficiality, non-­ representativeness, and self-­aggrandizing politics did not ease the difficult implementation of peacebuilding but rather (re)created sources of conflict and violence. Vertical encounters that did not encourage internationally-­supported yet locally-­capacitated institutions and horizontal encounters without a

The perils and pitfalls   165 cooperative and complementary relationship between local leadership and civil society failed to effectively provide security, pursue justice and reconciliation, and promote development. An imbalance in any of these encounters, such as when international processes were applied or institutions were built without considerations of the local context or when political leadership silenced public voices, only produced short-­term stability at best. We have seen these imbalances in Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-­Leste, and the fragile stability and elite-­ centred peace international actors and local elites have jointly produced.

Notes 1 On the other hand, Australia’s inaction during the Timorese struggle against Indonesian occupation until the deployment of INTERFET was also due to its national strategic and economic interests (see, for example, Cotton 2004; Fernandes 2004; Cleary 2007). 2 One such effort is the Regional Commission for Establishing Facts about War Crimes and Other Gross Violations of Human Rights Committed on the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia (RECOM) launched in 2006: [It] calls all post-­Yugoslav countries to jointly establish [the RECOM] and determine the facts important for the history and for the future of the whole region of the former Yugoslavia, facts that will be equally acceptable to all former warring parties. (Initiative for RECOM 2015) 3 The division in civil society can be traced back to the emergence of Kosovo’s civil society. Ethnic homogeneity and segregation were attached to the practices of civil society as a response to Serbia’s acts of repression during the 1980s and 1990s when Albanians in Kosovo arranged parallel structures while Serbs dominated the state administration (Devic 2006). 4 See, for example, Anderson (1983/1991) and Shaw (2005) for an alternative view regarding the role of forgetting. 5 Some of the locals I interacted with in Kosovo, particularly those who are critical of the international presence, expressed their dislike of the term ‘Kosovar’ because, according to them, it is a term coined to impose a unifying sense of national identity and a term preferred by internationals. They told me that they would prefer to be identified according to their ethnic affiliation. One of my interview participants believes that placing these different ethnic groups under one demonym is an external imposition attempting to homogenize an otherwise highly diverse society. 6 In their analysis of peacebuilding in Timor-­Leste, Richmond and Franks (2008) observed the difficulty of introducing liberal economic development in a society largely based on subsistence and an informal economy.

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166   The perils and pitfalls Anderson, B. (1983/1991). Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso. Cleary, P. (2007). Shakedown: Australia’s Grab for Timor Oil. Crows Nest, NSW: Allen & Unwin. Cotton, J. (2004). East Timor, Australia and Regional Order: Intervention and Its Aftermath in Southeast Asia. London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon. Deschamps, M., Jallow, H.B., and Sooka, Y. (2015). Taking Action on Sexual Exploitation and Abuse by Peacekeepers: Report of an Independent Review on Sexual Exploitation and Abuse by International Peacekeeping Forces in the Central African Republic. New York: UN. 17 December. Devic, A. (2006). Transnationalization of Civil Society in Kosovo: International and Local Limits of Peace and Multiculturalism. Ethnopolitics 5(3): 257–73. doi:10.1080/ 17449050600911067. Di Lellio, A. and McCurn, C. (2013). Engineering Grassroots Transitional Justice in the Balkans: The Case of Kosovo. East European Politics and Societies 27(1): 129–48. doi:10.1177/0888325412464550. Duffield, M.R. (2001). Global Governance and the New Wars: The Merging of Development and Security. New York: Palgrave. Dumnica, V., Neziri, S.Z., and Rogova, D. (2012). Perceptions on Transitional Justice: Kosovo. UNDP. Fernandes, C. (2004). Reluctant Saviour: Australia, Indonesia and the Independence of East Timor. Carlton North, VIC: Scribe Publications. Fletcher, L.E. and Weinstein, H.M. (2002). Violence and Social Repair: Rethinking the Contribution of Justice to Reconciliation. Human Rights Quarterly 24(3): 573–639. doi:10.1353/hrq.2002.0033. Himaduna, A. (2014). Gender Mainstreaming in Spatial Planning: A Step-­by-Step Approach for Municipalities. Pristina: UN-­Habitat. Howard, C. (2014). Municipal Spatial Planning Support Programme in Kosovo: A Decade Together. Nairobi: UN-­Habitat. Initiative for RECOM (2015). What is Recom? recom.link/about-­us-2/sta-­je-rekom. Accessed October 2015. Loyle, C.E. and Davenport, C. (2016). Transitional Injustice: Subverting Justice in Transition and Postconflict Societies. Journal of Human Rights 15(1): 126–49. doi:10.1080/ 14754835.2015.1052897. Mudgway, C. (2017). Sexual Exploitation by UN Peacekeepers: The ‘Survival Sex’ Gap in International Human Rights Law. International Journal of Human Rights 21(9): 1453–76. doi:10.1080/13642987.2017.1348720. Richmond, O.P. and Franks, J. (2008). Liberal Peacebuilding in Timor Leste: The Emperor’s New Clothes? International Peacekeeping 15(2): 185–200. doi:10.1080/13533310 802041436. S/RES/2272 (2016). Resolution 2272 (2016) Adopted by the Security Council at its 7643rd Meeting, on 11 March 2016. UN Security Council. 11 March. Shaw, R. (2005). Rethinking Truth and Reconciliation Commissions: Lessons from Sierra Leone. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace. February. Smith, S. (2017). Accountability and Sexual Exploitation and Abuse in Peace Operations. Australian Journal of International Affairs 71(4): 405–22. doi:10.1080/10357718.2017 .1287877. Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa (1998). Volume 5: Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa Report. 29 October.

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Conclusion

The liberal peacebuilding agenda had its moment in the 1990s. Francis Fukuyama punctuated the history with a stroke of Western liberal democracy in his 1992 controversial book, The End of History and the Last Man. The US won the Cold War as communist states picked up the rubbles from the collapse of the Soviet Union. Enthusiasm for a liberal international order rushed international peacebuilders to conflict-­affected societies under the banner of humanitarianism. Displaced civilians returned to their homes, combatants surrendered their arms, voters cast their ballots, and aid agencies delivered basic goods. The UN’s blue helmets dotted troubled lands and pitched in the blue flags of peace. However, the flags did not wave for too long, and soon after the light of the liberal peacebuilding agenda started to dim. Louis Menand, a 2002 Pulitzer Prize winner for history, wrote a piece for The New Yorker in September 2018 titled “Francis Fukuyama Postpones the End of History”. Menand’s article reminds us of the flaws that commentators have highlighted in Fukuyama’s arguably misleading liberal prophecy. Liberalism, after all, has not won the historical battle of ideology. Moreover, liberal peacebuilding, the offspring of international gusto for liberalism, has also consciously descended from its self-­made pedestal. It has been decades since the UN deployed its transitional administrations in Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-­Leste. Cambodia is still run by Hun Sen, the prime minister who snatched the elections back in 1993. In the recent July 2018 elections, the CPP ran unopposed after jailing Kem Sokha, the leader of the now dissolved opposition party CNRP, on the allegation of treason.1 Hun Sen is notorious for imprisoning political opponents before elections and known to release some of them after a ‘resounding victory’. He has also launched a crackdown on independent media and organizations critical of his human rights record. Political injustice seems to be a standard fixture of Cambodia today. Meanwhile, the Khmer Rouge Tribunal is approaching the end of its mission with only three convictions and millions of dollars spent. Notwithstanding its critiques and issues during the past 12 years, the tribunal put on record the truth of the Khmer Rouge regime making it available for future generations of Cambodians. In the aspect of development, the Cambodian economy is growing rapidly with more people having access to basic needs and services. The country’s forests, however, along with the small-­scale loggers who rely on them for a

Conclusion   169 living, have taken the toll of rapid development and rising economic inequality. As foreign investments pour in, especially from China, an authoritarian government fraught with corruption may monopolize the profits of an open economy away from the people. Kosovo’s political status is still in limbo ten years after it unilaterally declared independence. Kosovo and Serbia, both aspiring EU members, entered into renewed EU-­mediated negotiations in 2011. A controversial territorial swap (part of northern Mitrovica for, possibly, the Albanian-­inhabited Presevo Valley in Serbia) has seeped into the talks recently as the final step in resolving the long-­standing dispute between the two. Fear of instability and violence in the region from the potential redrawing of the borders is high but the EU vows to support the ongoing discussions and resulting agreement between Kosovo and Serbia. President Thaçi, who is still facing allegations of war crimes, is leading the border negotiations on behalf of Kosovo. He also proposed a truth and reconciliation commission last year “to build a unified historical narrative in Kosovo” (Qamili 2017). Kosovo’s concrete support for a regional commission for truth and commission remains wanting, however, and some people in Kosovo demand justice for past crimes before joining any reconciliation mechanism they consider politically motivated, like the one Thaçi has proposed (Haxhiaj 2018). The Specialist Chambers in The Hague is now operational with the mandate of investigating crimes of former KLA members, including Thaçi. Kosovo is again at a critical juncture in its history as it witnesses a reshuffling of political and security narratives that are different yet eerily familiar. Early in 2018 Serb minority leader, Oliver Ivanovic, was assassinated in front of his office in Mitrovica. A few months before his death, Ivanovic said in an interview: Fear is pervasive in Mitrovica, not of Albanians anymore but of Serbs, local criminals who ride around in SUVs without license plates. Drugs are sold on every corner. And the police only watch. It is obvious that they are afraid of the perpetrators or the perpetrators are part of security structures themselves. (Joseph 2018) Among the three, Timor-­Leste, without lugging along the baggage of potential despotism as in Cambodia and unresolved status as in Kosovo, appears to be progressing the fastest towards a liberal democratic state. Political stability looked promising as people headed to the voting polls in May 2018. Gusmão’s coalition of opposition parties won the most seats in the parliament. Timor-­ Leste has withstood a series of dissolution and unification events because of independent presidents (Feijó 2018). The country’s semi-­presidential system, however, was shaken once again when President Francisco Guterres of Fretilin, elected in 2017, questioned the most recent appointment of ministers on corruption charges (Leach 2018). Instability alarms rang louder when Gusmão rejected a ministerial position to focus on developing the infrastructure needed to channel the resources from the Timor Sea to Timor-­Leste. In Timor-­Leste,

170   Conclusion political rivalries feature the same personalities and have stalled, in several episodes, the functions of the government. The same political elite has also mired the pursuit of justice for the crimes committed by the Indonesian government. Additionally, the allegations of corrupt practices they faced in the past are now conveniently buried underneath the political developments surrounding the elections. Now that Timor-­Leste has won the territorial battle with Australia over the oil-­rich Timor Sea, expectations are lofty for the country to demonstrate its hard-­fought independence. It is also high time for its resistance heroes to pass the baton of prosperity to its people. With the rate of government spending amid decreasing oil prices in the global market, however, the country might soon see itself financially broke. This future is problematic for a young and mostly unemployed population. What is currently happening in Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-­Leste is largely of their own doing, for better or worse. One cannot blame a mission that lasted only a few years for all the ills these societies confront today. However, the legacies of the peacebuilding missions they hosted still linger in their current political, social, and economic atmospheres. Although Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-­Leste have not relapsed into a conflict comparable to what they experienced before the UN arrived, they have experienced a violent coup, ethnically motivated riots, and a security crisis, respectively. These events happened during the transitions and a few years after the transitional administrations were hailed as successful, eventually shaking the fragile stability that the UN built. They exposed the Achilles heel of liberalism—that it cannot sustain the peace it builds within the framework of liberal peace. Many critics have pointed their finger at the liberal peacebuilding agenda for these events and doubted the ability of the UN to build peace. The experiences of these peacebuilding missions have also contributed to academic and policy debates on how to better build peace in post-­ conflict societies. Critics decry liberal peacebuilding for its neo-­imperialistic tendencies, Western preferences, and locally insensitive approaches. Although the UN has proved to be effective in leading post-­conflict peacebuilding in terms of addressing humanitarian needs, consolidating international assistance, conducting democratic elections, and building liberal institutions, it has failed to ensure that these institutions fulfil their liberal mandates. Liberal peacebuilding has failed to deliver its promise of peace and development. The crisis of liberal peace has become the conventional explanation for the precariousness of international peacebuilding. In response, the UN has recently shed its peacebuilding ambitions while some critics advocate for a local turn in peacebuilding in which local perspectives are better incorporated into the peacebuilding process. Prior to this local trajectory the UN in Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-­Leste had already involved local actors and perspectives during the transitional period in varying ways and degrees—democratic elections, participatory planning, and supporting community-­level mechanisms, among others. Local involvement is imperative in peacebuilding because it paves the way for contextually sensitive approaches and locally oriented solutions. It enhances capacity-­building for self-­sufficient

Conclusion   171 institutions. It also reinforces the local ownership fundamental to the sustainability of peace. The mine action in Cambodia, urban planning in Kosovo, and women’s activism in Timor-­Leste are examples of existing local agencies, with international support, maximizing the benefits of peace. This book, however, has demonstrated cases when local involvement encumbered the provision of security, pursuit of justice, and promotion of development. The case studies shed light on the potential pitfalls of local involvement overshadowed by romanticization of the local, which critical scholars such as Richmond and Mac Ginty have previously warned peacebuilders about. This book, therefore, expresses caution over a blind preference for local involvement that is exclusive, fragmented, non-­ representative, and politicized. These types of local involvement do not reflect the aspirations and address the needs of the people. They hinder the potential of the local population to obtain inclusive, substantive, representative, and transformative involvement in the peacebuilding processes. The transitional administrations in Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-­Leste are three of the missions that have ignited the liberal peacebuilding debate. These are the missions critics often refer to in their assessment that liberal peacebuilding is an ineffective tool in building peace in post-­conflict societies. However, these missions were liberal in rhetoric but failed to preserve their liberal ideals when confronted with threats of instability. They were effective vanguards of stability but ineffective crusaders for liberal peace. Is it the fault of the tool when the user does not use it properly? The mandates themselves, of course, are not without flaws, especially when they oblige local actors into foreign processes or institutions or when these processes and institutions do not reflect local realities. The kind of peacebuilding implementation we have seen in Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-­Leste, however, has only created “empty shells” of liberal institutions (Lemay-­Hébert 2011; Richmond 2008) that have fallen into the hands of local elites who do not necessarily espouse liberal values. Some of them eventually exploited the legitimacy of these institutions and other mechanisms of liberal peace to advance their illiberal motives, thereby producing new forms of insecurity and structural violence. These liberal peacebuilding missions cannot be considered liberal and peacebuilding because they departed from the liberal values they preached for the sake of the (sometimes illiberal) demands of the local elite. Instead of a holistic peace, the kind of peace these missions built was a negative peace characterized by tense stability under the control of a technocracy. This book is a critique of a critique, specifically of the liberal peacebuilding critique, and not a defence of liberal peacebuilding. It interrogates the assumptions behind the popular perception that liberal peace is in crisis through a retrospective examination of the subjects of the liberal peacebuilding critique. The argument that the liberal peacebuilding missions in Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-­Leste were neither liberal nor peacebuilding invites a re-­examination of the conventional explanations surrounding the shortcomings of international peacebuilding. The case studies in this book illustrate how international peacebuilders, as a whole, have treated their missions’ mandates not as a framework

172   Conclusion but rather as an ideal end goal. The path to that goal, sometimes blocked by spoilers or threats to instability, has pushed peacebuilders into detours away from the building blocks of liberal peace. In Cambodia, UNTAC undermined the result of the elections when it agreed to make Hun Sen co-­prime minister, despite him losing the majority of the votes, due to threats of instability from his party. In Kosovo, UNMIK undermined justice by protecting former KLA members, whom it co-­opted in the transitional administration, from indictment for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Similarly, in Timor-­Leste, UNTAET undermined human rights by turning a blind eye to the impunity of Indonesian military officials. In all cases, the peacebuilding missions sometimes failed to work with existing mechanisms that were not necessarily against the values of democracy, justice, human rights, and development. The critics are correct that these missions were ineffective in building peace but miss the point that these missions, in the circumstances they cited as examples of the ineffectiveness of liberal peacebuilding, were not acting in accordance with liberal peacebuilding. Perhaps, after all this time, the critique of liberal peacebuilding was aiming at the wrong target. Perhaps, it was the absence of liberal peace that has brought the supposed crisis of liberal peace. The conceptual and operational departure of the peacebuilding missions from the holistic and comprehensive origins of liberal peacebuilding have paved the way for the crisis of liberal peacebuilding. Liberalism and localism do not have to be mutually exclusive. The holistic and comprehensive origins of peacebuilding have elements of both: democracy, justice, development, and individual rights and freedoms. While I have questioned the efficacy of implementing the liberal peacebuilding framework in this book, there are components of it that may be rescued and improved for future peacebuilding missions, as demonstrated by the positive outcomes of implementing some of the UN transitional administrations’ liberal mandates. The liberal values of human rights, security, justice and reconciliation, and sustainable socio-­economic development may be promoted in post-­conflict societies but it is up to the local actors to ensure that these values benefit the general population. Considering that these values are not always new or foreign to the post-­conflict society or that the disruption in these values may have caused the conflict in the first place, a middle ground where liberalism and localism complement each other is likely. For example, Tadjbakhsh (2009: para 6) argues that, based on her analysis of peacebuilding in Afghanistan, liberalism and collectivist tradition “could easily coexist, but as long as there was respect, traditions were not offended, and lives were improved”. This is where the importance of the local turn in peacebuilding comes in, particularly in empowering the local in order to create an empathetic and emancipatory kind of peace. This kind of peace is, ideally, collective, but at minimum is neither harmful nor suppressive to other groups and does not undermine their own process of realizing their own peace. It is what Visoka and Richmond (2017: 114), in the context of Kosovo, define as emancipatory peace as “a critical, yet pluralist citizenry that would overcome local ethno-­nationalist identity and power-­ridden authoritarian elites, patriarchy,

Conclusion   173 and social discrimination, and that would promote local and bottom-­up alternatives to governance that are neither harmful nor suppressive to any social group”. The local turn in peacebuilding creates opportunities for the local population to shape, manage, and own the peace intended for them, be it liberal, local, or a combination of both. Post-­conflict peacebuilding, after all, is for people who have experienced conflict and fought for peace, and more importantly so that their children need not experience and fight for the same. Liberalism and localism are guidelines and not the gospels of peacebuilding. As I have demonstrated in this book, the liberal peacebuilding framework has its limitations and local involvement has its pitfalls. As such, I am hesitant to offer a recommendation on how to build peace. Instead, I propose a view that liberal peacebuilding and local involvement are not necessarily contradictory, and a middle ground where the two complement each other is possible. There is no perfect framework for peacebuilding because each society is uniquely positioned within its culture and history. However, the policy and academic circles are brimming with advice and assumptions on how to assist post-­conflict societies on their paths to peace. Séverine Autesserre (2017), award-­winning war and peace researcher, calls for challenging three widespread assumptions in peacebuilding practice. One of these pervasive assumptions is that international peacebuilding is necessary in assisting post-­conflict societies’ transition to peace. This well-­intentioned, albeit wrong, assumption is connected to another assumption that internationals can fill in the knowledge and capacity locals lack in peacebuilding. These assumptions are tied together by the mantra that good things (for example, education and market economy) promote peace and bad things (for example, drugs and corruption) undermine peace. Autesserre has discovered that, in reality, and even more commonly, peace formation happens without international assistance. Working on these assumptions may stunt local capacity, stifle local knowledge, and only produce unsustainable peace. The cases of Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-­Leste have revealed the danger of uncritically clinging to these assumptions. The good is not always right and the bad is not always wrong because, in these three cases, the good was hijacked by the bad to make it wrong. The good things, such as democratic elections, transitional justice, and economic development, when passed on from the hands of the internationals concerned only with short-­term stability to the custody of exploitative actors in weak institutions, cannot promote a holistic and sustainable peace. These assumptions, embraced by liberal peace defenders and chastised by liberal peace critics, depart from the holistic and comprehensive origins of liberal peacebuilding. The people of Cambodia, Kosovo, and Timor-­Leste taught me one important lesson during my fieldwork: that peace comes in many forms and exists in all dimensions. A Cambodian friend told me that she is fighting for human rights and social justice to bring about peace. An Albanian friend in Kosovo proudly recalled how his father joined the KLA and fought the Serbian forces for peace. A Timorese friend believes that by retelling her experience during the Indonesian occupation she is contributing to peace. The different circumstances they

174   Conclusion have dealt with and their narratives about the conflicts they have experienced have shaped the kinds of peace they hope for. This lesson is important for this book because it validates post-­conflict societies having unique characteristics and peace requirements, and therefore discounts any blanket approach to building peace. It also shows how valuable it is to listen to the people on the ground, those who are on the receiving end of the peace missions, to understand their needs and whether these are being addressed by policies shaped from above. These narratives can inform the liberal peacebuilding framework on how to anchor its goals in the everyday elements and grassroots perspectives of post-­ conflict societies. According to sociology professor and peace researcher Gearoid Millar (2014), evaluating peacebuilding missions requires an ethnographic understanding of the local. Future research requires a re-­examination of past UN missions to bequeath to future peacebuilders a more nuanced understanding of the long and complex process of peacebuilding. It would be fruitful to conduct further research into cases that have previously been studied because of the benefit of hindsight. Retrospective analyses of past missions would reveal lessons unavailable to studies done when the events related to these missions were initially developing. Furthermore, analysis of peacebuilding missions needs to treat the ‘local turn’ with some caution by focusing on the extent to which the liberal nature of peacebuilding efforts has been entrenched across levels and sectors of society. In recent years we have been shocked, yet again, by humanitarian crises caused by conflict and violence in countries like Syria and Yemen, and in other parts of the Middle East and North Africa. We are witnessing the genocide of the Rohingya people in Myanmar and a refugee crisis in many parts of the world. Budding despots, such as Hun Sen in Cambodia and Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, are joining established authoritarian regimes in China and Russia to challenge the liberal international order. The voices of conservative nationalist movements behind populist leaders in the United States and Europe decry liberal values and celebrate selective human rights protection. Intractable conflicts and prolonged peacebuilding operations weigh down well-­intentioned proposals for societies emerging from conflict. The counterproductive outcomes of shifting from liberal peacebuilding to operations aimed at stabilization and counterterrorism are becoming more apparent in ongoing cases of UN peacekeeping missions (Karlsrud 2018). It is more pressing than ever to deepen our discussions on peace. It was because of this concern yet hope for peace that I engaged in this complex and contentious topic of liberal peacebuilding. To say that liberal peacebuilding is ineffective or a failure or a crisis is not new information anymore; it is the academic convention. On the other hand, to defend liberal peacebuilding sounds wrong; it is not the academic norm. Nevertheless, challenging these conventions or norms is essential for academic progress.2 In fact, we owe to the critical scholarship on peacebuilding the realization that liberal peacebuilding is flawed. However, while the UN has scaled back from its ambitious liberal peacebuilding agenda to more short-­term and manageable goals, liberal peace is still the backbone of many peace agreements (Joshi et al. 2014).

Conclusion   175 It persists because the alternatives leave us wanting. The alternatives, perhaps, cannot be found in the ivory tower of academia or the comforts of UN offices but in the everyday conversations of everyday people—perspectives that are concealed from our blind spots as academics, bureaucrats, and outsiders. Hence, it is indispensable for us to continuously ask the difficult questions, no matter how unpopular they are, in order to test the validity and relevance of our conventional knowledge. Further, our questions will be more than just inert critiques but rather conceptual and practical.

Notes 1 Kem Sokha has been recently released on bail with strict conditions amounting to, as his lawyers describe it, house arrest (Chheng 2018). 2 Stephen Fry, during the May 2018 Munk debate about political correctness, said, I believe one of the greatest human failings is to be right rather than to be effective…. Progress is not achieved by preachers and guardians of morality but, to paraphrase Yevgeny Zamyatin, by madmen, hermits, heretics, dreamers, rebels, and sceptics. I find the same is true for academic discourse on peace and peacebuilding.

References Autesserre, S. (2017). International Peacebuilding and Local Success: Assumptions and Effectiveness. International Studies Review 19(1): 114–32. doi:10.1093/isr/viw054. Chheng, N. (2018). Release of Sokha on Bail ‘Amounts to House Arrest’. Phnom Penh Post, 11 September. Feijó, R.G. (2018). Perilous Semi-­Presidentialism? On the Democratic Performance of Timor-­Leste Government System. Contemporary Politics 24(3): 286–305. doi:10.1080 /13569775.2017.1413504. Fry, S. (2018). Political Correctness. Munk Debates. munkdebates.com/The-­Debates/ Political-­Correctness. Accessed September 2018. Fukuyama, F. (1992). The End of History and the Last Man. New York: The Free Press. Haxhiaj, S. (2018). Can Kosovo’s Wartime Truth Commission Achieve Reconciliation? Balkan Insight, 27 June. Joseph, E.P. (2018). An Assassination Could Be Just What Kosovo Needed. Foreign Policy, 22 January. Joshi, M., Lee, S.Y., and Mac Ginty, R. (2014). Just How Liberal Is the Liberal Peace? International Peacekeeping 21(3): 364–89. doi:10.1080/13533312.2014.932065. Karlsrud, J. (2018). From Liberal Peacebuilding to Stabilization and Counterterrorism. International Peacekeeping (online first). doi:10.1080/13533312.2018.1502040. Leach, M. (2018). A First Test for Timor-­Leste’s Cohabitants. Inside Story, 14 August. Lemay-­Hébert, N. (2011). The ‘Empty-­Shell’ Approach: The Setup Process of International Administrations in Timor-­Leste and Kosovo, Its Consequences and Lessons. International Studies Perspectives 12(2): 190–211. doi:10.1111/j.1528-3585.2011.00427.x. Menand, L. (2018). Francis Fukuyama Postpones the End of History. The New Yorker, 3 September. Millar, G. (2014). An Ethnographic Approach to Peacebuilding: Understanding Local Experiences in Transitional States. Oxon and New York: Routledge.

176   Conclusion Qamili, A. (2017). Kosovo President Establishes Truth and Reconciliation Commission Preparatory Team. Prishtina Insight, 14 December. Richmond, O.P. (2008). Reclaiming Peace in International Relations. Millennium: Journal of International Studies 36(3): 439–70. doi:10.1177/03058298080360030401. Tadjbakhsh, S. (2009). Liberal Peace Is Dead? Not So Fast. Open Democracy, 27 November. The Leaders of Kosovo and Serbia Talk about Swapping Land (2018). The Economist, 30 August. Visoka, G. and Richmond, O.P. (2017). After Liberal Peace? From Failed State-­Building to an Emancipatory Peace in Kosovo. International Studies Perspective 18(1): 110–29. doi:10.1093/isp/ekw006.

Appendix List of interview participants and resource persons

Interview participants These participants were interviewed on the basis of their personal capacity and the views they expressed during the interviews do not necessarily reflect the views of their governments, organizations, and institutions. Only their past and present roles relevant to post-­conflict peacebuilding are included in the descriptions. Note that their positions may have changed since the interviews. Abrantes, Laura. (2014). Former member of Women’s Network of Timor-­Leste (Rede Feto Timór Lorosa’e) during UNTAET’s mission. She is currently a programme manager and peacebuilding coordinator at the Asia Pacific Support Collective of Timor-­Leste, a women’s advocacy organization in Timor-­Leste. Personal interview: Dili, 25 February. Administrative assistant for UNTAET’s Peacekeeping Force. (2014). Personal interview: Dili, 22 February. Administrative officer for UNHCR in Cambodia during UNTAC’s mission. (2014). Personal interview: Phnom Penh, 13 January. Ahmetaj, Nora. (2014). Executive director of the Centre for Research, Documentation and Publication, a Kosovo-­based NGO advocating for transitional justice. Personal interview: Prishtina, 15 May. Baldwin, Peter. (2013). CivPol Officer for UNTAC and UNTAET. Personal interview: Canberra, 1 October. Beaver, Alan. (2014). Military engineer for UNTAC. He was also involved in planning for CMAC and UNHCR in Geneva on land issues related to resettlement during UNTAC’s mission. Personal interview: Phnom Penh, 13 January. Belo, Nelson. (2014). Interpreter for UNTAET and former policy analyst for UNMIT. He is the founder and director of Fundasaun Mahein, an NGO in Timor-­Leste working on issues related to the security sector. Personal interview: Dili, 19 February. Borg-­Olivier, Alexander. (2014). Chief legal advisor for UNMIK from 2000 to 2008. Personal interview: Prishtina, 23 May. Busch, Lawrence. (2013). CivPol officer for UNTAET. He was involved in setting up the CivPol Induction Training Centre in Darwin. He also worked at the UN Headquarters in New York where he received daily situation reports surrounding the popular consultation. Skype interview: 30 November. Cambodian economic analyst. (2014). Personal interview: Phnom Penh: 24 January. Cambodian interpreter and local counterpart in the Human Rights Component of UNTAC. (2014). Personal interview: Phnom Penh, 18 January.

178   Interview participants and resource persons Cambodian peacebuilding scholar. (2014). Skype interview: 12 January. Carr, Keith. (2013). Former CivPol Officer for UNMIK deployed in Mitrovica. Skype interview: 14 November. Chak, Sopheap. (2014). Executive director of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights. Personal interview: Phnom Penh, 16 January. Chhang, Youk. (2014). Electoral officer for UNTAC. He is also the founder and director of DC-­Cam. Personal interview: Phnom Penh, 20 January. Chillaron-­Cortizo, David. (2013). Former lawyer for the Housing and Property Directorate, later the Kosovo Property Agency, from 2001 to 2007. Skype interview: 19 November. Chung, Ravuth. (2014). UNHCR local staff involved in resettlement and repatriation processes during UNTAC’s mission. Personal interview: Phnom Penh, 15 January. Cryan, Meabh. (2013). Member of Timor-­Leste Land Network (Rede ba Rai) and formerly worked for the Haburas Foundation in Timor-­Leste. She has researched extensively and worked with civil society organizations related to land issues in Timor-­Leste. Personal interview: Canberra, 9 November. de los Santos, Jaime. Force Commander for UNTAET from 2000 to 2001. Personal interview: Manila, 3 April. de Saint-­Claire, Simon. (2013). Conducted mission oversight and lessons learned on the Police and Justice Pillar of UNMIK. He also worked for UNDP and OSCE Mission in Kosovo. Skype interview: 4 December. Duli, Florina. (2014). Executive director of Kosovo Stability Initiative, a think-­tank on socio-­economic development in Kosovo. She was a former political advisor to UNMIK’s Deputy SRSG. She was also involved in the establishment of the Kosovo Parliament and served as the political advisor to the first Speaker of the Parliament. Prior to that, she worked with Save the Children during the Kosovo war. Personal interview: Prishtina, 13 May. Duncanson, John. (2014). Served in various capacities for UN CivPol in Kosovo from 2001 to 2008, including deputy chief of communication, international police instructor for KPS Training Academy, transition liaison officer for Mitrovica, enhancement force supervisor for North Mitrovica, deputy regional commander for investigations, and temporary deputy regional commander for Mitrovica. Personal interview: Mitrovica, 20 May. Fernandes, Hugo. (2014). Former head of the Truth-­Seeking Division of CAVR and Director for Policy and Institutional Strengthening at the Asia Foundation in Timor-­Leste. He is currently the chief executive officer at Centro Nacional Chega!, an institution facilitating the implementation of CAVR’s recommendations. Personal interview: Dili, 6 March. Former UNMIK official. (2014). Personal interview: Prishtina, 26 May. Government official of Timor-­Leste. (2013). Personal interview: date and location are anonymized. Hermes, Simon. (2013). Border Control Unit officer for UNTAC and district administrator at Same, Manufahi for UNTAET. Personal interview: Canberra, 20 September. Hoxha, Abit. (2013). Senior research associate at the Kosovar Centre for Security Studies. He was previously involved in the Kosovo Security Sector Project of UNDP Kosovo. Skype interview: 7 November. Human rights international officer for UNTAET. (2013). Personal interview: Canberra, 31 October. Human rights international officer for UNTAET. (2014). Personal interview: Dili, 5 March.

Interview participants and resource persons   179 Ingram, Sue. (2013). District administrator and Director of Transition Planning of UNTAET. She has published scholarly works about peacebuilding in Timor-­Leste. Personal interview: Canberra, 23 October. International judge for EULEX. (2014). Written communication: Prishtina, 21 May. Khus, Thida. (2014). Executive director of the Cambodian Network Council, a national organization on leadership development, and SILAKA, a local NGO working on capacity-­building. She has worked for capacity-­building of Cambodia since UNTAC’s period. Personal interview: Phnom Penh, 29 January. Kiçmari, Sabri. (2013). Former Minister for Local Governance in Kosovo and former Ambassador of Kosovo to Austria and Australia. He is currently working at Kosovo’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and University of Prishtina. Personal interview: Canberra, 2 December. Kurti, Albin. (2014). Leader and founding member of the political party Lëvizja Vetëvendosje! He was a prominent student leader during the rule of Yugoslavia, arrested for public demonstrations, and later released after Milošević’s government. Personal interview: Prishtina, 13 May. Legal system monitor (former) for the OSCE Mission in Kosovo. (2013). Skype interview: 8 November. Livan, Sophoan. (2014). Interpreter for CivPol of UNTAC and later worked for WHO in Cambodia. Personal interview: Phnom Penh, 29 January. Maia, Antonieta. (2014). Women’s rights activist during and after the transition and senior programme officer at the Asia Foundation in Timor-­Leste. Personal interview: Dili, 6 March. Maia, Armindo. (2014). Former Minister of Education of Timor-­Leste and the first rector of the National University of Timor-­Leste. Personal interview: Canberra, 12 September. Mak, Chamroeun. (2014). Former president of the Khmer Youth Association, a Cambodia-­based NGO working towards youth empowerment. Personal interview: Phnom Penh, 27 January. Maley, Michael. (2013). Senior deputy chief electoral officer for UNTAC and member of the Electoral Commission for UNAMET. He has more than 30 years of experience in election administration and used to serve as the Special Advisor for the Australian Electoral Commission. Personal interview: Canberra, 9 December. Maley, William. (2013). Electoral officer for UNTAC and currently a professor of diplomacy at the Australian National University. Personal interview: Canberra, 13 November. Marinho, Luis. (2014). UNTAET’s Peacekeeping Force officer from Portugal. Personal interview: Dili, 8 March. Mishra, Sanjeev. (2013). Former UNMIK civil affairs officer in Peja. Skype interview: 23 October. Ok, Serei Sopheak. (2014). Political analyst and consultant on Peacebuilding, Democratic Process, Governance and Facilitation in Cambodia. He also served as the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Transparency International Cambodia. Personal interview: Phnom Penh, 19 January. Oum, Sam. (2014). Former military officer for the SOC. Personal interview: Phnom Penh, 14 January. Pearce-­Laanela, Therese. (2014). District electoral supervisor for UNTAC. Personal interview: Canberra, 14 November. Pessoa, Ana. (2014). Cabinet Member for the Interior and later Justice Minister for the ETTA. She is also the former Minister for State and Internal Administration and Prosecutor General of Timor-­Leste. She was an advisor to President Taur Matan Ruak in 2014. Personal interview: Dili, 20 February.

180   Interview participants and resource persons Qosaj-­Mustafa, Ariana. (2014). Programme director and senior researcher at the Kosovar Institute for Policy Research and Development (KIPRED), a Kosovo-­based NGO promoting democracy and democratic values in Kosovo and the region. Personal interview: Prishtina, 23 May. Researcher on gender issues in Timor-­Leste and previously worked for a Portuguese NGO during UNTAET’s mission. (2013). Skype interview: 7 November. Rodrigues, Roque. (2014). Defence minister until the 2006 security crisis. He was an advisor to President Taur Matan Ruak in 2014. Personal interview: Dili, 5 March. Salijević, Gazmen. (2014). Project Officer at the European Centre for Minority Issues Kosovo (ECMI). Personal interview: Prishtina, 27 May. Scheiner, Charles. (2014). Founder and researcher of La’o Hamutuk, Timor-­Leste Institute for Development Monitoring and Analysis. Personal interview: Dili, 24 February. Sim, Sorya. (2014). Interpreter for the Human Rights Component of UNTAC. He later served as an analyst team leader for the Khmer Rouge Tribunal and director of the Khmer Institute of Democracy, a local NGO promoting liberal democratic values. Personal interview: Phnom Penh, 18 January. Staff (a) at the OSCE Mission in Kosovo. (2014). Personal interview: Prishtina, 28 May. Staff (b) at the OSCE Mission in Kosovo. (2014). Personal interview: Prishtina, 28 May. Timorese academic. (2014). Personal interview: Dili, 7 March. Timorese who worked for an international organization on various social issues. Personal interview: date and location are anonymized. Top government official of Timor-­Leste. (2014). Personal interview: date and location are anonymized. Top-­level official of UNMIK. (2014). Personal interview: date and location are anonymized. Vezgishi, Musa. (2014). Founder and executive director of the Peace and Human Rights Council Saferworld. Personal interview: Prizren, 17 May. Visoka, Gëzim. (2014). Former senior political advisor to Kosovo’s Foreign Minister. He is currently an assistant professor at Dublin City University and has published extensively about Kosovo’s peacebuilding. Personal interview: Pristina, 15 May. Vitor, Antonio. (2014). Youth leader during UNTAET’s mission. He is also a former ADB consultant and corporate advisor to the Ministry of Public Works of Timor-­Leste. Personal interview: Dili, 20 February. Whittington, Sherrill. (2013). Head of the Gender Unit of UNTAET. Skype interview: 28 October. Women’s rights activist in Timor-­Leste. (2014). Personal interview: Dili, 6 March.

Resource persons The resource persons provided expert views about peacebuilding and/or fieldwork contacts and guidance. They were not participants in the in-­depth interviews. Autesserre, Séverine. (2015). Professor of Political Science at Barnard College and award-­ winning researcher on war and peace, Columbia University. New York City: 25 June. Dirk Salomons. (2015). Director of the Humanitarian Policy Track at the School of International Public Affairs, Columbia University. He served as an advisor to several UN missions and agencies. New York City: 3 June. Embassy of the Republic of Kosovo in Canberra. (2013–2014). Conversations with Sabri Kiçmari, then Ambassador of Kosovo to Australia, and Skender Durmishi, former Chargé d’Affaires. Canberra.

Interview participants and resource persons   181 Embassy of Timor-­Leste in Australia. (2013–2014). References from Abel Gutteres, Ambassador of Timor-­Leste to Australia, and Ismenio Martins da Silva, Labour and Education Attaché. Canberra. Gomes, Rui. (2014). Consultation with former Chief of the Civil House in Timor-­Leste and economic advisor to President Matan Ruak. Dili: February. Ryan, Alan. (2013). Executive director of the Australian Civil-­Military Centre of the Australian government. Canberra: 19 November. UN official at the Peacebuilding Support Office. (2015). New York: 7 August. UNDP local staff in Timor-­Leste. (2014). Dili: February.

The following individuals were not participants in the in-­depth interviews about peacebuilding, but the author had personal conversations with them about mine action in Cambodia. Aki Ra, the founder of CSHD, together with the CSHD demining unit working in Kampong Kdei. (2018). Personal conversations: Kampong Kdei, 9 May. Mol, Rouep Seyha. (2018). Deputy Secretary-­General of CMAA. Personal conversation: Phnom Penh, 29 May. Morse, William “Bill”. (2018). International Project Manager for CSHD. Personal conversation: Siem Reap, 9 May. Steen-­Nilsen, Aksel. (2018). Country Director of NPA Cambodia. Personal conversation: Phnom Penh, 22 May.

Index

Page numbers in bold denote tables. Abrantes, Laura 121 Afghanistan 30–1, 34, 172 Agenda for Peace, An (UN document) 1, 24 agriculture: Cambodia 66; Kosovo 95; Timor-Leste 131 Ahmetaj, Nora 92, 93 Ahtisaari Plan 85 Ahtisaari, Martti 85 aid, foreign: Cambodia 63–4; Timor-Leste 130–1 AIDS, Cambodia 65–6, 154 Akashi, Yasushi 48 Aki Ra 70 Albania, customary law (Kanun of Lekë Dukagjini) 93–4 Alkatiri, Mari 115, 116, 117, 118, 122 Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK) 87 Annan, Kofi 19 Anti-Logging Commission, Cambodia 67 APOPO, landmine removal organisation 68 Armed Forces for the Liberation of East Timor (Falintil) 111, 114, 115 arms, Kosovo 86 ASEAN Free Tade Area (AFTA) 64 Association of Ex-Combatants 1975 (AC75) 117 Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) 64 Australia 132–3, 145 Autesserre, Séverine 173 authoritarian regimes 174 Bahasa Indonesian language 120, 121 Balthasar, D. 26

Ban Ki-moon 24, 127 Banking and Payment Authority, East Timor 130 Bargués-Pedreny, P. 35 Barria, L.A. 56 Beaver, Alan 69 Begby, E. 35 Belo, Carlos Filipe Ximenes 128 Belo, Nelson 118 Betts, W.S. 91 Bhaumik, S.K. 96 bias, in justice, Kosovo 91–3 blood feuds, Kosovo 94 Bloom, J.D. 97 Bolivia 33 Borg-Olivier, Alexander 99, 102 Bosso, F. 134 Bottomley, R. 66 bottom-up approaches: Cambodia 69, 70; overview 10–11, 32–3; see also local involvement; local turn, overview Bougainville, Autonomous Region 33 Brahimi Report on Peacekeeping Reform 22 Brussels Agreement 82 Buddhism 53, 58, 60 Burema, L. 93 Burgess, J.P. 35 Cambodia - politicized involvement, compromised peacebuilding 48–79; compromised democracy 49–54; corrupted development 62–8; everyday reconciliation 58–62; local involvement in mine action 68–70; politicized justice 55–8; see also UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC)

Index   183 Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) 54, 168 Cambodia, coup of 1997 51 Cambodia, Law on Associations and Non-Governmental Organizations (LANGO) 54 Cambodia, Law on the Establishment of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia for the Prosecution of Crimes Committed during the Period of Democratic Kampuchea 56 Cambodia, Ministry of Culture of Fine Arts 67 Cambodia, Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport 60 Cambodia, Supreme National Council (SNC) 49 Cambodian Landmine Museum and Relief Center 70 Cambodian Mine Action and Victim Assistance Authority (CMAA) 68, 69, 70 Cambodian Mine Action Centre (CMAC) 68, 69–70 Cambodian National Unity Party (CNUP) 49 Cambodian People’s Party (CPP): and DDR 50; and elections 50, 51, 54, 71–2, 168; and Khmer Rouge Tribunal 57; and Paris Agreement 49 Cambodian Self Help Demining (CSHD) 68, 70 capacity-building 157, 158 captured development, Timor-Leste 129–35 Carr, Keith 84 case studies, overview 6–8, 148, 152, 154 CAVR (Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation) 124–6, 152 Çeku, Agim 87 Central Bank of Timor-Leste 130 Central European Free Trade Agreement 96 Central Fiscal Authority (CFA), TimorLeste 131 Central Payments Office, Timor-Leste 130 Centre for Research, Documentation and Publication, Kosovo 92 Certain Maritime Arrangements in the Timor Sea (CMATS) 132 Chak, Sopheap 53 Chakrapong, Prince 51 Chandler, David 19, 26, 29 Chega! (report) 126

Chega! National Centre, Timor-Leste 126 Chhang, Youk 60, 156 Chillaron-Cortizo, David 100 China 145, 169 Chomsky, Noam 23–4 Chut Wutty 67 civil wars 27–8 Civilian Police (CivPol): Kosovo 83; Timor-Leste 117, 118 CNRM (National Council of Maubere Resistance) 115 CNRT (National Council of Timorese Resistance) 115–16, 117, 124 coffee industry, Timor-Leste 131 Commission of Truth and Friendship (CTF) 126–7, 152 Communist Party of Yugoslavia 81 community reconciliation, Timor-Leste 125 Community-Based Mine Risk Reduction (CBMRR) 69–70 Comprehensive Cambodian Peace Agreement (Paris Agreement) see Paris Agreement compromised democracy, Cambodia 49–54 conflicts, nature of 145 Congo 34 Consolidated Budget, Timor-Leste 131 Cooper, N. 29 co-opted peacebuilding, Kosovo 86–9 corrupted development, Cambodia 62–8 Corruption Perception Index 57 corruption: Cambodia 57, 62–8; TimorLeste 134 Council of Europe (CoE) 88 coup of 1997; Cambodia 51 crime, Kosovo 83 culture and history, influence of 146 culture of dependency 29 currencies: Cambodia 63, 65; Timor-Leste 130 Darwin, Australia 133 Debiel, T. 34 decentralization, Kosovo 94 deforestation, Cambodia 66–7 demilitarization, Kosovo 86, 148 demining, Cambodia 68–70 democracy: compromised, Cambodia 49–54; hybrid, Cambodia 54 Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) 81, 87 Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) 87 democratization 29; Cambodia 53–4

184   Index departing train strategy 50 dependency, culture of 29 development: captured, Timor-Leste 129–35; corrupted, Cambodia 62–8; human 9; lopsided, Kosovo 95–8; overview 9–10, 153–6, 154; sustainable 9 Di Lellio, A. 146 Diamond, L. 71 Dili, Timor-Leste 111; Australian Embassy protests 132; District Courts 123, 134; economy 154; security crisis 2006 112, 113 disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR): Cambodia 50, 148; Kosovo 148; overview 147–50, 148; Timor-Leste 114, 148 discrimination, Kosovo 89–93 disrupted states 25 Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam) 60 dollarization 65 Donais, T. 35, 37 Doyle, Michael 21, 27, 37 Duffield, Mark 28, 149–50 Duli, Florina 89, 100 Duncanson, John 84 East Timor Defence Force (F-FDTL) 113, 116, 117–18 East Timor Police Force (PNTL) 113, 116–18 East Timor Revenue Service 131 East Timor Transitional Administration (ETTA) 119 economic development: Cambodia 62–8, 154, 168–9; Kosovo 95–8, 103, 154; overview 153–6, 154; summary of case studies 154; Timor-Leste 129–35, 154, 170 economic institutions, Kosovo 96 economic security, Kosovo 84–5 elections 29; Cambodia 48, 49, 51–4, 71, 72; Kosovo 87; Timor-Leste 116, 121 emancipatory peace 172–3 English language, Timor-Leste 120–1 environmental sustainability, Cambodia 66–8 Estimated Sustainable Income (ESI), Timor-Leste 133 ethnic bias in justice, Kosovo 91–3 ethnic minorities, Kosovo 82, 89–90, 94, 95–8, 103 ethnicity and local involvement, Kosovo 100

ethnicized peace, Kosovo 103 EU Special Investigative Task Force (SITF) 88–9 European Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX) 83, 85, 91, 152 European Union (EU) 85 Evans, Damon 133 everyday peace 33, 37 everyday reconciliation, Cambodia 58–62 exclusive involvement 160–1; see also Timor-Leste - exclusive involvement, fragile peacebuilding ex-combatants, Timor-Leste 117 explosive remnants of war (ERW) 68–70 Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) (Khmer Rouge Tribunal) 56–8, 58–9, 61–2, 152, 168 factionalism, Timor-Leste 115–18 Fernandes, Hugo 125, 128 finance, Timor-Leste 130, 131 financial crises, Cambodia 64–5 forest coverage, Cambodia 66–7 Fortna, V.P. 27 fragile peace, Timor-Leste 113–15 fragmented leadership, Timor-Leste 115–18 Franks, J. 93 Fretilin (Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor) 111, 119 Fukuyama, Francis 168 FUNCINPEC (National United Front for an Independent, Neutral, Peaceful and Cooperative Cambodia) 49, 51 Fundasaun Mahein 118 Galtung, Johan 22 gas industry, Timor-Leste 132–4 Gashi, Ganish 98 Gender Affairs Unit, Timor-Leste 121–2 gender, Timor-Leste 121–2 geopolitics, influence of 145–6 Ghana 33 Gidley, R. 57 Global Forest Watch 67 “good enough” outcomes 25, 27, 36, 38 Greater Sunrise oil and gas field 132 Gross Domestic Product (GDP): Cambodia 64; Kosovo 95, 98; Timor-Leste 130, 133 Gross National Income (GNI), Timor-Leste 131 gun culture, Kosovo 86

Index   185 Gusmão, Xanana: and 2018 elections 169; and Australia 133; and corruption 134; and F-FDTL 118; and factionalism 115; and Falintil 114, 115; and Indonesia 122, 126, 128–9 Guterres, Francisco 169 Gutteres, Eurico 124 Guyana 33 HALO Trust 68 Hameiri, S. 26 Haradinaj, Ramush 88 health sector, Kosovo 97–8, 154, 155 Hirblinger, A.T. 32, 34 history and culture, influence of 146 HIV/AIDS: Cambodia 65–6, 154 Housing and Property Directorate (HPD), Kosovo 100 Hoxha, Abit 87 Hughes, C. 32, 55 human development 9 Human Development Index (HDI) 131 Human Development Report (UN) 9 Human Rights Unit, Timor-Leste 118, 123, 124 Human Rights Watch (HRW) 83, 84, 89 human rights: Cambodia 55, 65; Indonesia 126; Kosovo 89–90; Timor-Leste 124, 126; US foreign policy and 24; see also individuals’ rights humanitarian intervention 23–4 Hun Sen 51–2, 53, 54, 56, 72, 168 hybrid democracy 54 hybrid justice systems 90–1 hybrid peace 32–4 hybrid tribunals 56 Ibar River, Kosovo 83 illiberal democracies 29; Cambodia 71 illiberal peace 29 inclusive local involvement 163 incomplete justice, Timor-Leste 122–9 individuals’ rights 21, 37 Indonesia 111–12, 124, 126–7, 129, 132 Indonesian National Armed Forces (TNI) 112 Indonesian National Police (POLRI) 117 inequality: Cambodia 65; Kosovo 96–8 Ingram, Sue 120 Institute of Memory, Timor-Leste 126 institutionalization before liberalization (IBL) framework 29 institution-building: overview 19, 24–5, 27, 29, 38, 158; Timor-Leste 128

international actors: and justice 151; and security issues 149 international aid: Cambodia 63–4; TimorLeste 130–1 International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) 3 International Court of Justice (ICJ) 85 International Criminal Court (ICC), Rome Statute 123 International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) 87–8 International Force for East Timor (INTERFET) 112, 114, 123 International Monetary Fund (IMF) 131 International Organization for Migration (IOM) 83, 148 international peacebuilding and local involvement: Cambodia, politicized involvement 48–79; conclusion 168–76; introduction 1–18; Kosovo, superficial involvement 80–110; liberal and local trajectories 19–47; perils and pifalls 144–67; Timor-Leste, exclusive involvement 111–43 International Stabilisation Force (ISF) 113 international/local dichotomy, overview 10–11, 32 international-local encounters, TimorLeste 118–22 Ishizuka, K. 114 Ivanovic, Oliver 169 Jakarta tribunal 124 Japan 64, 69 Joint Assessment Mission (World Bank) 131 Joint Petroleum Development Area (JPDA) 132, 133 Judah, T. 94 judicial institutions: Cambodia 57–8; Kosovo 90–4; overview 153, 158; Timor-Leste 128 justice and reconciliation: Cambodia 55–62; Kosovo 89–95; overview 8–9, 150–3, 152, 158; Timor-Leste 122–9 Kampong Speu, Cambodia 67 Kant, Immanuel 21, 37 Kanun of Lekë Dukagjini (Albanian customary law) 93–4 Kappler, S. 35 Kem Sokha 54, 168 Kent, L. 127 Kenya 33

186   Index KFOR (NATO Kosovo Force) 82, 83, 85 Khmer People’s National Liberation Front (KPNLF) 49 Khmer Rouge Tribunal (Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia) (ECCC) 56–8, 58–9, 61–2, 152, 168 Khmer Rouge Tribunal, Victims Support Section 59 Khmer Rouge: and DDR 50, 145, 148; and economy 63; genocide by 48–9, 55, 60, 61; and logging 66 khsae (patronage system), Cambodia 53–4, 67 Kiçmari, Sabri 99, 101 Koh Kong province, Cambodia 67 Kosovar Centre for Security Studies (KCSS) 101 Kosovo - superficial involvement, co-opted peacebuilding 80–110; co-opted peacebuilding 86–9; declining legitimacy 98–102; lopsided development 95–8; negative peace 82–5; trial without justice 89–95; see also UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA): and DDR 86, 148; emergence of 81; in government 87, 99; and justice 87, 88, 89; and KPC 83; and security sector 87, 102 Kosovo Police Service 83–4, 86 Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC) 82–3, 84, 86 Kosovo Security Forces 83, 84 Kosovo Specialist Chambers 89 Kosovo Specialist Prosecutor’s Office 89 Kosovo, Central Fiscal Authority 96 Kosovo, Department of Health and Social Welfare 97 Kosovo, General Assembly 82 Kosovo, Law on Health Insurance 97 Kosovo, Law on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Communities and their Members 97 Kosovo, Ministry of Health 97 Kosovo, Račak massacre 81 Kosovo, riots of 2004 83–5, 96, 102 Kumanovo Agreement (Military Technical Agreement) 82 Kurti, Albin 85, 96, 100 La’ o Hamutuk 118 Lambourne, W. 58 landmines, Cambodia 68–70

languages, Timor-Leste 120–1 Law on Associations and NonGovernmental Organizations (LANGO) (Cambodia) 54 Law on Health Insurance (Kosovo) 97 Law on the Establishment of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia for the Prosecution of Crimes Committed during the Period of Democratic Kampuchea 56 Law on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Communities and their Members (Kosovo) 97 lawyers: Cambodia 55; Kosovo 90 Le Billon, P. 67 leadership, fragmented, Timor-Leste 115–18 Lederach, John Paul 22–3 legitimacy, declining, Kosovo 98–102 Lemay-Hébert, Nicolas 28, 35, 36 Lëvizja Vetëvendosje! (Movement for SelfDetermination), Kosovo 85 liberal and local trajectories, middle ground between 19–47; the local turn 30–4; the middle ground 34–8; origins 20–3; outcomes 27–30; the problem 23–7 liberal internationalism 23–4 liberal peacebuilding: and civil wars 27–8; components of 8–10; contexts of 144–6, 164–5; crisis of 1–3, 4, 5, 19; criticisms of 28–30, 170, 171–2, 174–5; false assumptions regarding 173; and the local turn 30–4, 159–65; and the middle ground 34–8; origins of 20–3; and statebuilding 23–7; tenets of 80; validity of term 156–9 liberal values, validity of 35–6, 36–7 liberalism 4, 20–1, 36–7 Lidén, K. 35 light-footprint approach 30–1 Limaj, Fatmir 87 Linton, S. 60 Livan, Sophoan 54 Lobato, Nicolau 117 Lobato, Rogerio 117 local contexts 144–6, 164–5 local elites: Cambodia 72; and development 156; illiberal values of 157, 171; and institution-building 158; and justice 151; Kosovo 103; in security sector 147–50; Timor-Leste 112, 116, 119–21, 135–6 local involvement: Cambodia 57–8, 58–61, 68–70; definition 35; and failure of

Index   187 peacebuilding 5; Kosovo 91–3, 99–100; overview 7–8, 10, 159–65; Timor-Leste 112, 115, 118–22; types of 160–3 local ownership 34–5; Cambodia 57; Kosovo 87 local turn, overview 2, 30–4, 37–8, 159–63, 170–1, 172–4 local-international encounters 118–22 Locke, John 21 logging 66–7, 154, 155, 168–9 Lon Nol, General 48, 49, 62 lopsided development, Kosovo 95–8 lorosa ‘e-loromunu divide, Timor-Leste 115, 116 Mac Ginty, Roger 28, 32 Maley, Michael 51–2 Maley, William 52 market liberalization 65 marketization 29 martial arts groups (MAGs), Timor-Leste 113 McCurn, C. 146 McKinna, A. 94 Menand, Louis 168 middle ground see liberal and local trajectories, middle ground between Military Technical Agreement (NATOYugolsavia/Serbia) (Kumanovo Agreement) 82 militia groups, Timor-Leste 114, 122–3 Millar, Gearoid 174 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Kosovo 97 Milošević, Slobodan 81 mine action and local involvement, Cambodia 68–70 Mine Action Planning Units 70 mineral resources, Cambodia 66 Mines Advisory Group (MAG) 68 mining, Kosovo 95 Ministerial Conference on the Rehabilitation and Reconstruction of Cambodia 63 Mishra, Sanjeev 96 Mitrovica, Kosovo: crime in 169; ethnic tensions in 82, 83, 90, 94; poverty in 96; Trepça Mines 95 Mol, Roeup Seyha 70 Morgenbesser, L. 53 Morse, William 70 Movement Against the Occupation of theTimor Sea 132 multi-ethnicity, Kosovo 94–5

nahe biti (stretching the mat) 125 Nathan, L. 35 national identity, Kosovo 146 nationalist movements 174 NATO: and Afghanistan 31; and KLA 86; KFOR (Kosovo Force) 82, 83, 85; Operation Allied Force 81; and Račak massacre 81 Natural Resources and Wildlife Preservation Organization 67 negative hybrid peace 33–4 negative peace 22; Cambodia 72; Kosovo 82–5, 102 neoconservatism 24 neutrality of UN 101, 102 Newman, Edward 27–8, 85 NISMA (Social Democratic Initiative) 87 non-governmental organizations (NGOs), Cambodia 54, 60 non-representative local involvement 161–2 Norodom Chakrapong, Prince 51 Norodom Ranariddh, Prince 51, 54 Norodom Sihanouk, King 48, 49, 51, 62 North Mitrovica, Kosovo 82, 83 Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA) 68, 69 oil industry, Timor-Leste 132–4, 155 Ok, Srei Sopheak 56 Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) 90, 100, 101 Oum Phumro 70 Oum, Sam 50, 52 PANA Coalition 87 Panels, Timor-Leste 123, 124, 126 Paris Agreement (Comprehensive Cambodian Peace Agreement) 48, 49; and DDR 50; and economy 63; and justice and human rights 55; and mineclearing 68, 69 Paris, Roland 4, 24, 29 Party of Democratic Kampuchea (PDK) 49 patronage system (khsae), Cambodia 53–4, 67 Peace and Human Rights Council, Kosovo 94 peace, definition 22 peace, everyday 33, 37 peace, fragile, Timor-Leste 113–15 peace, negative 22, 33–4; Cambodia 72; Kosovo 82–5, 102 peace, positive 22

188   Index Peacebuilding Architecture (UN) 2–3 Peacebuilding Commission (UN) 2 Peacebuilding Review (UN report) 25 peacebuilding see liberal peacebuilding Peacekeeping Force, Timor-Leste 114 People’s Republic of Kampuchea (PRK) 49 perils and pitfalls 144–67; context matters 144–6; liberal peacebuilding, validity of term 156–9; the local turn 159–63; promoting development 153–6, 154; providing security 146–50, 148; pursuing justice and reconciliation 150–3, 152 Perriello, T. 92 Pessoa, Ana 120 Petroleum Fund Consultative Council (PFCC) 134 Petroleum Fund, Timor-Leste 133–4, 154 Phan, Grace 128 Phnom Penh, Cambodia 49, 56, 64, 65 Pires, Emilia 134 PNTL (Timorese police force) 113, 116–18 Pol Pot 49 policing: Kosovo 83–4, 86; Timor-Leste 116–18 political security groups, Timor-Leste 113, 117 politicized involvement see Cambodia politicized involvement, compromised peacebuilding politicized justice, Cambodia 55–8 politicized local involvement 162 populist leaders 174 Portugal 111, 112, 129 Portuguese language 120–1 positive peace 22 post-conflict peacebuilding 24–5 post-conflict rebuilding 3 post-conquest peacebuilding 24 poverty: Cambodia 65; Kosovo 96, 98 Presevo Valley, Serbia 169 Prishtina, Kosovo 83 Prizren, Kosovo 94, 95 property restitution 100 Qehaja, Florian 101 Qosaj-Mustafa, Ariana 99–100 Račak, Kosovo 81 Rambouillet peace conference 81 Ramos-Horta, José 128 Ranariddh, Prince 51, 54

reconciliation: Cambodia 58–62; TimorLeste 124–6; see also justice and reconciliation refugees 100 Regional Commission for Establishing Facts about War Crimes and Other Gross Violations of Human Rights Committed on the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia (RECOM) 165n2 reparations: overview 151; Timor-Leste 126, 127, 129 representative local involvement 163 resource curse paradox 133 Responsibility to Protect (RtoP) 3, 8 restitution of property, Kosovo 100 restorative justice: Cambodia 58, 61, 62; overview 151, 152; Timor-Leste 126 retributive justice: Cambodia 58, 62; overview 151, 152; Timor-Leste 126 revenge culture, Kosovo 91, 92 Richmond, Oliver P. 28, 33, 34, 35, 93, 172–3 rights of the individual 21, 37 Rinck, P. 34 Roberts, David 36–7, 53 Rodrigues, Roque 117 Rome Statute 123 Roper, S.D. 56 Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) 68 Ruak, Taur Matan 117 Rugova, Ibrahim 81, 86, 87 Russia 85, 145–6 Sachs, Jeffrey 9 Salijević, Gazmen 90 Salomons, Dirk 158 Sambanis, N. 27 Scheiner, Charles 118, 129 security institutions: Kosovo 82–5, 90, 101, 102; Timor-Leste 116–18 security, overview 8, 146–50, 148 security, summary of case studies 148 Selby, J. 35 Serbia 169 Serbs, insecurity of 89 Serious Crimes Unit, Timor-Leste 123, 124 sexual violence 154 Shoesmith, D. 116 short-lived negative peace, Kosovo 82–5 Sierra Leone 33–4 Sihanouk, King 48, 49, 51, 62 Simons, C. 32, 34

Index   189 social-contract model 20–1 socio-economic security, Kosovo 84–5 Somaliland 33 Spears, I.S. 30 Special Investigative Task Force (SITF), Kosovo 88–9 Special Panels, Timor-Leste 123, 124, 126 Special Rapporteur for Human Rights 121 Special Representative of the SecretaryGeneral (SRSG): Kosovo 98–9; TimorLeste 121 Specialist Chambers, The Hague 89, 169 stability 149–50 state failure 25 State of Cambodia (SOC) 49, 57, 63 statebuilding 24–5, 26–7 Steen-Nilsen, Aksel 69 Stensrud, E.E. 57 stretching the mat (nahe biti) 125 substantive local involvement 163 success and failure, overview 11–12 Suhrke, Astri 31 superficial involvement 161; see also Kosovo - superficial involvement, co-opted peacebuilding Supreme National Council (SNC), Cambodia 49 sustainable development 9 Tadjbakhsh, Sharbanou 28–9, 172 Tek, F.L. 62 Tempo Semanal (newspaper) 134 Tetum language 121 Thaçi, Hashim 88–9, 169 The Hague, Specialist Chambers 169 Theravada Buddhism 53, 58 time frames for peace missions 12, 52, 84, 135, 158 timing of missions 144–5 Timor Gap Treaty 132 Timor Sea 132–4 Timor Sea Arrangement 132 Timor Sea Treaty 132 Timor-Leste - exclusive involvement, fragile peacebuilding 111–43; captured development 129–35; fragile peace 113–15; fragmented leadership 115–18; incomplete justice 122–9; internationallocal encounters 118–22; see also UN Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) Timor-Leste, Central Bank 130 Timor-Leste, Central Fiscal Authority (CFA) 131

Timor-Leste, Central Payments Office 130 Timor-Leste, Consolidated Budget 131 Timor-Leste, Constituent Assembly 116, 119 Timor-Leste, Division of Agriculture 131 Timor-Leste, First Constitutional Government 131 Timor-Leste, Ministry of Defence 113–14 Timor-Leste, Ministry of Planning and Finance 131 Timor-Leste, Ministry of the Interior 113–14 Timor-Leste, National Consultative Council 120 Timor-Leste, National Council 119 Timor-Leste, security crisis of 2006 112, 113–14, 117 Tito, Josip Broz 81 Tondini, M. 31 top-down approach: Cambodia 70, 71; overview 10–11, 32–3, 157; TimorLeste 128 tourism, Timor-Leste 154–5 transformative local involvement 163 transitional administrations 6–8, 10 transitional justice see justice and reconciliation Transparency International 134 Trepça Mines, Kosovo 95 trial without justice, Kosovo 89–95 truth and reconciliation: Kosovo 93, 169; Timor-Leste 124–6 UN Advance Mission in Cambodia (UNAMIC) 49 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) 132 UN Development Programme (UNDP) 9, 146 UN Environment Programme 66 UN Independent Special Commission of Inquiry for Timor-Leste 113–14, 117 UN Joint Programme on HIV/AIDS 65–6 UN Peacebuilding Architecture 2–3 UN Peacebuilding Commission (UN PBC) 2 UN Peacebuilding Review 25 UN Peacebuilding Support Office (UN PBSO) 155 UN peacebuilding, overview 1–3, 19–20; see also liberal peacebuilding UN Security Council: condemnation of Račak massacre 81; Declaration on the Rehabilitation and Reconstruction of Cambodia 63; Kosovo Status Settlement permanent members’ veto 145;

190   Index UN Security Council continued Resolution 745 (Cambodia) 48; Resolution 1244; On the Situation in Kosovo 80, 81–2, 101, 102, 145–6; Resolution 1272 (Timor-Leste) 111, 112, 123; Resolution 1325; Women, Peace and Security 122; Resolution 1338 (justice, Timor-Leste) 123; Resolution 2272 (sexual violence) 154 UN World Commission on Environment and Development 9 UNAMET (United Nations Mission in East Timor) 112 unemployment, Kosovo 96, 98 UN-Habitat (United Nations Human Settlements Programme) 163 United States 24, 31, 68 UNMIK (UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo) 6, 80, 148, 152; authoritarianism of 98–9; Constitutional Framework 82; Joint Interim Administrative Structure (JIAS) 82; and local elite 103; neutrality of 101, 102; Pillar III 90; Provisional Institutions of Self-Government (PISG) 82; see also Kosovo - superficial involvement, co-opted peacebuilding UNMISET (UN Mission of Support in East Timor) 113 UNMIT (UN Integrated Mission in TimorLeste) 113 UNOTIL (UN Office in Timor-Leste) 113 unsustainability of international presence 155 UNTAC (UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia) 6, 148, 152, 154; Electoral Component 52; Mine Clearance Training Unit 68; Rehabilitation Component 63, 64; Technical Advisory Committee on Management and Sustainable Exploitation of Natural Resources 66; see also Cambodia politicized involvement, compromised peacebuilding UNTAET (UN Transitional Administration in East Timor) 6, 148, 152; as benevolent dictatorship 118; Gender Affairs Unit 121–2; Governance and Public Administration pillar

118–19; Human Rights Unit 118, 123; Peacekeeping Force 114; Serious Crimes Unit 123, 124; unsustainability of international presence 155; see also Timor-Leste - exclusive involvement, fragile peacebuilding US dollar 65, 130 Valu Beach, Timor-Leste 154–5 Vezgishi, Musa 94 victim participation schemes, Cambodia 58–61 victims’ perspectives, Timor-Leste 125, 128–9 Vieira de Mello, Sergio 121 Visoka, Gëzim 100, 101–2, 103, 172–3 Vitor, Antonio 135 von Billerbeck, S.B.K. 35 Wallis, J. 119 Walton, C.D. 30 war crimes: overview 150–3, 152; TimorLeste 122–9; see also International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY); Khmer Rouge Tribunal (Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia) (ECCC); Panels, Timor-Leste; Specialist Chambers, The Hague West Timor, Indonesia 114 Whittington, Sherrill 121 Wierda, M. 92 Wiranto, General 123 witness protection 93 Wolfgram, M.A. 86 Women, Peace and Security (WPS) 122 women, violence against 154 Women’s Network of Timor-Leste 121 women’s rights, Timor-Leste 121–2 World Bank 96, 97–8 World Bank Joint Assessment Mission 131 World Development Report 2011 25 World Health Organization (WHO) 97–8 World Trade Organization (WTO) 64 Yugoslavia 81 Zartman, I.W. 25 Zupan, N. 146