Peacekeeping in East Timor

The UN intervention in East Timor illustrates the type of complex operation that the United Nations increasingly being asked to undertake. Michael Smith analyzes the successes and failures of the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET), which was designed to work in partnership with the East Timorese in guiding the country to independence following the 1999 vote to secede from Indonesia. This is an account of a UN mission in the unfamiliar role of interim government - a mission dealing with critical requirements for good governance, sustainable development, and effective military and police forces. Evaluating the lessons learned from the experience, he highlights the urgent need forreforms within the UN. The absence of those reforms, he believes,will lead to more failed states, more refugees, more poverty,and more dead peacekeepers.