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A liberal-local hybrid peace project in action? The increasing engagement between the local and liberal in Timor-Leste

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 February 2012

Abstract

The liberal peace project has dominated state-building operations since the end of the Cold War, including in Timor-Leste. However, the attempt to institutionalise the liberal peace faced significant challenges in Timor-Leste's fragmented subsistence-based society. This resulted in the creation of shallowly rooted and poorly-understood liberal state institutions that were disconnected from the majority of Timorese, who continued to follow their local sociopolitical practices. In response, the state has increasingly engaged with these local practices in order to create state institutions that make sense to the people they seek to govern. This engagement has occurred through the formalisation of local sociopolitical institutions, the recognition of local justice systems and the utilisation of local ceremonies and practices. Therefore, this article argues that a liberal-local hybrid peace project has emerged to guide state-building in Timor-Leste, which may indicate how similar projects could develop in the future.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 2012

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35 Ibid., article 12(2).

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39 Ibid., section 146.

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84 Constitution, section 40(1).

85 Ibid., section 46(1); section 41.

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96 Ibid.

97 Tanja Hohe, ‘Totem Polls’, p. 82.

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110 Brown and Gusmao, ‘Peacebuilding and Political Hybridity’, p. 68; Ospina and Hohe, Traditional Power Structures.

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116 Interview with a Timorese justice advisor, Dili (12 May 2010); interview with a member of Timorese civil society, Dili (14 May 2010).

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122 Avocats Sans Frontieres, Access to Legal Aid in Timor-Leste – Survey Report (Dili: Avocats San Frontieres, 2006)Google Scholar.

123 Asia Foundation, Law and Justice in Timor-Leste.

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126 When members of the public were asked ‘Which institution/individual has primary responsibility for maintaining security in your locality?’, 38 per cent identified their suco (village) chief; 19 per cent identified community leaders; and 18 per cent identified elders. Therefore, a total of 75 per cent of respondents identified community leaders, as compared to 15 per cent who identified the PNTL. Asia Foundation, A Survey of Community-Police Perceptions: Timor-Leste in 2008 (San Francisco: Asia Foundation, 2008), p. 23Google Scholar.

127 Ibid.

128 Interview with a Timorese intellectual, Dili (12 May 2010); Mearns, Looking Both Ways; Hohe and Nixon, Reconciling Justice.

129 Asia Foundation, Law and Justice in Timor-Leste.

130 Interview with an international governance advisor, Dili (13 May 2010).

131 Ibid.; Gusmao, Timor Lives!, p. 122.

132 Interview with an international governance advisor, Dili (13 May 2010); Mearns, Looking Both Ways; Gusmao, Timor Lives!.

133 Asia Foundation, Law and Justice in Timor-Leste; Avocats Sans Frontieres, Access to Legal Aid.

134 Grenfell, ‘Promoting the rule of law’, p. 228; interview with an international governance advisor, Dili (13 May 2010).

135 Asia Foundation, Law and Justice in Timor-Leste; interview with an international governance advisor, Dili (10 May 2010).

136 USAID, Rule of Law in Timor-Leste (Dili: Freedom House, USAID and the ABA Rule of Law Initiative, 2007), p. 24Google Scholar.

137 JSMP, The Interaction of Traditional Dispute Resolution with the Formal Justice Sector in Timor-Leste (Dili: Judicial System Monitoring Programme, 2005)Google Scholar.

138 Decree Law on Community Authorities, section 3.

139 Law on Community Leaderships and Their Election, section 11.

140 Constitution, section 123(5).

141 Grenfell, ‘Promoting the rule of law’, p. 228; interview with a Timorese governance advisor, Dili (11 May 2010).

142 Asia Foundation, Law and Justice in Timor-Leste.

143 Zifcak, Spencer, Restorative Justice in East Timor: An Evaluation of the Community Reconciliation Process of the CAVR (New York: Asia Foundation, 2004), p. 51Google Scholar.

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145 Soares, ‘Challenges for the future’, p. 268.

146 Ibid., p. 270.

147 Ibid., p. 269; Soares, ‘The Challenges of Drafting a Constitution’; Regan, ‘Constitution Making in Timor-Leste’.

148 Boege, et al., ‘Hybrid Political Orders’, p. 19.

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151 Interview at a major development agency (27 September 2006), quoted in Richmond and Franks, ‘Liberal Peacebuilding in Timor Leste’, p. 194.

152 Interview with a government official, Dili (29 April 2010).

153 Interview with a member of parliament, Dili (13 May 2010).

154 Pugh, ‘The Political Economy of Peacebuilding’, p. 25.

155 Roland Paris, ‘Peacebuilding and the Limits’, p. 76; Chua, Amy, World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability (New York: Anchor, 2004)Google Scholar.

156 UNDP, Timor-Leste Human Development Report 2011: Managing Natural Resources for Human Development, Developing the Non-Oil Economy to Achieve the MDGs (Dili: United Nations Development Programme, 2011)Google Scholar.

157 Damien Kingsbury and Michael Leach, ‘Introduction’, in Kingsbury and Leach, Timor-Leste: Beyond Independence; Michael Leach, ‘History teaching: challenges and alternatives’, in Kingsbury and Leach, Timor-Leste: Beyond Independence; Sara Niner, ‘Martyrs, heroes and warriors: the leadership of Timor-Leste’, in Kingsbury and Leach, Timor-Leste: Beyond Independence.

158 Report of the Secretary General on Timor-Leste pursuant to Security Council resolution 1690, UN Doc. S/2006/628 (8 August 2006), p. 9; Brown and Gusmao, ‘Peacebuilding and Political Hybridity’; Niner, Sara, Xanana: Leader of the Struggle for Independent Timor-Leste (North Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing Pty Ltd, 2009)Google Scholar.

159 Richmond, ‘The Romanticisation of the Local’, p. 154.

160 Paris, ‘Peacebuilding and the Limits’, p. 76.

161 See Wallis, Joanne, Gillies, Alexandra, and Akara, Mericio, Fahe Hamutuk: Sharing Oil Wealth Through Cash Transfer in Timor-Leste (New York: Revenue Watch Institute, forthcoming)Google Scholar.

162 Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste (for the period from 24 September 2009 to 20 January 2010), UN Doc. S/2010/85 (12 February 2010), p. 10.

163 Gusmao, Timor Lives!, p. 54.

164 On the road to Peace and Prosperity: Timor-Leste's Strategic Development Plan 2011–2030 Summary, Office of the prime minister, Dili (7 April 2010).

165 Constitution, section 2(4).

166 Ibid., section 6(g).

167 Interview with a member of parliament, Dili (11 May 2010); interview with a government minister, Dili (27 April 2010); interview with a Timorese intellectual, Dili (12 May 2010); interview with an international governance advisor, Dili (23 April 2010); Brown and Gusmao, ‘Peacebuilding and Political Hybridity’; Butt, Simon, et al. , Looking forward: local dispute resolution mechanisms in Timor-Leste, Legal Studies Research Paper (Sydney: Law School, University of Sydney, 2004)Google Scholar.

168 Jill Jolliffe, ‘Psychological Healing as a Prerequisite to Good Governance in Timor-Leste’, in Mearns, Democratic Governance in Timor-Leste, p. 19.

169 Trindade, ‘Reconciling Conflicting Paradigms’.

170 Interview with a Timorese intellectual, Dili (12 May 2010); interview with an international academic, Brisbane (18 January 2010); Jolliffe, ‘Psychological Healing as a Prerequisite’.

171 Brown and Gusmao, ‘Peacebuilding and Political Hybridity’, p. 67; Palmer, Lisa, ‘Developing Timor-Leste: The Role of Custom and Tradition’, in Palmer, Lisa, et al. (eds), Exploring the Tension of Nation-Building in Timor-Leste (Melbourne: University of Melbourne, 2007), pp. 3540Google Scholar; Grenfell, ‘Promoting the rule of law’.

172 Personal communication from Alfredo Pires, secretary of state for Natural Resources, Dili (29 April 2010).

173 Interview with a member of Timorese civil society, Dili (14 May 2010).

174 Alfredo Pires (9 April 2010).

175 Interview with a Timorese intellectual, Dili (12 May 2010); interview with a member of Timorese civil society, Dili (14 May 2010).

176 Boege et al., On Hybrid Political Orders, p. 4; Boege, et al., ‘Building Peace and Political Community’; Soares, ‘Challenges for the future’.

177 Nixon, ‘The Crisis of Governance’, p. 91.

178 Hohe, ‘The Clash of Paradigms’, p. 569; Lutz and Linder, Traditional Structures; McWilliam, ‘Houses of Resistance in Timor-Leste’.

179 Brown, ‘Security, development and the nation-building agenda’, p. 161.

180 Lutz and Linder, Traditional Structures, pp. 46–7; Turner, Mark, ‘Issues in the Design of Decentralisation’, Local Level Governance in the Pacific, State, Society and Governance in Melanesia Discussion Paper 2003/7 (Canberra: Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University, 2003)Google Scholar; World Bank, World Development Report 2004: Making Services Work for Poor People (Washington: World Bank, 2004)Google Scholar.

181 Fleiner, Thomas, et al. , ‘Federalism, Decentralisation and Conflict Management in Multicultural Societies’, in Blindenbacher, Raoul and Koller, Arnold (eds), Federalism in a Changing World – Learning from Each Other (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2003)Google Scholar.

182 Penelope Schoeffel, ‘Small is Not Beautiful: Central Government and Service Delivery in the Pacific’, Local Level Governance in the Pacific.

183 Ibid.; Fleiner, et al., ‘Federalism, Decentralisation and Conflict Management’; Lutz and Linder, Traditional Structures.

184 Asia Foundation, Law and Justice in Timor-Leste.

185 Interview with an international governance advisor, Dili (13 May 2010).

186 Fieldwork observation (June–July 2009; April–May 2010; September–October 2010); interview with an international governance advisor, Dili (23 April 2010).

187 Kingsbury, ‘Political development’, p. 23.

188 Interview with an international governance advisor, Dili (13 May 2010).

189 Centre, Carter, The Timor-Leste Political and Election Observation Project: Final Report (Atlanta: The Carter Centre, 2004)Google Scholar.

190 Interview with a member of Timorese civil society, Dili (14 May 2010); interview with a member of Timorese civil society, Dili (14 May 2010).

191 Nixon, Rod, ‘Indonesian West Timor: The Political-Economy of Emerging Ethno-Nationalism’, Journal of Contemporary Asia, 34:2 (2004), pp. 163–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a recent iteration of the proposal see Trindade, ‘Reconciling Conflicting Paradigms’.

192 For example, American Samoa, Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands, Palau, Tonga, Vanuatu, Wallis, and Futuna and Western Samoa.

193 For example, Namibia, South Africa, Ghana, Mozambique, Uganda, Zambia, and Cameroon.

194 Interview with a member of the Constituent Assembly, Canberra (2 February 2010).

195 Interview with a member of parliament, Dili (11 May 2010).

196 Kammen, Douglas, ‘Master-Slave, Traitor-Nationalist, Opportunist-Oppressed: Political Metaphors in East Timor’, Indonesia, 76 (2003), pp. 6985, 75Google Scholar.

197 Personal communication from an international security advisor, Dili (11 May 2010); personal communications during fieldwork, Timor-Leste (June–July 2009 and April–May 2010). See also Ibid.

198 Grenfell, ‘Legal Pluralism and the Rule of Law’, p. 324; Soares, ‘Challenges for the future’.

199 The United Nations Mission in Timor-Leste (UNMIT).

200 Interview with an international justice advisor, Dili (14 May 2010).

201 Interview with an international governance advisor, Dili (23 April 2010).

202 Ibid.; interview with a Timorese governance advisor, Dili (11 May 2010); interview with a Timorese justice advisor, Dili (12 May 2010); Andrew Marriot, ‘Justice in the Community, Justice in the Courts: Bridging Timor-Leste's Legal Divide’, in Mearns (ed.), Democratic Governance in Timor-Leste.

203 Interview with an international justice advisor, Dili (14 May 2010); Grenfell, ‘Governance, Violence and Crises’; Harper, Erica, Re-constructing a legal system in Timor-Leste: challenges to introducing international legal norms and principles into post-conflict states under UN administration, Phd thesis (Melbourne: University of Melbourne, 2007)Google Scholar; Mearns, Looking Both Ways.

204 For example, most communities build uma lulik (sacred houses), most elders engage in mamah bua malus (chewing of betel nut), most women manufacture tais (traditional cloth), and most have traditional dancing of tebe-tebe or kore-metan (commemoration after one year of someone's death). Trindade, ‘Reconciling Conflicting Paradigms’, p. 163.

205 For example, in Australia local justice actors are involved in state court decision-making in cases involving indigenous persons and local justice sanctions are taken into account by the state courts. See Marchetti, Elena and Daly, Kathleen, ‘Indigenous Sentencing Courts: Towards a Theoretical and Jurisprudential Model’, Sydney Law Review, 29:3 (2007), pp. 415–44Google Scholar; McAsey, Bridget, ‘A Critical Evaluation of the Koori Court Division of the Victorian Magistrates' Court’, Deakin Law Review, 10:2 (2005), pp. 654–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

206 Interview with an international governance advisor, Dili (13 May 2010); Hohe and Nixon, Reconciling Justice; Mearns, Looking Both Ways; UNOHCHR/UNMIT, Facing the Future: Periodic Report on Human Rights Developments in Timor-Leste, 1 July 2009–30 June 2010 (Dili: United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and UNMIT, 2010)Google Scholar.

207 Asia Foundation, Law and Justice in Timor-Leste.

208 Grenfell, ‘Promoting the rule of law’.

209 Grenfell, ‘Legal Pluralism and the Rule of Law’.

210 Interview with an international justice advisor, Dili (14 May 2010).

211 Interview with an international governance advisor, Dili (13 May 2010); Grenfell, ‘Promoting the rule of law’; interview with a member of Timorese civil society, Dili (12 May 2010).

212 Marriot, ‘Justice in the Community’; Mearns, Looking Both Ways.

213 Interview with an international justice advisor, Dili (14 May 2010).

214 Constitution, section 138.

215 Ibid., section 138.

216 Interview with a member of parliament, Dili (13 May 2010); Niner, ‘Martyrs, heroes and warriors’.

217 World Bank, Report of the Joint Assessment Mission to Timor-Leste (8 December 1999), available at: {http://wbln0018.worldbank.org/eap/eap.nsf/0/a67abe6406537dcb85256847007dff36?OpenDocument}.

218 Asian Development Bank, Second Progress Report on Timor-Leste, Donor's Council Meeting, Canberra, Australia (13–15 June 2001), available at: {http://www.adb.org/documents/conference/easttimor/Second_Progress_Report/spret.pdf}.

219 Interview with an international governance advisor, Dili (23 April 2010).

220 Interview with an international academic, Brisbane (18 January 2010).

221 For example, a suco leader described how he undertakes extensive consultation with his community, and is now able to formally lobby the government to address their concerns. To date these concerns have focused on development, with the leader submitting a plan to the government, to which the government responded with an initial investment in community infrastructure projects. Interview with a suco leader, Dili (28 September 2010).

222 Fraenkel, Jon and Grofman, Bernard, ‘Introduction – Political Culture, Representation and Electoral Systems in the Pacific Islands’, Commonwealth & Comparative Politics, 43:3 (2005), pp. 261–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

223 Butterworth, David and Dale, Pamela, Articulations of Local Governance in Timor-Leste: Lessons for Development under Decentralization, Justice for the Poor Policy Note 56931 (Dili: World Bank, 2010)Google Scholar.

224 Meitzner Yoder, Laura S., ‘Hybridising Justice: State-Customary Interactions over Forest Crime and Punishment in Oecusse, East Timor’, The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, 8:1 (2007), pp. 4357CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Palmer and do Amaral de Carvalho, ‘Nation Building and Resource Management’.

225 Palmer, ‘Developing Timor-Leste’.

226 Hau'ofa, Epeli, ‘The New South Pacific Society: Integration and Independence’, in Hooper, Anthony, et al. (eds), Class and Culture in the South Pacific (Auckland and Suva: Centre for Pacific Studies of the University of Auckland and Institute of Pacific Studies of the University of the South Pacific, 1987), p. 7Google Scholar; interview with a member of the Constituent Assembly, Canberra (2 February 2010).

227 See, for example, Goodhand, Jonathan and Sedra, Mark, Bargains for Peace? Aid, Conditionalities and Reconstruction in Afghanistan (The Hague: Netherlands Institute of International Relations, 2006)Google Scholar; O'Brien, James C., ‘Lawyers, Guns, and Money: Warlords and Reconstruction After Iraq’, UC Davies Journal of International Law & Policy, 11:1 (2004–2005), pp. 99122Google Scholar.

228 Ibid., p. 141; Trindade, Josh and Castro, Bryant, Rethinking Timorese Identity as a Peacebuilding Strategy: The Lorosa'e-Loromonu Conflict from a Traditional Perspective (Dili: Report prepared for The European Union's Rapid Reaction Mechanism Programme, Technical Assistance to the National Dialogue Process in Timor-Leste, 2007)Google Scholar.

229 Richmond, ‘Becoming Liberal, Unbecoming Liberalism’, p. 334.

230 Brown, ‘Security, development and the nation-building agenda’, p. 155; Trindade and Castro, Rethinking Timorese Identity.

231 Mearns, Looking Both Ways, pp. 30–1.

232 Law Against Domestic Violence No. 7/2010 (2010).

233 Interview with a member of Timorese civil society, Dili (28 April 2010); interview with an international security advisor, Dili (28 April 2010).

234 For example, when negotiating a tarabandu to regulate local social behaviour, one community became aware that their local treatment of rape victims did not reflect the state Penal Code, and changed their agreement accordingly. Interview an international governance advisor, Dili (13 May 2010).

235 Interview with an international justice advisor, Dili (14 May 2010).

236 Interview with an international governance advisor, Dili (13 May 2010); Richmond, ‘Becoming Liberal, Unbecoming Liberalism’, p. 334.