Ban Ki Moon's breath-holding contest with Burma

A bit of breath-holding is in order today as international aid agencies test Burma's promise to allow the agencies to move freely in cyclone-damaged areas. After UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon's visit with Burmese officials a few days ago, the junta agreed to allow international aid agency personnel greater access to the areas hit hardest by Cyclone Nargis. My guess is that what develops over the next few days will be a mixed bag given the military government's propensity for playing not-so-subtle cat and mouse games with the international community. But let's hope that the desire to save face pushes the junta to do the right thing.

Calls for Intervention in Burma Unrealistic

I'm going to open with a pretty obvious statement here: The comments sections of digital articles can sometimes leave you wondering when the End Times will get here, or at least thirsty for a couple of fingers of good bourbon. Often, the back and forth banter by those posting comments quickly devolves into absurdity and stupidity at best and rabid misanthropy at worst. But sometimes interesting points are made.

Something I've noticed developing in the digital world as a response to the cyclone and post-cyclone crisis in Burma is the assertion that the UN should intervene, sending Peacekeepers to secure the country and pave the way for aid delivery by UN agencies and international NGOs. Even I have argued that the Burmese government's treatment of its own citizens is grounds for reexamining the ideas in the seminal document "The Responsibility to Protect."

But military intervention in Burma by the UN is unrealistic, even if it is theoretically justified. Burma is a big country with a relatively large military. Traditionally, states are loathe to relinquish sovereignty. Losing power is no doubt the subject of many sleepless nights for General Than Shwe, and a big source of his paranoia.

But what would the UN do if it did exercise some plan to invade a sovereign state? Overthrow the government? (I know, I'm not missing the irony here, but this is the UN we're talking about, not the U.S.) And if the government were to fall, what then? The world body is in no way equipped to form an interim government in a country the size of Burma. East Timor, a country with fewer than 1 million citizens, has so far been the UN's largest nation-building experiment, and there's still a mission there (peacekeeping and advisory), nearly nine years after the initial interim government formed. Burma has nearly 50 times the population that East Timor has. This would be an impossible undertaking for the UN.

The mismanagement by Burma's government has been awful, and the current crises shows just how ill-equipped the regime is to lead, but now is not the time for complete systemic upheaval. It's tough to imagine anything positive coming from so much human suffering, but the cyclone may prove to be the biggest crack yet in the levee that is the Burmese government. Outside influence will trickle in, and with the population so fed up with the current leadership, its hold on the country may start to crumble.

Burmese Days

If the Burmese military junta were embodied in a single person, that person would need to be hospitalized for severe mental illness. The recent games the junta has been playing with the international community, and its own people through its propaganda machine, are symptomatic of some serious troubles: grandiosity, narcissism, the list goes on. In the past the little guy (the military government) has been a bit of a sociopath with a severe personality disorder.

The more recent failure to protect its own citizens in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis by restricting foreign aid, denying visas to foreigners, and insisting that all aid be managed by the junta, represents a level of delusion that is criminally insane. The government, through its "news" outlets like the New Light of Myanmar, continues to insist that everything is fine, the situation is firmly under its control, and that all of Burma's citizens who need assistance are getting it. Perhaps this is more magical thinking than delusion: if they wish hard enough, maybe all their problems will go away.

It's clear that the junta isn't going to let Western aid agencies into the remote regions that need the most help, but let's hope that their newest promise to let aid be delivered by their ASEAN neighbors will prove fruitful. Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines are all countries with both governmental and nongovernmental agencies that are capable of delivering aid in emergency situations. Let's just hope they're given the chance.

I'll see your Malaria, and raise you one Hookworm

Several years ago, when I was working in East Timor, one of the local staffers at my office came to me in the market on a Saturday, frantically asking if I could give him a ride to the hospital. Our conversation started as a chaotic mix of English and Indonesian, and ended in some spontaneously improvised sign language. I thought I was going to be giving someone very sick a ride to the local hospital, which made sense, because only one ambulance was available for the entire district. But I was confused when my friend immediately directed me to turn into the hospital parking lot. He ran inside, and in a few minutes returned carrying a dead boy.

On the ride to his village, he started to calm down, and I was able to understand part of what he said. The boy was his nephew. The village he was taking him to was nearly three hours away on foot, and the sun was setting. The boy's father was hours away in the capital city looking for work and couldn't be reached. The boy died of malaria, a preventable, curable disease. He was 12 years old.

Malaria and other diseases that have historically been devastating are now all but obsolete in the developed world. Malaria, for example, once plagued parts of the U.S. Likewise, a disease that was problematic and widespread in parts of the U.S., namely the deep American South, was hookworm, a parasite that enters the body through the skin and causes intestinal problems and anemia, among other things. It's not as fatal as malaria, but it is debilitating.

In 1909, as a result of a $1 million gift from John D. Rockefeller, the Rockefeller Sanitary Commission for the Eradication of Hookworm Disease was formed. As a result of campaigns by the foundation in the South and Appalachia, the disease became all but obsolete in the United States within five years. Eventually the efforts expanded abroad, but unfortunately the disease is still present in much of the developing world.

Critics might speculate that the Rockefeller Commission wanted to curb hookworm in the American South in order to create stronger markets. This may be the case, and it's also probably true that anemic people don't make very productive workers. Whatever the motives, the outcome was positive enough to make the campaign worthwhile. Likewise, self-interested corporations should consider the tremendous possibilities of new markets in the developing world by contributing to efforts to eradicate diseases, which would help create stability, increase productivity, expand economies and create new consumers.

I suppose a fair question here is, "What's your point, Jonny?" The point is that we sometimes view a problem like Malaria as overwhelming, something that is impossible to tackle in the developing world. But often eradication of a deadly disease just takes and innovative approach and a concerted effort.

Malaria has a profound effect on the developing world. But there's reason to be optimistic. Huge monetary gifts from stinking rich philanthropists have their place, but some very effective modern campaigns, such as Nothing But Nets, give regular people like you and me the ability to make meaningful contributions. If you need to remember why you should, read this.

Throwing money at a problem doesn't always work, but it's worth taking a minute to applaud the innovative approach to problem solving at Nothing But Nets.

Sorry Mr. Petty, Sometimes you do have to live like a refugee

It's no secret that a massive Iraqi refugee crisis has been building for several years. Saddam Hussein may have been a genocidal maniac, but his tyranny managed to keep the sectarian violence in Iraq suppressed. The apparent lack of foresight about this problem by the "planners" of the Iraq invasion helped unleash this sleeping hatred, and now nearly 2 million Iraqi refugees have been forced to flee. Many now live in camps in Jordan, Egypt and Syria, a situation that could have potential consequences for regional stability. Of the 2 million, fewer than 3,000 have been resettled in the U.S. since 2003 when Hussein's regime was overthrown.

Resettling refugees in the States is difficult, no doubt, but 3,000 in five years? I'm no math wiz, but I think if you found the lowest common denominator and expressed that as a fraction it would be something like a really small number over a really big number.

Whether or not you supported the invasion -- and let's face it, many of you did -- you have to recognize the smell of poo poo when it's sitting on your face. And I know, we can all bash the current administration yet again, but I'm now more inclined to listen to the argument presented by Alasdair Roberts in the latest issue of Foreign Policy: that we, the American public, are to blame for the way Iraq is going. After all, this is still a democracy -- sort of. Perhaps you are one of the few who care, but we must admit that the public has been sleepwalking for quite some time now.

One thing the refugee situation is making painfully obvious is that we could care less about the Pottery Barn rule, that quirky phrase supposedly coined by NY Times Columnist, Thomas Friedman: You break it, you buy it. Colin Powell later used the phrase in an attempt to communicate to the administration the seriousness of overthrowing a government. I'm sure the latent sectarianism must have seemed trivial at the time.

I think Stephen Colbert's May, 2007 explanation of the rule seems more accurate:
"At Pottery Barn, if you knock over a lamp, you have to glue it back together, even if when you're done it looks terrible and it doesn't work. Oh, and you have to stay in the store forever. Oh, and it's an exploding lamp."

Bad Junta

The ruling Burmese junta showed once again how uncooperative it is by expelling the top U.N. resident ambassador to the country on Friday. According to Reuters:

U.N. officials said on Friday that Charles Petrie had been summoned to the former Burma's new capital, Naypyitaw, for an official dressing down for a statement he released on the Oct. 24 United Nations Day. After the meeting, Petrie and his colleagues were given a letter saying the military government would not be renewing his credentials, which expire "pretty much now," a Yangon-based diplomat said.

The military government continues to prove how rigid and backwards it is by attempting to restrict information from entering or leaving the country. Perhaps with internet access shut down and Petrie expelled, the junta leadership believes that it can continue to silence the opposition, at least internationally, and that the silence will eventually lead to an international forgetfulness. It's an interesting card trick: take it off the table, and it ceases to exist.

Unfortunately, with the modern attention span and the schizophrenic news cycle, silence can lead to forgetfulness. But what the medieval junta fails to understand is that this time is much different than 1988. It is virtually impossible in today's information climate to keep all of the nearly 50 million Burmese silent.

The torture, kidnapping, murder and intimidation works to a point, but the modestly defiant demonstration by Buddhist monks on Thursday, just one month after the violent repression of widespread protests, shows that the population is determined to keep the issue of Burmese democracy alive.

Here is a previous post on Burma.
And here is another.

God Bless You, Mr. Vonnegut

And apologies for stealing your title. I've read some elegant editorials and obits on the late, great Kurt Vonnegut in the past few days, and I just wanted to lend some space in the digital universe here at GS&D to remember him. The morality, honesty and heart in his writing will be missed as much as his inventiveness and humor. His books tackled global issues in the smallest of places.

Does Sudan mean it this time?

After months of flip-flopping and stalling, the Sudanese government has had an apparent change of heart over the situation in Darfur, finally agreeing to allow UN Peacekeepers in the region to help the African Union soldiers already there. Read about the announcement on the BBC's website.

It's difficult to believe that after vehemently denying this option for months, the government is finally in agreement with the UN and many of its member states on this subject. Although the the AU forces already there are nearly 7,000 strong, they have been overwhelmed by the immensity of the task to which they have been assigned .

The 3,000 additional UN soldiers, if this deal actually does go through, may seem like a pittance, but their presence is needed to support the fatigued, under-resourced AU troops. A UN peacekeeping mission would bring with it more substantial resources and an air of legitimacy that the current protective forces may have been lacking.

I've been skeptical in the past, but I can't be this time. The Sudanese government may change its mind, 0r the 3,000 UN soldiers may be inadequate, but this is a start. With hundreds of thousands already dead, and several million lives in Darfur and Chad hanging in the balance, any step forward is a welcome sign. Let's keep our fingers crossed that a UN Peacekeeping force can breathe some life into this situation.

To find out more, read the Coalition for Darfur blog.

Health in Africa

Here's a great idea, and none too soon. At the African Union Conferences of Ministers of Health recently, several interesting things happened.

One, leaders highlighted the need to become more self-reliant. Not that the industrialized world doesn't owe Africa, but past models of aid, which have traditionally come with numerous caveats, have been unsustainable for the continent. From IMF one-size-fits-all structural adjustment, to do-gooder NGOs with lots of good intentions but few long-term results, the dispersement of aid to Africa has been wrought with inefficiency and local corruption. The fact that prominent local leaders understand the need to move beyond this model and into a future of local capacity is promising.

A second hopeful sign from the conferences was a commitment by several nations to spend 15% of their budgets on health, a figure already reached by Botswana and The Gambia. The importance of this spending as an investment toward future viability in Africa goes without saying.

Finally, nations were less reluctant to single out pariahs and stragglers, namely Zimbabwe, whose political and economic nosedive was correctly pointed out at the conference as a health crisis. Economics, politics, health, education and stability are all interconnected, and I this is finally being verbalized.

It's time to move toward a new paradigm for the developing world. Local input has been ignored and underestimated for far too long. And as for Zimbabwe, other countries are realizing that if you're not lifting the rest up, then you must be dragging them down. And they're already starting to cut you loose.

Man Bites Climate

So, is it a trend or a movement? I have at times been cynical about the hoopla, inaction and partisan rhetoric from both sides of the political spectrum concerning global climate change. There's certainly more information out there about it these days, and lately the subject has seemed more and more newsworthy. As in "Don't bring me a story about the climate biting a man, bring me a story about a man biting the climate." But is there a point of critical mass where the abstract idea of the various catastrophic consequences of a quickly warming global climate moves collectively into an international conscience and becomes, well, less abstract? And if this possibility exists, will we reach that critical tipping point in time? Of course, some say the debate isn't even over, that global temperatures fluctuate in a natural rhythm, and that an increase of a few degrees is nothing to fret over, regardless of whether or not we hairless apes are to blame. But that's a debate for a different day.

One glimmer of hope that we are taking more notice is that the issue will be discussed by the UN Security Council for the first time in history at their regular meeting later this month. There are a couple of reasons to be skeptical. Namely, the Security Council has been traditionally slow to act, the resolutions they pass have often been ignored by individual countries, and China and the U.S. -- already having shown resistance to scientific advice on the subject -- are both veto-wielding, permanent members of the SC. However, the fact that the matter is on the Security Council's agenda means, simply, that the issue is being understood as a matter of international security. Even if the discussion of the issue is entirely symbolic and produces no actionable results, it is yet another indicator of changing attitudes. But we may be getting a heck of a late start.

Why Help the Distant Poor?

I've heard the question before in one form or another: last year when the earthquake hit Pakistan; the tsunami in early 2005. But it's ongoing, in some form, and people always preface it with some verbal dancing, trying to ask the question without coming across as a completely insensitive. Most recently, I heard the question from one of my own friends. It went something like this: "Why are we sending all this money overseas to help people when we have problems here? I mean I hate that bad things happen like earthquakes and things, but we've got our own problems." OK, that was paraphrasing, but that's the type of question that I got.

There are two sides to this argument: the moral/ethical, and the self-interest/stability arguments. But before I get into that, we need to set something straight: It is a myth that the United States gives huge amounts of money for humanitarian aid, or official development assistance. Sure, it's the largest number out there in absolute terms, but the U.S. also has the world's largest economy. As a percentage of GDP, the U.S. government spending comes in dead last among the industrialized countries. Annual giving from the U.S. government is around $1.5 billion, a fraction of what's been spent in the Iraq catastrophe.

That aside, there's the moral argument. We should help the poor because they're suffering, and that's appalling. It's not that there isn't enough in the world to go around because there is. One of the most interesting takes I've heard recently on this moral/responsibility side of the argument was in the song, "All U Can Eat," by the brilliant Ben Folds. He performed it recently on the Henry Rollins Show. You can see the performance by going to that link, clicking on Uncut on Demand, the Henry Rollins Show, and Musical Performances and Interviews. In the song, Folds recounts a conversation with his son in a restaurant, wondering aloud at all the bloated people, asking what they would do if they had to give up their minivans and the convenience of their supermarkets and trade places with someone in a developing nation. It's a nice message, especially coming from a popular artist such as Folds.

That message is clear and true. But even if you don't feel that we need to help the starving and sick just because people shouldn't have to suffer through their short lives, there's also the fact that we bare a burden of ethical responsibility. For example, saying that rising sea levels due to global warming -- a situation that will undoubtedly be more difficult for poor countries -- is everyone else's problem just doesn't cut it. Less developed countries have contributed very little in terms of greenhouse gases, while the overwhelming majority of the gases created by human activity have come from the developed West: Western Europe and the United States. So when the people of Tuvalu find their entire country underwater and become environmental refugees, is it their problem? I think not.

One theory about the relationship between the developed world and the less developed world is dependency theory, which states that power relationships were formed with the less developed world by European colonizers. The inequality created by this power system was caused by colonial exploitation when developed nations sought raw materials from the less developed areas.

Dependency theorists believe that the current system is linked to the colonial past. Less developed countries remain poor because of the past relationships; therefore, it is the responsibility of the developed world to help the poor in the less developed world because we, or our ancestors, created that system. The poor are poor because we made them -- and keep them -- that way.

There are also reasons of self-interest for helping underdeveloped countries. And this is the last-straw argument I would use for people like my selfish friend. Helping impoverished places leads to economic stability for them which leads to political stability. Political stability leads to less market volatility which is economically beneficial for the developed world. Moreover, as incomes increase in less developed countries, the people in those places begin to desire manufactured goods and intellectual property created by the developed world. This would bolster first-world economies. And finally, if a person is suffering from malnutrition, AIDS, Malaria or Tuberculosis, he can't work and produces very little that is economically beneficial to the less developed world or to the more developed world.

Even if you suffer from the American condition of unapologetic selfishness described in the Ben Folds song, there are still leak-proof reasons for helping the distant poor. The return on the investment is immense.

Burmese Hill Tribes

Human Rights Watch asked for an international response to a recent surge in violence and abuse against Burma's Karen ethnic group, a minority hill tribe that lives in parts of Burma, Thailand and Vietnam. Burma has a reputation for oppressing its general population (here's my earlier blog on Myanmar/Burma), but the oppression of Burma's ethnic minorities has been especially brutal. A rebel group from the Karen tribe has been fighting for greater independence from Burma for years, and the most recent Burmese government backlash against Karen tribes has displaced as many as 10,000 of the Karen villagers, adding to a growing refugee crisis in neighboring Thailand, where nearly 150,000 Karen villagers live in refugee camps after having fled oppression in Burma.

Back in December, the United Nations Security Council held a rare discussion on the issue of Burma's abuses and the growing humanitarian situation those abuses have caused. In the past, the UN has been reluctant to bring the Burmese issue in front of the Security Council because the situation was considered by many to be an internal affair, and that interference ran the risk of questioning the state's sovereignty, a longstanding sacred cow of international law.

The UN was originally conceptualized as a means to foster world peace by attempting to manage and prevent state on state aggression. But the world has changed since 1945, and both international law and the UN have evolved since then to incorporate the idea that intra-state problems can also be threats to international security. Since the crisis in Kosovo in the late 1990s, a more drastic normative shift has taken place, an idea championed in the seminal report by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty called The Responsibility to Protect. The basic principles and the foundations of the international community's responsibilities are laid out in the report's synopsis:

(1) Basic Principles
A. State sovereignty implies responsibility, and the primary responsibility for the protection of its people lies with the state itself.
B. Where a population is suffering serious harm, as a result of internal war, insurgency, repression or state failure, and the state in question is unwilling or unable to halt or avert it, the principle of non-intervention yields to the international responsibility to protect.
(2) Foundations
The foundations of the responsibility to protect, as a guiding principle for the international community of states, lie in:
A. obligations inherent in the concept of sovereignty;
B. the responsibility of the Security Council, under Article 24 of the UN Charter, for the maintenance of international peace and security;
C. specific legal obligations under human rights and human protection declarations, covenants and treaties, international humanitarian law and national law;
D. the developing practice of states, regional organizations and the Security Council itself.

Although the ideas presented in the report are now widely accepted as appropriate doctrine for these matters, the issue of intervention is still a sticky subject. Understandably, the report also presents the idea that military intervention in the case of a humanitarian crisis should be the last resort, but the problem is that the international community has been extremely reluctant to act on humanitarian crises even when the case is clear, such as in Darfur, that an appalling situation would justify an intervention.

I would argue that even without the notion of the "Responsibility to Protect," these internal humanitarian crises are still cause for the Security Council to take action. We turn our heads and ignore humanitarian crises and human rights violations when they are "internal" issues, but what almost invariably happens during these intra-state situations is that they have a tendency to spill over into other states: The crisis in Darfur is now destabilizing Chad. In the same vein, the nearly 150,000 Karen refugees are living in several refugee camps in Thailand. Refugee crises are international issues that threaten world peace and security. As such, the rightful place for discussion of -- and action on -- these matters is with the Security Council.

Human Rights Watch is right to demand that the Security Council examine the situation in Burma. The corrupt, totalitarian junta that rules Burma has failed miserably in its responsibility to protect its citizens. And that irresponsibility is now causing problems for other states.

World Press Freedom Day

Yesterday was World Press Freedom Day, a day marked by the United Nations with an awards ceremony. The UN news release of the event and this report both note that 2005 was a record year for journalist deaths. The high number was due, in large part, to the situation in Iraq; in the past three years since the U.S. invasion, over 70 journalists have been killed there. Here's part of Kofi Annan's statement about the annual Freedom Day:

On World Press Freedom Day, I again declare my firm support for the universal right to freedom of expression. Many members of the press have been killed, maimed, detained or targeted in other ways for pursuing that right in good conscience. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 47 were killed in 2005, and 11 have lost their lives so far this year. It is tragic and unacceptable that the number of journalists killed in the line of duty has become one of the main indicators of press freedom. I urge all governments to reaffirm their commitment to the right to “seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers”, as set out in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

It's difficult to remember that the UN is a broad, multifaceted conglomerate of organizations and bodies that has been in a constant state of evolution since it was formed at the end of World War II. The UN was originally concieved as a world body and forum that was meant to prevent another catastrophic, multi-state World War. Something I take for granted -- something that was a revolutionary concept several decades ago -- is the notion that security doesn't simply mean military security or security from imperial tyranny. World security now means security from poverty, disease, environmental degredation, discrimination, and so on.

One of the recurring themes at the event marking the World Press Freedom Day, was that there is a link between press freedom, democracy, security, and poverty. To be fair, the studies that have been done on this are limited. Certainly, there is a direct link between press freedom and democratic societies. It's easy to understand that an open democratic country such as Finland would have a very robust press, whereas Burma's press -- whatever that may be -- enjoys very little freedom. And there's evidence to suggest that it's more than a chicken and egg dilemma. Growing press freedom has a tendency to erode authoritarian and totalitarian governments.

The connection between poverty and limited press freedom is more tenuous. Singapore, for example, scores very low on the Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index, lower than Russia, but it has a standard of living on par with the most industrialized countries. On the other hand, Mali scored higher on the Index than Spain, Italy or the U.S., but has an annual GDP per-capita of $1,000. But the correlation between press freedom and poverty is an interesting one that warrants thought and investigation.

All that may seem like splitting hairs, so what's important is to remember that while we argue about balanced reporting, or which journalists have liberal or conservative biases, or who's spinning what for whom, journalists are risking their lives around the world. As Press Freedom Day passes, remember that there are journalists who die while trying to find truthful information that they can share with the rest of us.

Click Here for the Reporters Without Borders main website.

Using Celebrity for Humanitarian Causes

It's easy to get cynical when you see a self-inflated celebrity rockstar like Bono get a little too cozy with world leaders. Sure, we sneer when Angelina Jolie is appointed goodwill ambassador to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. We know that these celebs fly in private jets and drink high-dollar wine on their way to visit development projects in Africa, or refugee camps in Cambodia. And I'm sure that their net worths are on par with the gross national products of many developing countries.

But I don't begrudge these celebrities their money, and my response to all this is that at least they're using their status for something other than showing us just how lucky they really are. I have a sneaking suspicion that I could probably find someone on my street who is at least cursorily acquainted with the trouble in Sudan because George Clooney and Al Sharpton spoke at a rally for Sudan's Darfur humanitarian crisis yesterday in Washington.

One could argue that it is their duty to give something back after winning the fame/fortune lottery in life. They should use their celebrity status for something positive. It's sad-but-true that the average American knows lots of things about our rock stars, sports stars and movie stars, but little to nothing about pressing global issues. Even if celebrities' efforts are merely exploiting the trivial nature of American public knowledge -- thereby raising awareness of global poverty or the need for debt relief in developing countries or some looming refugee crisis -- this is a step in the right direction.

Heck, Bono even has some quantifiable accomplishments under his designer belt. Of course, the fact remains that the situation in Darfur is disastrous and appalling, even though celebrities are marching on the Mall in Washington. And the multilateral lending institutions have yet to relieve many of the poorest nations of their debts. Bono hasn't saved the world, but he may have started a trend. With more celebrities getting on the humanitarian bandwagon, one can only hope for a growing level of the public's awareness of international humanitarian issues in the future. That public awareness alone doesn't always sway our policy makers, but it's a start. And sure, Bono wears silly, expensive sunglasses, and Pitt, Jolie and Clooney are annoyingly pretty. And they may be enjoying five-star meals while pushing the causes of people who live on less than $1 a day. But at least they have causes. Consider the alternatives: What has Britney Spears done for anyone lately?

East Timor in the News

I thought I was hearing things when I caught the end of the BBC report while driving home a few nights ago. I can't remember the last time I heard anything about East Timor on an American radio station. Predictably, it was bad news. It seems that Human Rights Watch has credible testimony about police abuse in East Timor -- unlawful detentions and beatings of detainees. What's worse, is that the East Timorese government has so far done little to investigate the reports.

Part of the BBC report, and others that I've read, have hinted that the situation flirts with the old ways of brutality and abuses when East Timor was illegally occupied by Indonesian soldiers, and that the East Timorese struggled for so long to achieve independence from the Indonesian occupation only to slowly start mimicking the oppressive ways to which they became accustomed. I think this comparison is premature and unfair, even though it might be what's needed to stir the government to take quick action to investigate its police force. Nothing could shame the East Timorese leadership more than for any part of their new state to be compared to the 25-year occupation from which they finally won freedom in 1999.

The problem with the police force could have been predicted. In 1999, when the United Nations arrived in East Timor, what they found was that the only real East Timorese institution was the Catholic Church. After the East Timorese population overwhelmingly voted for independence from Indonesia in the UN-sponsored referendum, nearly all of the Indonesian administrators and professionals in the territory fled, never to return. Indigenous East Timorese hadn't been allowed to hold any sort of professional positions under the Indonesian occupation. This included the police force, which was largely comprised of ethnic Indonesians from Java. After the vote for independence, all of the Indonesian professionals, managers, and administrators left; so did the institutions they were part of.

After the vote for independence, a mulitlateral military force secured the chaotic territory, and a UN administration was created. The United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) was given the broadest mandate ever afforded to a UN mission. UNTAET was tasked with rebuilding the devastated territory, administering it until an indigenous government could be established, and creating and building local institutions. The East Timorese police force was one of the institutions that was extremely difficult to get off the ground. The creation of the police force fell months behind schedule, and the timeline created for training the new recruits by international civilian police officers fell even further behind. By the time UNTAET had turned over all of its adminstrative functions to local officials and East Timor declared its official independence in 2002, the police force that had been created, along with the the entire criminal and judicial system, was a weak institution at best. Some UN police remained in advisory roles for several years after 2002, but by 2005, were almost entirely gone.

The reports of recent police abuses in East Timor are terrible and should be of great concern. What we're seeing is the result of a barely functioning institution that was built between 1999 and 2002. But admittedly, that is a very short time to create a national police force (or any other national institution for that matter) especially when the UN was starting from scratch.

But things are not like they were during the Indonesian occupation. East Timor is a fragile state, but it is a more open state. What it enjoys now that it didn't for most of the Indonesian occupation is much greater press freedom. The reports of abuses by the police force in this case were almost immediate. Likewise, the pressure that the East Timorese government is feeling to take action about the reports has been immediate.

East Timor gained its freedom in part because media access to, and interest in, the local situation increased dramatically in the few years leading up to the referendum. Now, access to the new country is much greater than it was during those years. Access to information is now available in East Timor. If the government fails to investigate the police behavior, or to act on the findings, we will know about it.

The problem with the world's most oppresive regimes is that information access to those places is so limited. It is difficult for a police force or a government to carry our violent acts of agression against its own citizens in a house full of windows.