John Braithwaite, Hilary Charles- Worth & Adérito Soares
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2013 Book Reviews 241 The United States is considerably better John Braithwaite, Hilary Charles- equipped than Europe, Nussbaum says, worth & Adérito Soares, Net- to meet these three challenges, thanks in worked Governance of Freedom large part to its understanding of national identity as deriving from adherence to and Tyranny: Peace in Timor-Leste political principles and ideals rather (Australian National University E than from membership in a racial or Press 2012), xxi + 365 pages, ISBN ethnic group. This is a conclusion with 9781921862762. which Bowen might or might not agree, but for which his book provides con- This is a very ambitious work from the siderable evidence. Fortunately, neither Australian National University’s Centre presidents Bush nor Obama have entered for International Governance and Justice, into anything that could be construed as Regulatory Institutions Network, where Muslim-bashing, unlike European leaders John Braithwaite (a noted criminologist) Merkel, Cameron, and Sarkozy. and Hilary Charlesworth (a noted inter- But this ought to provide us only national lawyer) are faculty and Adérito momentary comfort, for paranoia about Soares is a doctoral student. Soares, an in- threats to the “American way of life” dependence activist and former Timorese have a long and ignominious history in politician, also currently fills the role of the United States, a country which was, Anti-Corruption Commissioner for Timor- after all, far more hysterical about Com- Leste. The ANU group is engaged in an munism than Europe generally was. The ambitious two decade project entitled treatment for such exaggerated anxiety “Peacekeeping Compared.”1 is the steady thinking that Bowen and The work proceeds on two levels as a Nussbaum provide. To the extent that history and as an exploration of theories Islamic extremists present a physical of sovereignty and governance. threat to Western interests, they are far On one level, it is a sophisticated less organized or powerful than Soviet political history of Timor-Leste, focusing Communism was at its height and we on the years since the 1999 referendum, see where it finds itself today. Islamic which led to widespread destruction and extremism is likely to end up in a similar the departure of the illegal Indonesian oc- dustbin if we resist stoking its embers. cupiers who had been there since 1975, while still providing plenty of good infor- William F. Schulz* mation on the earlier period. After some President of the Unitarian Universalist three centuries of neglect as a Portuguese Service Committee colony, Timor (usually referred to in the * William F. Schulz, President of the Unitarian literature at this time by its English title, Universalist Service Committee, is a former Ex- “East Timor”) was heading towards inde- ecutive Director of Amnesty International USA. pendence after the Portuguese Carnation 1. Companion works include: JOHN BRAITHWAITE, SINCLAIR DINNEN, MATTHEW ALLEN, VALERIE BRAITH- WAITE & HILARY CHARLESWORTH, PILLARS AND SHADOWS: STATEBUILDING AS PEACEBUILDING IN SOLOMON ISLANDS (2010); JOHN BRAIthwAITE, HILARY CHARLESWORth, PETER REddY & LEAH DUNN, RECONCILIATION AND ARCHITECTURES OF COMMITMENT: SEQUENCING PEACE IN BOUGAINVILLE (2010); JOHN BRAITHWAITE, VALERIE BRAITHWAITE, MICHAEL COOKSON & LEAH DUNN, ANOMIE AND VIOLENCE: NON-TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION IN INDONESIAN PEACEBUILDING (2010). 242 HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLY Vol. 35 Revolution when its neighbor, Indonesia, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize along invaded it in December of 1975 in a fla- with Bishop Belo in 1996, an event that grant act of aggression.2 Perhaps a third gave significant visibility and legitimacy of the population died as a result of the to the cause. While the UN had ap- war and dislocation that followed, largely parently achieved a major success in unnoticed by most of the world. A small nation-building by 2002, all did not go military force (“Falintil”)3 continued to well in the years that followed. Running defy the invaders, even after the 1992 a country proved to require a different capture and imprisonment (in Jakarta) of set of skills from running a resistance. the charismatic military leader Xanana Most of the institutions of govern- Gusmão.4 A realignment of forces in ment—legislative, executive, and judi- Indonesia enabled the negotiation of a cial—had been dominated by Indone- plebiscite in which over 78 percent of sians during the occupation and those the voters opted for Timorese indepen- functionaries departed in 1999, leaving dence. The Indonesian military went on a substantial vacuum to be filled by po- a rampage. An Australian-led military tentially able but untrained personnel. force oversaw the Indonesian departure The depths of one corner of this problem and the United Nations instituted a series became apparent to your reviewer at of programs aimed at developing indig- the end of 1999 when he took part in enous government. Independence came a week-long training session for about in 2002. The three main faces of the thirty fledgling Timorese judges. It was resistance, Xanana Gusmão (President), held in Darwin, Australia, because all the Mari Alkatiri (Prime Minister), and José possible venues (and chairs) in the capital Ramos-Horta (Foreign Minister) filled ma- Dili had been destroyed by the departing jor roles in the new government. Gusmão Indonesians. Braithwaite, Charlesworth, had fought the military and political battle and Soares note that at the time the UN inside Timor and Indonesia, Alkatiri had had been able to identify about seventy been based mostly in Mozambique and Timorese with legal training in Indonesian fostered the support of the Lusophone universities, “few of whom had practiced states, keeping the cause visible in Africa, law and none of whom had worked as while Ramos-Horta, operating mostly a judge or prosecutor.”5 Regrettably, out of New York and later Sydney, con- “all 22 of the newly trained Timor-Leste ducted a lonely, but ultimately brilliantly judges failed their written exams in the successful networking and diplomatic law in May and September 2004.”6 They campaign to generate support. He was were consequently suspended from hear- 2. Roger S. Clark, The “Decolonization” of East Timor and the United Nations Norms on Self Determination and Aggression, 7 YALE J. WORLD PUB. ORDER 2 (1980). 3. Forças Armadas do Libertação Nacional de Timor-Leste/Timorese Armed Forces for the Liberation of East Timor. 4. Soares facilitated a prison visit to Xanana by your reviewer in June of 1999. 5. JOHN BRAITHWAITE, HILARY CHARLESWORTH & ADÉRITO SOARES, NETWORKED GOVERNANCE OF FREEDOM AND TYRANNY: PEACE IN TIMOR-LESTE 176(2012). Sitting in my office in the First World, I have often wondered what I would have done had I been a high school graduate in an oc- cupied country. Would I have taken up the scholarship to Jakarta or Bali, suspecting that there may not be a job available for me at the end, and that I would perhaps become a well-educated taxi driver, a permanent dissident or a minor functionary in the occupier’s government? 6. Id. 2013 Book Reviews 243 ing cases as were “all the local public keeping forces from Australia, Malaysia, defenders and prosecutors (including Portugal, and New Zealand had to return the Prosecutor-General)” who had also to stabilize the situation in 2006. In 2008, failed.7 No doubt the blame for this then-President Ramos-Horta almost state of affairs can be spread around the died from wounds in an assassination quality of Indonesian legal pedagogy, the attempt. Shortly afterwards, a popular multilateral efforts through the UN, and military deserter, Major Alfredo Reinado, assorted well-intentioned bilateral men- former head of the military police, was toring efforts by Portugal, New Zealand, shot dead. and others. One might even doubt the Just as the street violence of 2006 was a validity of the exam. The sad fact, though, shock that forced a renewed commitment was that in a normal functioning system, to a democratic contract for the nation and graduates start in entry level positions renewed support for the United Nations to with experienced people to guide them that end, so the shock of the 2008 shooting and work their way in normal progression of Reinado and Ramos-Horta renewed the into responsible positions. That normalcy democratic contract, got refugees out of was denied by the occupation to the their camps and into new or old homes, first round of public servants—not only and consolidated a national consensus that judges and lawyers. Similar problems politicians must desist from politicizing the military and the police.9 must have appeared in recruiting teach- ers, economists, engineers, agronomists, The history is told well, but record- and all the other professionals needed ing the story is only part of the authors’ to run a modern state. “Daunting” is the objective. On the second level, the work only word to describe the task facing the is “about the ethical limits of state sover- nation-builders. eignty.”10 It examines such limits in two But it was a few years before things ways. The first is a “critique of realism went seriously wrong. In particular, as a theory of international affairs.”11 The what the authors regard as “mismanaged second is “about the limits of reforming security sector policy”8 led to explosive tyranny through the centralised tyranny violence in 2006. Up to 2000, the leader- of a state sovereign who is a progressive ship had contemplated an independent leader or a political party responsible for Timor without an army. Ultimately a overthrowing a tyrant.”12 military force was created, but one that To simplify a complex analysis of the left out many of the freedom fighters, for realism aspect of the argument some- whom there was no adequate strategy what, the authors view realism as “the for reintegration into the villages. Peace- dominant ethos of diplomatic practice 7.