Title: Peace-building and development in practice: Lessons from Cambodia for East Timor

Submitted by: Sue Downie, Monash Asia Institute, Monash University, Australia

The post-referendum violence in East Timor presented the UN with one of its greatest challenges - to create a new state for only the second time in history (Israel being the first). Lessons - both positive and negative - can be drawn from previous UN peace-keeping, peace-building and electoral missions, and from the work of UN agencies such as UNHCR, WFP and UNDP. This paper looks at what is required by the UN in terms of state-building, the development of civil society and the rule of law, political development, participatory development, conflict-prevention and other elements of sustainable development. The UN's peace-keeping mission in Cambodia (1991-3) was the most comprehensive the UN had ever undertaken, as it combined traditional peace-keeping with policing, administrative control, human rights monitoring and education, as well as conducting an election. All these aspects are included in the East Timor mission, providing a Cambodia - East Timor comparison.

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Carol Burnett
Asialink
The University of Melbourne
Parkville 3052
Victoria AUSTRALIA

Phone: 61 - 3 - 9349 1899
Fax : 61 - 3 - 9347 1768

Email: c.burnett@asialink.unimelb.edu.au