Murray Boardman: Early exit left fledgling nation to flounder

Members of a mob break into a house in Dili. Picture / Reuters.

The breakdown in law and order in East Timor is of great concern. It is clear that the response of the New Zealand and Australian Governments to the request for assistance is justified - although the speed of deployment could have been quicker.

But military assistance is only a surface issue. The underlying issues affecting East Timor - and similar problems in the Solomon Islands - are vastly more complicated.

In 1999 the international community finally rallied round East Timor as it struggled to become an independent nation.

While some will argue - and with considerable validity - that such support was too late, it was encouraging to see the commitment of the international community to this fledgling nation, especially from close neighbours New Zealand and Australia.

Despite the international commitment, it was clear from early on that external support for the new country would be only temporary. Frequent political messages indicated that the presence of the UN and external military would end once democratic and fair elections were held.

What such a decision effectively states is the belief that good governance would simply happen after one democratic and fair election.

At the time of the international pullout from East Timor, many development agencies are on record saying the fragility of the democratic process could be undone quickly without continued external support, including some form of security presence to assist with law and order and internal stability.

The reason for this concern is simple: development takes time. And good governance plays a critical role.

However, good governance can flourish only when there is wider stability in the social and economic environment. Good governance has to occur in tandem with other development interventions that focus on, for example, poverty reduction and improved delivery of services.

And this is precisely where the international community has failed East Timor.

Essentially, the international presence was to provide security for a democratic and fair election - blissfully assuming that this would lead to good governance.

A functioning and stable Western democracy does not happen in five years - look at the history of the countries of Europe and the US. To ignore history and to effectively force East Timor to achieve instant democracy is difficult to comprehend, given the wider issues.

Our political leaders - across the political spectrum - need to have a far better understanding of the processes that form democracy. Many of them take for granted the supporting structures and systems that provide for a stable economy, and that have been built up over centuries.

The fact that urgent redeployment has occurred in East Timor clearly shows that the previous exit strategy was grossly flawed. A significantly broader analysis is needed, leading to an exit strategy that is not confined to security, stability and the illusion of good governance.

In any country there are often complex interactions, especially power relations that control the wider civil society.

This is particularly evident in East Timor, a new country coming out of such a fractured and painful past.

The international community has clearly failed to integrate the wider issues that make countries stable and functioning. It seems the international community is not able to learn from these lessons and thus replicates these mistakes to an alarming degree around the world.

At the heart of these failures is a wider problem - the general impatience for development.

Western governments, in particular, have a disconcerting drive to rush development interventions. Five-year projects, some even shorter, are meant to have immediate impact.

It is clear from research that, at best, awareness can change in this time, but behaviour and practice change takes considerably longer, often over one or two generations - 20 or 40 years.

It is difficult to see how governments have failed to understand this. Maybe it's simply a matter of governments not being prepared to wait that long and be "burdened" with the responsibility of helping developing countries.

Politicians may argue that their constituents do not want to see government funding - our taxes - used in open-ended interventions. If this is the case, then the criticism falls not just on politicians but also on their constituents.

We should be aware that good things take time.

Western society was built on the toil and struggle of our forefathers and mothers over centuries. We can't expect developing countries to achieve this effectively overnight, after one election.

New Zealand and Australia need to work with East Timor to develop a broader, coherent and long-term development plan that has a more realistic exit strategy not confined to a simple security analysis. The ultimate goal is to ensure that East Timor is stable - not just in terms of law and order but politically, socially and economically.

How can we put a time-frame on development? It is only when such realism is brought into political consideration that a more stable democracy and safer East Timor can be delivered to its citizens - a model that can be replicated in other developing countries.

* Murray Boardman is Programme Officer for East Africa at World Vision New Zealand. He is researching appropriate exit strategies for development programmes.