PKSOI Lessons Learned Report January 2019 | Page 5

tactics. Yet, the UN not only partnered with POLRI and heavily recruited POLRI into the
PNTL, but also placed POLRI personnel into the higher/leadership positions of the PNTL/
police corps. Along with the historical repression issue, there were also societal/ethnic
issues involved in the formation of both military and police forces. Specifically, most of the
FALINTIL (filling the military/F-FDTL) came from the Firaku ethnic group, while most of the
POLRI (filling the PNTL/police) were Kaladis – people from the western provinces of Timor-
Leste. As time progressed, these ethnic (and political) orientations hardened within both
the F-FDTL and the PNTL, and the two organizations (with their ethnic/political biases)
developed intense competition for authorities, responsibilities, resources, and power.
Training of security personnel was rushed. The former POLRI members now filling the
PNTL underwent only one month of training before assuming duties in the new police
service. Pressures within the UN to establish a functioning local police force resulted in
an approach of train-and-equip as soon as possible – rather than taking sufficient time to
deliberately develop an effective and democratically-controlled police/security institution.
Neither UNTAET nor its eventual successor (UNMIT) developed an officially published
policy or strategy for SSR, nor did they pursue working closely with government ministries/
committees/leaders to implement democratic oversight over the F-FTDL and PNTL.
Essentially, the UN missions missed an opportunity to incorporate trusted and competent
Timorese politicians into the SSR process, while others with self- and group-interests
subverted the process.
Not only was training rushed and thoughtful partnering minimized, the UN missions and
UNPOL elements themselves were not properly resourced or prepared to conduct compre-
hensive, professional training of police personnel:
“A further problem was UNPOL’s own heterogeneous composition. Most of the
deployed international police officers had no experience instructing police recruits and
also lacked the language skills to be effective. As a result, UNPOL officers relied on
their individual policing experience in their home countries and tried to communicate
them to the PNTL recruits. Since this ad hoc approach lacked any form of standardi-
zation, UNPOL’s police training created confusion, rather than a coherent understand-
ing of professional police practice, among the local recruits.” (Kocak, pp. 354-355)
The security sector of Timor Leste essentially collapsed in April 2006, when clashes
occurred between various PNTL and F-FDTL elements, joined by youth gangs and semi-
organized groups of armed civilians. The incumbent administration was unable to establish
public order. At the end of May 2006, an Australian-led stabilization force intervened
(Operation ASTUTE) to end the violence. Then, in August 2006, the UN Security Council
established/mandated the UN Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste (UNMIT) to rebuild and
reform the institutions of the security sector, conduct and supervise rehabilitation of the
PNTL, and provide security in Timor Leste with UNPOL.
Once again, however, the international mission (now UNMIT) did not devote sufficient
planning, resourcing, or diligence to SSR actions: vetting was poor with insufficient investi-
gations (e.g., although the F-FDTL was one of the main initiators of the violent clashes in
2006, UNMIT failed to subject the F-FDTL to any sort of robust vetting process); training &
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