ABSTRACT
Despite evident conceptual and political difficulties, the doctrine of humanitarian intervention has become influential in the post-Cold War era (Murphy 1996; Ramsbotham and Woodhouse 1996; Wheeler 2000). Countries in Asia, however, have doggedly resisted this trend, promoting the principle of non-interference as an integral part of the modalities of what has been termed ‘the Pacific way’ (Mahbubani 1995). The prominent participation of regional countries in the 1999 intervention in East Timor, an intervention sanctioned by the United Nations with a specifically humanitarian rationale and under Australian leadership, was therefore uncharacteristic. The regional response to the Timor issue does not reflect a re-evaluation of the doctrine and thus a major change in the rules constituting regional order, but rather was a consequence of specific historical and political factors. Most important of these was the fact that the UN had never accepted as legitimate the Indonesian incorporation of the territory. Once the United States adopted a more critical attitude, in the context of an Australian choice (against a long-term trend of ‘engagement’ with Jakarta) to pressure Indonesia to accept demands for a test of local opinion on East Timor’s future, the internationalization of the issue became inevitable. In the aftermath of the post-ballot militia violence, Indonesia’s uncertain transitional leadership could not resist calls for an intervention by peace-keepers, amongst whom regional nations were to be preferred. The latter, however, did not abandon their general preference for a regional order based upon the non-intervention principle. Nevertheless, the events of 1999 pose important lessons, including for coalition operations and for other potential interventions in the region.
