ABSTRACT
Chapter 4 examines the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) following the violent aftermath of the 1999 popular consultation that ended Indonesia’s 24-year occupation of Timor-Leste. The Security Council mandated UNTAET to assist the country in establishing and building the capacity of institutions of self-government. The conduct of liberal peacebuilding and local involvement in the contexts of the rebuilding of security institutions, transitional justice, and management of oil revenues are given particular attention in this chapter. International peacebuilders built liberal institutions but did not sow the liberal values and standards for these institutions resulting in incapable institutions and further burdened by international and local actors with competing political imperatives. Meanwhile, exclusive local involvement heightened the political rivalries within an already fragmented Timorese leadership resulting in fragile liberal institutions fraught with governance and socio-economic issues.
