The United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) provided an interim civil administration and a peacekeeping mission in the territory of East Timor, from its establishment on October 25, 1999 until its independence on May 20, 2002 following the outcome of the East Timor Special Autonomy Referendum. Security Council Resolution 1272 established the transitional administration in 1999, and its responsibilities included providing a peacekeeping force to maintain security and order; facilitating and coordinating relief assistance to East Timorese; facilitating emergency rehabilitation of physical infrastructure; administering East Timor and creating structures for sustainable governance and the rule of law; and assisting in the drafting of a new constitution and conducting elections. It was led by Brazil's Sergio Vieira de Mello (Special Representative of the Secretary-General for East Timor) and the Philippines's Lieutenant General Jaime de los Santos (Supreme Commander of the United Nations' Peacekeeping Force (PKF)).
A coalition of nations sent troops to support the peace keeping mission. The forces were led by Australia, which provided the largest contingent and the out of theatre base for operations, supported by New Zealand, who sent the second largest contingent, and took responsibility for the more volatile southern half of the main border, France, whose special forces joined the ANZACs on the first day, as well as contingents from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Denmark, Fiji, Ireland, Japan, Malaysia, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, the Philippines, Portugal, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. While the United States supported the transition authority, it did so mainly by underwriting contracts to replace destroyed infrastructure and thus avoided a direct military involvement, allowing the ANZAC led force to take the lead. The United States did, however, deploy a contingent of American police officers to serve with the International Police.
UNTAET was established on October 25, 1999 and was abolished on May 20, 2002 with most functions passed to the East Timor government. The military and police forces were transferred to the newly created United Nations Mission of Support to East Timor (UNMISET).
Read more about United Nations Transitional Administration In East Timor: Initial Administrative Structures, First Transitional Administration, Second Transitional Administration, Post Independence
Famous quotes containing the words united, nations, transitional and/or east:
“The United States is just now the oldest country in the world, there always is an oldest country and she is it, it is she who is the mother of the twentieth century civilization. She began to feel herself as it just after the Civil War. And so it is a country the right age to have been born in and the wrong age to live in.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“The day of small nations has long passed away. The day of Empires has come.”
—Joseph Chamberlain (1836–1914)
“Postmodernism is, almost by definition, a transitional cusp of social, cultural, economic and ideological history when modernism’s high-minded principles and preoccupations have ceased to function, but before they have been replaced with a totally new system of values. It represents a moment of suspension before the batteries are recharged for the new millennium, an acknowledgment that preceding the future is a strange and hybrid interregnum that might be called the last gasp of the past.”
—Gilbert Adair, British author, critic. Sunday Times: Books (London, April 21, 1991)
“I know no East or West, North or South, when it comes to my class fighting the battle for justice. If it is my fortune to live to see the industrial chain broken from every workingman’s child in America, and if then there is one black child in Africa in bondage, there shall I go.”
—Mother Jones (1830–1930)