Date and Time
January 5, 2001
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM

Availability
Open to the public
No RSVP required

Speaker
Annette Clear - PhD Candidate, Political Science, Columbia University; International Observer, East Timor Mission, Carter Center for Human Rights, 1999; Consultant, Project on Indonesia, SPICE, 2001

Like a double-edged sword, the recent conflict in East Timor challenged Indonesia and the international community alike. For Indonesia, the crisis and its resolution offered a chance for military reform, yet threatened national unity. For international donors, the chance to defend human rights and implement self-determination carried a risk of provoking nationalist resentment against foreign intervention for democratic change.This talk will focus on the international community and its donor countries and agencies. How did they react to the conflict in East Timor? What were their strategies? How did their actions affect Indonesia -- not only its East Timor policies but also the course of its own democratic transition? Looking back on them now, do the crisis and its outcome lessons for the feasibility of foreign intervention to achieve domestic political reform? If so, what are they? If not, why not? And what do the answers to these questions imply for the democratic prospect in developing countries more generally?