this resulted in recruits who were unfit for duty either because of personal
temperament or associations. This recruiting practice led to a poorly trained
force that was not trusted by the people.
Police indiscretions from the previous regime combined with new indiscretions
caused by poor recruiting standards limited community trust of the police. This
was enhanced by a lack of community involvement in the prioritization of training
and focus of enforcement. Many of these prioritization issues stemmed from
overzealous timelines from the international community. The timelines were not
driven by ground truth but instead by the expectations of the international
community. The Timorese excelled in areas in which they were familiar (mainly
community policing and structured reporting relationships) while dramatically
failing in others (human rights, chain of command decisions) that were imposed
from the outside, or culturally foreign.
Police force local units that were established in advance of UN intervention were
more successful at gaining the trust of the population and introducing new norms
in the rule of law. Of course, some tradeoffs were required at the local level;
security forces sometimes failed to abide by human rights and democratic
standards for the sake of ensuring stability.
Military
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