Abstract

This paper zooms in on the Portuguese Guarda Nacional Republicana (GNR) within the context of security sector dynamics in post-independence Timor-Leste. While GNR officers on the streets of Dili have been a common sight since 2000, when a contingent was deployed as the UNTAET Rapid Reaction Force, very little has been written on the institutional and societal vectors of their presence for security sector governance and ultimately statebuilding in the new country. Following the "Dili Crisis" of 2006-07, the GNR Bravo subgroup became an integral part of UNMIT's international police force until 2012. Since then, the GNR has continued training units of the national police (PNTL) as part of a broader bilateral cooperation programme with Portugal in different areas, including internal security. The GNR doctrine and police training practices have often been seen to be at loggerheads with policing approaches advocated by UNPOL - but as this paper argues, the GNR's continued presence points to deeper layers of interception between internal security governance and international geopolitics, post-colonial law enforcement approaches vis-à-vis post-liberation political processes, and multidimensional peacekeeping against local forms of conflict resolution.

Pedro Rosa Mendes, CCDP Visiting Fellow, is a peacebuilding practitioner, researcher and writer who has been working in conflict and fragile contexts for more than two decades. His focus is on conflict resources, rule of law, security sector governance, human rights and transitional justice. He has lived and worked in Timor-Leste for extensive periods since 2004 and published essays, analysis and fiction on issues of statebuilding, peacebuilding and transitional justice in Timor-Leste.

Oliver Jütersonke works on security-development linkages, humanitarian response, urban violence, peacebuilding norms, and sub-state public service provision. He has travelled repeatedly to Timor-Leste for field research related to projects of the CCDP and the Small Arms Survey since 2009.