Faint echoes of Portugal but strong accents of Indonesia: Hidden influences on police development in timor-leste

This chapter examines how a reductionist 'conflict paradigm' has come to dominate scholarship on Timor-Leste, which has meant that relatively limited attention has been paid to the influences and echoes of either Portugal or Indonesia. It explores the strategies of policing employed during both colonialisation and occupation. Although different in terms of scale and reach, the paramilitary and state-security centred nature of Portugal and Indonesia echo in the attitudes and practices of the present-day Timorese police. The chapter suggests that examining how post-colonial and post-authoritarian legacies co-produce in independent Timor-Leste is an issue worthy of deeper exploration. It examines the influences of Timor-Leste's two former metropoles, Lisbon and Jakarta. There is a most certainly a continuing Portuguese flavour to how governance and law is evolving in Timor-Leste but Indonesia dwarves this influence. During the Indonesian occupation, a combination of the Indonesian police (POLDA) and paramilitary mobile squad (BRIMOB) conducted policing along with local auxiliaries (HANSIP).