East Timor : Adapting to “ Integration ” and Responding to “ Robustness ” 1

In this chapter, we will examine the Self-Defense Forces’ (SDF’s) participation in the UN missions in East Timor, or Timor-Leste in Portuguese. Here we pay special heed to the Japanese peacekeepers’ activities in the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor and the United Nations Mission of Support in East Timor from the early to mid-2000s. These United Nations Peacekeeping Operations (UNPKOs) aimed to support independence and statebuilding in East Timor by combining peacekeeping and peacebuilding. Similar to the case of Cambodia, the Japanese delegation put the greatest emphasis on engineering, which was a good fit with the goals of these UNPKOs. In East Timor, the Japan Engineering Groups engaged in civil engineering works, not only to support the UN missions but also as direct bilateral assistance to local residents in close collaboration with Japan’s ODA (the “All Japan” approach). Meanwhile, the strict constraints in the Peacekeeping Operations (PKO) Act were highlighted again, especially in terms of the protection of Japanese nationals, when the SDF rescued Japanese citizens during a 2002 riot. In addition to military deployment, civilian police personnel also contributed to the United Nations Mission in East Timor in preparation for the referendum on independence in 1999. Similar contributions were made to resume statebuilding assistance to the United Nations Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste after the recurrence of violence in 2006.

1 EvEnts PrEciPitating thE 1999 East timorEsE crisis

The Indonesian Invasion and Conflict over Independence
East Timor comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, which is situated between Australia and Indonesia. It had been under Portuguese colonial rule for nearly four centuries. Following the 1974 Carnation Revolution, Portugal promised the East Timorese that it would hold an election and allow independence in four years. While waiting for these promises to be fulfilled, however, a pro-independence communist force known as the "Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor" (FRETILIN) unilaterally declared independence in 1975. This declaration invited a military incursion from Indonesia, a regional power that owned the adjacent West Timor and was determined to stop the communist expansion into its territory. In response, FRETILIN called for support from international society, and the UN General Assembly adopted several resolutions calling for self-determination in East Timor.
In the context of the Cold War, however, the US and its allies ignored this pressure because they did not favor the creation of another communist country. This tacit approval allowed Indonesia to carry out the annexation as a fait accompli.

East Timor's Independence and International Society
Even after de facto annexation, FRETILIN continued its armed struggle, but international society paid only limited attention to this issue until the late 1990s. The 1997 Asian Financial Crisis finally led to the collapse of Indonesia's authoritarian regime the following year. In desperate need of international financial support, the new democratic regime of Indonesia announced its willingness to permit a referendum on East Timor's autonomy. However, Indonesian forces secretly supported a pro-Indonesia militia in East Timor, which represented the pro-integration faction preferring to remain under Indonesian control.

Achieving State Construction
In June 1999, UNSCR 1246 authorized the establishment of the United Nations Mission in East Timor (UNAMET) to support the independence referendum scheduled on August 31 that year. Despite the difficulties posed by pro-Indonesian forces, voter turnout in the referendum was extremely high, with an almost 99 percent participation rate (Cabinet Office, 1999). The referendum resulted in an overwhelming victory for the pro-independence camp, with 78.5 percent of votes cast in favor (Cabinet Office, 2001, p. 1). Ignoring these results, pro-Indonesia militias further intensified their campaign of destructive acts, such as killing ordinary people and destroying buildings and infrastructure. To stop the violence, 1264 on September 15, 1999, UNSCR authorized deployment of the Australian-led multinational force, called the International Force East Timor (INTERFET). Chapter VII of the UN Charter was invoked to authorize INTERFET to use force to restore peace and security. Within a month, INTERFET had swiftly recovered public order, and on October 25, 1999, UNSCR 1272 established UNTAET to uphold East Timor's independence. Similar to UNTAC, UNTAET was designed to be a transitional administration until a national government was established. As an ambitious enterprise to create an entirely new state, UNTAET assumed a wider range of responsibilities, including full authority over legislative, administrative, and judicial duties as well as security-related tasks under Chapter VII of the UN Charter (UNSG, 1999). 1 It was a fullfledged integrated mission that has been described as the "UN's Kingdom of East Timor" (Chopra, 2000) due to its immense governing authority. In the meantime, the UN regarded this as a chance to redeem international trust, which had been lost in the mid-to late 1990s due to back-toback UNPKO failures, notoriously in Somalia, Rwanda, and Bosnia.
To bear these heavy duties, UNTAET was authorized with the maximum strength of 9150 military personnel as well as 1640 civilian police officers and was also staffed with international and local civilian personnel (UNDPKO, 2002). During its three-year term until May 2002, UNTAET paved the way for independence by establishing laws and administration, rebuilding the destroyed infrastructure, and facilitating the return of refugees. Public security and order gradually stabilized under UN control.
In May 2002, the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste declared formal independence. 2 Accordingly, the UN provisional governing authority was closed and replaced with the United Nations Mission of Support in East Timor (UNMISET) in order to assist the young nation until it could stand alone (United Nations, n.d.). The UN presence was now downsized but still played a considerable role in developing local administrative capacity and maintaining public security. UNMISET was terminated three years later in May 2005, and all uniformed personnel (troops and police) were withdrawn and replaced by a small civilian presence called the UN Office in East Timor (UNOTIL) to continue capacity-building support.

The Increasing Commitment to East Timor in Japanese Diplomacy
During World War II, the Imperial Japanese Army occupied East Timor for three and a half years, but postwar Japan showed little interest in the nation. Having emphasized its commitment to Southeast Asia, Japan prioritized the relationship with regional great powers (see Chap. 5). To placate Indonesia, the GoJ had been very reluctant to support the various UN General Assembly resolutions calling for self-determination in East Timor until the late 1990s (Ohno, 2017). After the implementation of the East Timorese referendum was decided in the middle of 1999, the GoJ became increasingly supportive of UN efforts to assist East Timor's independence, including the participation in the UNPKO. This change was motivated in part by Japan's desire to win a permanent seat on the UNSC (MoFA, 1999). Moreover, it appeared diplomatically difficult for Japan to decline participation in a UNPKO in Asia while other countries outside the region expressed strong support for East Timor ("Seifu, chosa-dan haken e," 1999). Furthermore, a political rationale existed to justify assistance to the independence of a new nation, especially when the East Timorese communicated the expectation that Japan would commit to a UN mission in East Timor ("Chokusetsu-tohyo, nihon kyoryoku o," 1999). Lastly, Japan also had economic interests in the offshore gas fields located in East Timor's territorial waters (Li, 2014).
With the increasing global attention to East Timor, and especially after the violent upheaval in August 1999, the GoJ beefed up its support to the nation. In December 1999, Japan hosted an international conference in Tokyo to mobilize multinational support for East Timor and pledged a three-year financial assistance plan with a budget of USD 130 million (MoFA, 2015). Even after the initial three-year period, the GoJ continued to provide generous development assistance to the newly independent nation.
The GoJ also secured executive seats for high-ranking Japanese officials in the local headquarters of two UNPKOs in East Timor to demonstrate its strong commitment to East Timor, even while declining to immediately contribute troops to UNTAET (see below for more details). At first, a JICA senior official, Akira Takahashi, was appointed as special advisor on Development and Humanitarian Affairs to UNTAET's SRSG. Later, a high-level UN official and Japanese national, Sukehiro Hasegawa, served as Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General (DSRSG) of the UNMISET from 2002 to 2004 before being promoted to SRSG in May 2004.

Decision-Making for the Contribution of the Uniformed Personnel
The GoJ initially dispatched three civilian police officers to support UNAMET in supervising the referendum (see below for more details).
Once pro-Indonesian forces destabilized East Timor in the aftermath of the referendum in August 1999, the INTERFET was assigned a combat mission under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. Altogether, 30 states participated in the INTERFET, not only from the Asia-Pacific region but also from other regions. However, Japan was unable to contribute troops, since participating in an ongoing war would violate its Constitution. Instead, the GoJ dispatched three C-130H transport aircrafts in November 1999 to West Timor for emergency aid delivery (MoD, 2000). This was in response to a UNHCR request after many East Timorese civilians had fled into West Timor to escape the violence. After the air transportation was terminated in February 2000, Japan did not dispatch troops to UNPKOs until February 2002.
Although UNTAET was founded in October 1999, Japan was initially reluctant to contribute peacekeepers, because the local situation appeared incompatible with the Five Principles ("Higashi-teimoru-shien," 1999). Doing so would require an amendment to the PKO Act, which would be a very controversial and time-consuming business. Around that time, meanwhile, the GoJ was already preoccupied with enacting another highly controversial law (the so-called Japan-US Defense Guidelines Legislation; hereafter, the Guidelines Legislation) to fortify the alliance relationship with the US (Shoji, 2014, p. 4).
Not surprisingly, the Guidelines Legislation invited an acute antimilitary political crisis, and the GoJ had to maneuver to ease resistance. Such complicated domestic political calculations sacrificed the need for the proposed amendment to the PKO Act because the GoJ was very reluctant to add another moot point in addition to the already disputable Guidelines Legislation.
Unlike the early 1990s during the UNTAC experience, the GoJ was no longer obsessed with making military contributions to a UNPKO. Of course, it was still preferable to do so, if possible, but the political catchphrase "International Contribution" had become a secondary consideration in comparison with the immediate need to fortify the alliance relationship. If the SDF deployment to East Timor did not require legal amendments, then the GoJ would probably have been more willing to do so at an early time. However, the necessity of revising the statute reduced the GoJ's momentum to contribute Japanese peacekeepers to UNTAET.
By mid-2001, the tide turned. In April 2001, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi visited East Timor to confirm that local security had gradually improved. In August, the Force Commander of the UNTAET military section and East Timorese Foreign Minister Ramos-Horta articulated expectations for SDF participation ("Higashi-teimoru eno jiei-tai-sanka," 2001; "Jiei-tai-PKF no sanka," 2001). In November 2001, the GoJ finally released a plan to deploy the SDF to East Timor. In the end, the SDF participated in UNTAET and UNMISET from March 2002 to June 2004. When UNMIT was established in 2006, the GoJ resumed the deployment of the uniformed personnel, but only of civilian police officers and not the SDF.
Koizumi's decision in favor of military contribution to East Timor was backed by public opinion. According to a January 2000 Cabinet Office public opinion poll, almost 80 percent of people responded favorably when asked if they supported SDF participation in a UNPKO (Cabinet Office, 2000). 3

Growing Interest in Peacebuilding and Support to Fragile States
In parallel with Japan's increasing commitment to East Timor at the end of the 1990s, Japan's aid policy became more willing to add peacebuilding as one of their development agendas (see Chap. 3;JICA, 2002). Unexpectedly, the surprise 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001 highlighted the risks of leaving fragile states unattended, which further increased pressure on Japan. But the GoJ could not legally deploy troops to the US-led "War on Terror" in Afghanistan and therefore needed to put more emphasis on civilian-led peacebuilding. For these reasons, the JICA played a lead role in forming Japan's way of "integration" and the UNPKOs in East Timor were a perfect opportunity to connect statebuilding and conflict resolution efforts. Besides, such civilian-led peacebuilding was compatible with the focus on the SDF side, that is, the active use of the JEG.

thE lEgal foundation of JaPan's ParticiPation
When UNTAET was founded in October 1999, several legal constraints delayed Japanese decision-making regarding the dispatch of the SDF to East Timor. On the one hand, a cease-fire agreement was not yet concluded when UNTAET was launched. Even though the pro-Indonesia militia had declared disarmament in October 1999, some armed remnants were still posing a threat from their West Timor safe haven. These security concerns risked violating the prerequisites laid out in the Five Principles.
On the other hand, very strict restrictions on the use of weapons for Japanese military personnel would conflict with those on the UN side, especially when UNTAET was tasked with enforcement duties under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. To avoid these problems, amendments to the PKO Act would be required, particularly the lifting of the "freeze" on the PKF's main duties and relaxation of restrictions on weapons use (see Chaps. 2 and 3). The PKO Act had already been amended once in 1998, but this was a very minor change that merely centralized the authority in the Japanese peacekeeping contingent to fire weapons by order of a commander (see Chap. 3). To reduce the gap between Japanese legal constraints and international UN standards, the GoJ was already considering amending the PKO Act, but had only proceeded at a snail's pace. In the meantime, security and order in East Timor gradually improved, especially after the leader of remnant militias had been arrested in October 2000 (Timor militia leader, 2000). Accordingly, the GoJ was considering a decision to dispatch troops by mid-2001, although the PKO Act had not yet been amended at that time.
In September 2001, the GoJ took a favorable turn for the deployment to deploy the JEG to UNTAET, concluding that the local security and the existence of a cease-fire agreement in East Timor satisfied the current PKO Act ("Higashi-teimoru eno PKO-haken," 2001). Put another way, the GoJ decided that military deployment to the UN mission to East Timor would not require an amendment to the PKO Act so long as they stuck to noncombat missions. After approving deployment based on its flexible interpretation of the law, the government concurrently announced its intention to formally amend the PKO Act in the next Diet session ("PKO-ho-kaisei ni iyoku," 2001).
Surprisingly, the PKO Act was amended just a month later as an unintended consequence of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Although this never happened, the GoJ anticipated a new UNPKO in Afghanistan and therefore rushed to amend the law. The amendments expanded the range of actions allowed for Japanese peacekeepers by removing the "freeze" on the PKF's main duties, for example, and allowing the use of weapons for the protection of nonmilitary personnel deployed alongside the SDF (see Chap. 3 for more details; Cabinet Office, n.d.). From a legal point of view, it suddenly became possible for Japan to dispatch an infantry troop abroad, now that the PKF main duties had been restored and weapons restrictions had been relaxed to some extent. Even after the 2001 amendment, however, the GoJ stuck to logistic support, such as engineering and medical care, in light of restrictions on the use of weapons remaining even after the amendment and the public's preference to avoid combat missions.

The Contribution of Uniformed Personnel
In November 2001, the GoJ finally announced the dispatch of Japanese peacekeepers to take part in the UNPKO in East Timor early the following year ("Higashi-teimoru-PKO," 2001). In March 2002, the first major part of the Japanese delegation arrived to join UNTAET. When UNMISET was launched two months later, the Japanese delegation continued their work until June 2004. As in the case of UNTAC (see Chap. 5), the JEG constituted the largest part of the Japanese delegation (maximum strength 680). Having internalized the lessons from Cambodia, this time staff officers were also deployed (maximum strength ten).
The case of East Timor was also noteworthy in that female SDF members were included as Japanese peacekeepers for the first time. Seven women were deployed among the SDF personnel sent to UNTAET and UNMISET, thereby marking the first dispatch of female peacekeepers. They worked as liaison officers (MoFA, 2003) and medical officers (UNIC Tokyo, 2014). Nonetheless, only seven female peacekeepers were deployed, out of 680 JEG troops. As the ratio of female military personnel itself tends to be very low in the SDF (it was less than five percent in the total SDF personnel in the early 2000s), around the time of East Timor deployment (MoD, 2020), the deployment of more female peacekeepers remained a continuing agenda in Japan's peacekeeping policy.

The JEG's Performance
In the Japanese delegation to East Timor, the JEG played the most central role. The JEG was primarily responsible for developing the main supply roads on the island of Timor and improving the transportation network that connected East Timor cities and facilitated UNPKO mobility (Ishizuka & Lloyd, 2008). The repaired roads were high quality and facilitated more rapid emergency responses, as well as the smooth transport of necessary goods. The JEG also repaired UN offices and living facilities for civilian staff and troops from other countries, along with local facilities such as markets, schools, irrigation canals, waste treatment plants, and airfields. After UNMISET was launched in 2002, the JEG was also responsible for dismantling facilities when the UN presence was being downsized.
The JEG also operated a water station in the camps in order to supply water to other UNPKO troops and personnel, as well as to NGO workers. Given the constant water shortage, this was an invaluable contribution to the UN mission. The JEG also worked to provide security reinforcement work on UN-related facilities as counterterrorism measures.

Construction Work Under the "All Japan" Approach
In East Timor, the JEG developed a closer partnership with civil affairs support staff and began offering direct support to the local population as a form of development aid . To assist statebuilding in East Timor, UNMISET requested that contributing countries utilize their troop capability for the benefit of the locals (Tanabe, 2004). Although the direct support to the local people was not originally anticipated, the JEG still built and repaired public facilities, such as schools, athletic grounds and playing fields, and restored small roads and bridges for the local residents.
As part of its efforts, the JEG also cooperated with Japan's ODA on what would later be called the "All Japan" approach (see Chaps. 2 and 3). In particular, the JEG cooperated on civil engineering work for the "Recovery, Employment and Stability Programme for Ex-Combatants and Communities in Timor-Leste" (RESPECT), a GoJ-funded project to support disarmament and demobilization (Ishizuka & Lloyd, 2008, p. 130). The project aimed to assist the integration of former FRETILIN soldiers into the local society by providing job training and employment opportunities, such as roadbuilding or forestation.
Another example of civil-military cooperation can be seen in the JEG's assistance to a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) project to restore bridges. The partnership with multilateral aid agencies helped the JEG to procure materials for restoration, as the JEG themselves were unable to obtain the materials needed for their civil affairs work. The JEG also developed informal partnerships with NGOs. On days off, for example, JEG troops participated in a tree-planting project run by a Japanese NGO working in East Timor (Honda, 2018).

Capacity-Building Support Under the "All Japan" Approach
The "All Japan" approach was also introduced for the purpose of capacity building. After completing their duties, the JEG planned to leave behind equipment in East Timor, such as construction vehicles, materials, and temporary container housing, just as they had done in Cambodia (see Chap. 5). However, the local use of such donated materials required the training of local people because East Timor had almost no civil engineers to operate heavy equipment or conduct maintenance inspections. To avoid the donated equipment ending up unused and in anticipation of their withdrawal, the JEG also trained local personnel in the technical operation and maintenance of heavy equipment. The joint works between the JEG and multilateral aid agencies contributed to the reconstruction and development of East Timor in various ways, including donation of many high-quality, difficult-to-obtain civil engineering materials and the training of over 100 civil engineers (Honda, 2018, p. 147). Moreover, these activities also unexpectedly saved time and energy for the Japanese contingent because the trained local personnel could then engage in parts of the JEG's tasks. Furthermore, by donating equipment, the JEG reduced the expense that would have been involved in its repatriation to Japan.
Following the JEG's withdrawal, the JICA and Japanese NGOs succeeded in training the locals in machine operation and maintenance, with the goal of enabling the East Timorese people to plan and carry out the construction themselves. The East Timorese government was then able to lease the donated equipment to local private companies. As East Timor had previously had only limited numbers of its own engineers and construction businesses, the joint work between the JEG and Japan's ODA enhanced local capacity to build infrastructure in preparation for UN withdrawal.

The Rescue of Japanese Civilians
The JEG in East Timor unexpectedly had to assume security-related duties, again highlighting the serious gap between Japan's legal constraints and on-site demands for peacekeepers. In December 2002, the local police fired at some 500 anti-government demonstrators in the capital city, Dili, killing some of the protestors. Outraged crowds rampaged in the capitol, setting fire to houses and looting local stores ("Higashi-teimoru, demotai-500-nin," 2002). The roads and bridges were full of angry citizens, and many parked cars were torched. The local police continued to fire into the tumultuous crowds, hurting more citizens. The violent mobs also assaulted Japanese nationals in Dili, raiding a Japanese restaurant, for example. Besieged in a chaotic situation, Japanese residents in East Timor sought rescue from the JEG. Although the PKO Act contained no stipulation to protect civilians at that time, six members of the JEG immediately set out to rescue them in two trucks. In the end, the engineering teams rescued 41 civilians, including 17 Japanese nationals and 24 from seven other countries (Grand Staff Office, n.d., p. 171).

Police-Related Activities
In East Timor, the GoJ resumed the police deployment to the UNPKOs. To minimize security risks, however, the GoJ limited the number of deployed police officers to just three and restricted their deployment to the headquarters in Dili (MoFA, 2007). This is a sharp contrast with the experience in Cambodia, where 75 police personnel were deployed to various different places across the post-conflict nation. Such caution resulted from the government's anxiety not only about the safety of police personnel, but also about the future of Japan's peacekeeping efforts: if another police officer were harmed in a UNPKO, both public opinion and Japanese police hesitation would ensure that the GoJ would be never able to dispatch them again (Shoji, 2014, p. 9). As feared, a pro-Indonesian uprising occurred after the referendum at the end of August. Fortunately, however, Japanese personnel had already left for home in early September (Cabinet Office, 1999). Subsequently, no police personnel had been dispatched to either UNTAET or UNMISET, but two police officers were later deployed to UNMIT, which had been established in August 2006 in the wake of the recurrence of violence earlier that year. In February 2007, the first pair of Japanese police officers was dispatched for a half-year term by rotation, followed by a second pair. As the statebuilding of the newly independent country had once met with setbacks in 2006, such as the police's desertion of their duties, the Japanese police officers mainly engaged in support to reconstruct the local police: for example, advising them and training senior local police officers (Cabinet Office, 2008). Japanese police personnel also made a textbook for training of the local police. This time, the Japanese police officers enjoyed a relatively safe environment.

6
outcomEs of JaPan's Efforts and rElatEd challEngEs

Resonance with "Integration" and the Emergence of the "All Japan" Approach
The JEG's achievements in East Timor fit the policy recommendations of the 2002 IPC Panel (see Chap. 3;The IPC Panel, 2002). Their report emphasized the importance of the close partnership that developed between the ODA and Japan's engineering peacekeepers in East Timor, which would be later called the "All Japan" approach. This represents an important move toward greater "integration" in Japan's peacekeeping. The joint bridge restoration project between the JEG and the UNDP exemplified a successful case of the "All Japan" approach in East Timor. The UNPKO provided no budget for the repair of small bridges used only by local residents, but the JEG was able to use the financial resources provided by the GoJ via the UNDP (Honda, 2018, p. 146). The outcomes of the "All Japan" approach in East Timor drew international praise, as expressed in an interim UNSC report of October 2003. In this paper, UNMISET SRSG Kamalesh Sharma acclaimed that the JEG's activities had built a foundation for eventual UNPKO withdrawal and the longterm rebuilding of East Timor (UNSC, 2003, p. 4).
Not surprisingly, these "successful" experiences in the "All Japan" approach motivated the GoJ to further develop collaboration between the JEG and donor agencies outside the UNPKO framework for mid-and long-term reconstruction. Traditionally, overseas military deployments had been subject to controversy in Japan's political discourse. Combined with the ODA, peacekeeping was now a much more acceptable enterprise for the majority of Japanese people-assuming that the focus remained only on logistical support.

A Knotty Question Related to the "All Japan" Approach
Meanwhile, a prickly question had arisen with regard to the "All Japan" approach (Honda & Uesugi, 2016). Was the JEG's achievement in civil affairs support in cooperation with the ODA motivated by the desire to support a UNPKO, or was it simply to enhance Japan's national interest? This dilemma bewildered JEG personnel in East Timor. In principle, Japanese peacekeepers were deployed not to serve the local population directly, but rather as part of the UNPKO, as prescribed in the PKO Act. Yet expanded "All Japan" approach could divert the JEG's efforts and attention outside of the UNPKO. This concern arose in practice during the JEG's joint work with the UNDP. The aforementioned RESPECT initiative, for example, tasked JEG personnel with monitoring construction sites to provide careful supervision of the ongoing activities. Nonetheless, RESPECT was not a part of official UNPKO-related duties; nor did it conform to Japan's PKO Act. This made it difficult for the JEG team to have its personnel stationed on-site to participate in RESPECT (Honda, 2018, p. 149).
As in the case of the bridge restoration, the Japanese side justified their commitment to this non-UNPKO business by explaining that such additional activities would increase local support for the UNPKO. Resting on this logic, the JEG asserted that the bridge repair was ultimately intended to serve the UNPKO, rather than just the local population. Yet, no matter how the JEG attempted to vindicate their engagement in work outside the UNPKO framework, their legitimacy looked questionable in light of both the UN mandate and the PKO Act.

The Question of Protecting Japanese Nationals
Japanese participation in UNPKOs in East Timor highlighted restrictions remaining in the PKO Act, especially relating to the protection of Japanese nationals in the field. Although Japanese civilians in East Timor faced imminent danger during the violent demonstrations and riots at the end of 2002, the PKO Act included no stipulation allowing the JEG to protect their compatriots. Consequently, the JEG had to rescue Japanese NGO workers in an emergency situation under the name of "transportation," in the same way that had happened in the former Zaire in 1995. A similar problem was also seen in the JEG's de facto patrols in Cambodia, which were made on the flimsy pretext of "information gathering." These bitter experiences would lead to the addition of a "coming-to-aid" duty to the PKO Act in 2015 (see Chap. 4).
We can say that the deployment to East Timor rested on a false assumption that public order had already been restored and personnel safety was assured. As a result, the Japanese legal system was not prepared for times of emergency, especially when Japanese citizens were seriously threatened. This forced the Japanese peacekeepers on the ground to act even without a formal mandate to do so, just as occurred in Cambodia and the former Zaire (see Chaps. 3 and 5).
More fundamentally, the narrative style of the PKO Act itself imposed overly stringent constraints on the actions of Japanese peacekeepers (Honda, 2018). As it was written in the form of a positive list, the law clearly stated what they were allowed to do. As a result, it was very difficult to do anything that was not explicitly mentioned. This strictly limited the SDF's flexibility in responding to unexpected events not foreseen when the law was enacted.
In the meantime, the 2001 amendment to the PKO Act enabled the GoJ to dispatch an infantry force to assume the PKF's main duties, but this task had been designed for the classic cease-fire-monitoring task and no longer fit contemporary UNPKOs deployed under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, as in the case of East Timor. Moreover, it was still extremely difficult for the SDF to play such a role, as the use of weapons to protect civilians was not yet allowed. The solution to this problem had to wait for another amendment of the law in 2015 (see Chap. 4).

Changing Roles for Police Personnel
In East Timor, the GoJ resumed the police deployment to the UNPKOs, but they also devised a very cautious deployment plan that concentrated a small number of police officers in the capital, Dili. This seemed to correspond to changes in UN police deployment. Previously, all of the police peacekeepers were considered to be "civilian police" in the sense that all of them were supposed to act unarmed. By contrast, a trend toward armed police forces in UN peacekeeping began at the end of the 1990s, with the emergence of Formed Police Units of 200-300 police personnel. Formed Police Units are in charge of dealing with crowd control and maintaining public order. Meanwhile, the regular unarmed police personnel became known as the Individual Police Officers tasked with providing capacity building and training to local police counterparts. A Formed Police Unit is usually contributed from the Global South, while Individual Police Officers tend to be contributed from the Global North. In recent years, the various roles of UN police personnel have been divided into two general categories: a larger armed wing imposing security and order, and a small unit of advisers conducting training, which mirrors the division of troop contribution in the UNPKOs.
Bearing this division in mind, Japan's police deployment to East Timor exactly fell into the second category of Individual Police Officers. Although the police officers deployed to UNAMET faced insecurity following the referendum, those for UNMIT achieved overall success. With this positive result, the Japanese police were widely expected to be deployed to future UNPKOs, but since then, no other police peacekeepers have been dispatched (as of March 2021). This question will be revisited in Chap. 9.

Summary of Chap. 6
The personnel deployment to the UNPKOs in East Timor advanced the move toward greater "integration" in Japanese peacekeeping, developing the "All Japan" approach. There are two main reasons behind this. First, from the end of the 1990s, the GoJ became increasingly interested in peacebuilding and in the "seamless" assistance that combines peacekeeping and peacebuilding, especially triggered by the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Second, the case of East Timor focused on statebuilding, which was a perfect fit for the GoJ's desire to enhance peacebuilding efforts. Meanwhile, questions arose about how it might be possible to simultaneously support UN peacekeeping missions while also deepening direct collaboration among Japanese development agencies. In relation to "robustness," another challenge appeared with regard to the protection of Japanese nationals located in conflict sites. Despite the amendments to the law in 1998 and 2001, the JEG personnel in East Timor did not yet have the legal authority to conduct such "coming-toaid" duty. Further expansion of scope for the use of weapons, especially for "coming-to-aid" duty, would be addressed later as part of the Peace and Security Legislation in 2015 (see Chap. 4).
In East Timor, we also observed some new positive developments, such as the first deployment of female peacekeepers and Japanese police engagement in the institutional development and training of local police. Nevertheless, the number of female personnel was very limited and there has been no subsequent police contribution.