3. Dual Dilemmas for the Implementation of Hybrid Peacebuilding: A Case Study of People Living Near the East-West Border on Timor Island

After the Cold War, domestic conflicts have increased. To resolve such conflicts, liberal peacebuilding based on values such as human rights and democracy was considered necessary. However, this approach has failed in many places as it did not have considerations of local customs and cultural aspects. And then, hybrid peacebuilding, which include local customs into peacebuilding, was promoted. However, there are problems with hybrid peacebuilding as well. One of them is that peacebuilding sometimes makes divisions clearer as the boundaries of nations states are often not the same as the boundaries of traditions and customs. Furthermore, as peacebuilding includes comprehensive international assistance programs, the development gap between a sector that receives assistance programs and a sector that does not receive may widen, and such gap may lead to future unrest. To prevent future unrest from happening, it seems that the relationship among people living near the borders should be considered in hybrid peacebuilding. Therefore, this research examines what kind of impacts peacebuilding gives to people living near the border between Timor-Leste West Timor, Indonesia as a case study location. And then, the author also tries to analyze the potential to adopt local customs to hybrid peacebuiding across international borders.