A/HRC/16/42 hand, timely and decisive responses built on informed assessment and analysis of those underlying challenges can contribute significantly to strategies for restoration, reconstruction and development. 24. According to the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG): “Post-disaster operations need to deal early and forcefully with land ownership issues. Where possible land titles should be regularized or a functional proxy for land title should be provided [...] Where such measures are not possible, alternative means need to be found to ensure that land is not seized outright or that fraudulent claims are not honoured. The local government must help prevent profiteering on land that is urgently needed for the reconstruction process24.” This assessment of urgency and need for forceful action is absolutely correct. However the emphasis on title regularization, with other forms of tenure covered by “functional proxy”, is problematic. Care should be taken that this does not result in programmes of rushed or enforced commodification of land and housing; or a process of favouring formal title resulting in the weakening or pushing aside of legitimate alternative forms of tenure security, as has happened in the case of Cambodia, discussed later. Many other equally legitimate forms of tenure require recognition, protection and support in their own right. 25. A useful example of the dangers of failing to deal with land tenure security challenges in a timely manner can be found in the case of post-conflict East Timor. It is estimated that during the violence that followed the 1999 referendum, 67,500 out of an estimated 170,000 houses (40 per cent of all housing stock) were rendered uninhabitable25 ; while approximately 70 per cent of all physical infrastructure was destroyed or rendered inoperable26 . Administrative documents, including land title records, were also destroyed or taken to Indonesia27 . Approximately 300,000 people fled or were forced into Indonesian West Timor; while an estimated 450,000 were internally displaced, out of a total population of 900,00028 . Houses left empty by the refugees were occupied by others, often because their own homes had been destroyed. Over the following months and years, returning refugees frequently found their homes occupied and had to pay the secondary occupants compensation for “guarding” or improving their homes so that they would leave. In many cases the secondary occupants refused to vacate, forcing the returnees to seek shelter elsewhere29 . This left an extraordinarily complex land and housing rights legacy for the transitional administration and future government to unravel and resolve. To add to the complexity, the post-referendum events took place against a historical backdrop of waves of dispossession and displacement and externally imposed land systems through Portuguese colonization, Japanese invasion and Indonesian takeover. 26. The outcome was a situation of widespread tenure insecurity and tensions over land, property and housing during the period of transitional government under the United Nations and in the first years of the Government of the newly independent Democratic Republic of Timor Leste. In spite of urgent calls from 1999 onwards from a variety of actors, and the formulation of proposals by various agencies and Government units, the key tenure issues were never fully addressed. This failure is seen as one of the drivers of the violence that subsequently occurred in 2006-7, in the course of which 150,000 people (15 per cent of the 24 25 26 27 28 29 Independent Evaluation Group (World Bank, IFC, MIGA), “World Bank Group Response to the Haiti Earthquake: Evaluative Lessons (2010, p. 2), available at: http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTOED/Resources/disaster_note.pdf “Towards a Medium-Term Sector Strategy for Housing in East Timor”, Hassell Pty. Ltd., (March 2002) para. 27. Daniel Fitzpatrick, Land Claims in East Timor (Canberra, Asia Pacific Press, 2008), p.8. “Towards a Medium-Term Sector Strategy for Housing in East Timor”, para. 27. Fitzpatrick, Land Claims in East Timor, p.5. J. du Plessis and S. Leckie, “Housing Property and Land Rights in East Timor: Proposals for an Effective Dispute Resolution and Claim Verification Mechanism”, UN-Habitat, (31 May 2000), pp. 9-10. 9