OUTSIDE SERGIO VIEIRA de Mello's office, a notice taped to the wall asks visitors to ensure their weapons are unloaded before they enter the building. It is not the sort of message that one typically encounters when calling on a diplomat, but Mr Vieira de Mello's less-than-usual surroundings reflect the rare task he has been handed.
The 53-year-old Brazilian heads the United Nations mission in Dili, one of the most ambitious projects the world body has undertaken to date.
Backed by more than 8,000 troops, 1,300 police officers and legions of civilian personnel, Mr Vieira de Mello must oversee East Timor's shift from colonial outpost of neighbouring Indonesia to fully independent state.
Few outside the UN appreciate the sweeping mandate awarded to the United Nations' Transitional Administration in East Timor (Untaet) under the terms of resolution 1272. Passed in October 1999 after most Timorese voted to break away from Jakarta and the territory was destroyed by pro-Indonesian militias, it allots the body 'overall responsibility for the administration of East Timor [with] all legislative and executive authority, including the administration of justice'.
While the UN has administered territories elsewhere, such as Kosovo, or organised state-wide elections to pave the way for conflict resolution, as in Cambodia, Mr Vieira de Mello's powers are unprecedented. His remit is not just the rebuilding of a devastated territory, but combining that task with the creation of a government for a new state.
'What I always ask . . . visitors to East Timor is to try to remember those days in September 1999, and to see the present against that background, which many tend to forget,' Mr Vieira de Mello says. 'They arrive and they start to compare us with a normal developing country. So please, remember what we found when we arrived and perhaps it might be easier to remember progress achieved if you do not forget what we started from.'