The first ETAN newsletter, 1988

The East Timor Alert Network was not the first solidarity group in Canada. With the encouragement of the Canada Asia Working Group of the Canadian churches (now part of KAIROS Canada) it formed in 1987 alongside the existing Indonesia East Timor Programme.

ETAN's first newsletter was a cover sheet with enclosed pamphlet and clippings from This Magazine and the TAPOL Bulletin. As the materials indicate, the first issue tackled by the Network was Canadian Ambassador Jack Whittleton's decision to visit East Timor along with then-Indonesian Foreign Minister Mochtar Kusumaatmadja..

"Betrayed But Not Beaten," 1988

The first film on East Timor in Canada was "Betrayed But Not Beaten." Peter Monet's 1988 film was recently uploaded to youtube. Here's part one; you can click through to part two at the end. 

Interviews feature Professor Noam Chomsky and a young Jose Ramos Horta - then the East Timorese "foreign minister" in exile, and now President of the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste.