Friends of East Timor - Canada: newsletters

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Wednesday, May 25, 2011

East Timor Update #48-51, 1997

This is final year of East Timor Update, which was replaced in subsequent years by e-mail only notices and newsletters from two successor groups to the East Timor Alert Network. Coverage includes the December 1996 Nobel award to Bishop Belo; mining in Indonesia; a Canadian parliamentary delegation; and abortive Canadian government consideration of military ties with Indonesia.

As the amount of news to report in Canada grew and the frequency of The ACTivist (in which East Timor Update was published) fell, news focussed more on Canada than in previous years. In 1996, coverage included Canadian government trade missions to Indonesia; calls for an arms embargo backed by trade union, women's and student groups; and alleged threats by Indonesian Ambassador Benjamin Parwoto against the family of Bella Galhos, a Timorese refugee and activist in Ottawa.

In 1995, reports feature growing solidarity around the world but also setbacks: intransigence from the Indonesian government and a Liberal government decision to resume weapons sales to Indonesia as part of a major Pacific trade offensive, and to abandon human rights advocacy towards ASEAN. Growing support in Canada featured the formation of an East Timor Hope Foundation in Windsor, Ont., including parish-twinning with Suai. ETAN campaigned to have the John Humphrey Freedom award go to TAPOL co-founder Carmel Budiardjo without success, but the award went instead to Bishop Carlos Belo, adding to momentum for the global campaign to have the Nobel peae Prize go to Belo (successful in 1996).

Coverage in 1994 notes incremental progress in several areas: a new Canadian aid policy for East Timor, promising moves at the UN, and increasing awareness in Indonesia and in the region (through the Asia Pacific Conference on East Timor). At the same time, the Update devoted more attention to Indonesia, noting its increasing importance to Canadian business, bans on free trade unions. A report of a UN birth control award going to Indonesian President Suharto was incorrect.

Guelph University's Sulawesi Regional Development Project was reviewed by an independent committee that found human rights issues, followed by Indonesia's government killing the project.

Reports of a UN population control award to Suharto were incorrect (correction next issue). Due to a numbering error, there are two issues both dated #37.

Trials and arrests of Timorese activists - especially the prison term handed down to Xanana Gumão - lobbying at the UN, and a campaign to boycott Bata Shoes over its Indonesia operations were featured in 1993.

Includes coverage of José Ramos Horta's talk to over 1,000 people at a benefit in Ottawa. Ramos Horta is quoted saying: "Canada is one of the most hypocritical countries in the world."

After the 1993 election of a Liberal government led by Jean Chrétien to replace Brian Mulroney's Progressive Conservatives, ETAN launched a campaign for an arms embargo that continued until 1999.

East Timor Update #7-17, 1992

East Timor Update produced 12 issues in 1992, initially dated by month and then by date of writing.

The year featured coverage of the Canadian debate on aid to Indonesia: the Mulroney Conservative government opted to suspend three planned aid projects to Indonesia, worth a total of C$30-million, while leaving existing aid untouched.

East Timor Update was the main East Timor Alert Network publication. ETAN published 50 issues of this brief from 1991 to 1997. Each issue ran as the inside back page of The ACTivist, newspaper of the ACT for Disarmament coalition in Toronto.

Numbering was irregular at first. The first three Updates were un-numbered; after #4 a three-page supplement ran in The ACTivist re-using material from A Call for Justice (1985); #6 was a front-page special in The ACTivist covering events in November 1991 before and after the Santa Cruz massacre.

Update #1 is to the right; #2-6 after the jump.

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..