Timor Archives

A small but instructive and eye-catching selection of materials from the archives of Timor solidarity groups worldwide was recently exhibited in Dili.

Titled Solidarity through the years, 1974-1999, the exhibition was organised by Klibur Solidaridade, a collective of young Timorese groups and international activists. The exhibition, designed to strenghten existing ties and encourage new contacts between Timorese and internationals, coincided with a 3-day activists conference and other activities as part of a larger national celebration of the tenth anniversary of the 1999 independence ballot.

Australian materials
Materials came from all parts of the world with Australian materials featuring prominently – especially covering the first ten years of the occupation. Cecily Gilbert and I carried from Australia representative items from the collections of Friends of East Timor in Perth, Denis Freney’s Campaign for an Independent East Timor roneos of resistance radio messages and the East Timor News periodical, posters, publications and leaflets from Melbourne’s Timor Information Service, the Australia East Timor Association and the Australian Council for Overseas Aid Human Rights office run by Pat Walsh. It was a treat to experience young East Timorese seeing these materials for the first time and having the opportunity to explain the background to some of the items.

Memorial to martyrs of 1999

The exhibition was held at the Fundasaun Oriente, the former home of the recently deceased Manuel Carrascalao and site of a militia massacre in April 1999. A well on the site has been transformed into a poignant memorial to the victims of militia/TNI violence.

The Timorese Resistance Archive and Museum has reportedly expressed interest in some exhibition materials for future display. Australian items we carried to Timor will be held by the Reception, Truth and Reconciliation Commission (CAVR) archive.

Some background to the exhibition can be found here.

A random sample of our images from the exhibition launch can be found here.

The archives of Canada’s East Timor Alert Network (ETAN) have been deposited for public access at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario.

ETAN Canada campaigned from 1986 for a shift in Canadian foreign policy to support human rights and self-determination for East Timor. David Webster, now at the University of San Francisco, organised the papers and made the box list available here.

Perhaps ETAN Canada’s listing will encourage other similar organisations to get their papers into order as well.

Australian solidarity collections

Some surviving records of Australian solidarity group work are already available for study (with more to come!).

Friends of East Timor (FOET WA) members sorting files, Perth, 2005.

The papers of the legendary Denis Freney (National Library of Australia) contain records of the original Campaign for an Independent East Timor (CIET) in Sydney. Andrew McNaughtan’s papers at the Mitchell Library include material from Sydney’s newer Australia East Timor Association (AETA). Early fragments of (the original) AETA in Victoria can be found in the papers of Community Aid Abroad (at University of Melbourne Archives). Bill Tully’s papers at the Noel Butlin Archives in Canberra includes records of CIET and AETA activities there.

I have worked with AETA Victoria and Friends of East Timor (FOET WA) on their collections, but in each case there’s still much work to be done. I know of similar collections in Hobart, Adelaide and Darwin but have no recent knowledge of progress on preserving them.

Let me know if you are aware of other collections elsewhere.

Timorese access

A key question remains. How do we achieve Timorese access to materials like this in Timor-Leste itself? More from me on this issue in coming weeks.