Timorese president Taur Matan Ruak awarded ETAN/Canada with the Order of East Timor in 2015. Pictrued are former Timorese refugees and CNRM representatives in Canada Abé Barreto Soares and Bella Galhos with the Order of Timor-Leste medal, Dili. (Photo: David Webster)
Abé ho Aloz in performance. Timorese-Canadian duo Abé Barreto Soares and Aloz MacDonald performed numerous shows across Canada in support of the Timorese cause.
In Canada, solidarity activists rallied to try to make a “citizen’s arrest” of Indonesian president Suharto at the 1997 Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, picking up on the example of Timorese activists who had put their country’s struggle at the centre of the 1994 APEC summit in Jakarta.
In Canada, solidarity activists rallied to try to make a “citizen’s arrest” of Indonesian president Suharto at the 1997 APEC summit, picking up on the example of Timorese activists who had put their country’s struggle at the centre of the 1994 APEC summit in Jakarta. -Bella Galhos presents media with photos of torture in East Timor outside the APEC summit, Vancouver, 1997 (Photo: Elaine Briere)
In 1983, Monsignor Martinho da Costa Lopes became the first Timorese voice to speak in Canada since the 1975 invasion. He had recently been removed as apostolic administrator of the diocese of Dili – in de facto terms, head of the Timorese Catholic church – for being too critical of Indonesia’s human rights record. Msgr da Costa Lopes came at the invitation of the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace, meeting Canadian Catholics and also lobbying the government and speaking to the Canadian media.
The same year also saw the release of Peter Monet’s film “Betrayed But Not Beaten,” the first documentary to be produced in North America about East Timor. -Image: screen shot of Martinho da Costa Lopes from the film
-Abé Barreto Soares went to the UN Human Rights Commission for ETAN/Canada in 1993, pictured here with Jose Ramos Hort anad other CNRM supporters in the halls of the Palais des Nations, Geneva
When Dalhousie University in Halifax started considering a project in Indonesia, a group of local people formed the Nova Scotia East Timor Group. The group, led by Bill Owen, Audrey Samson and Ross Shotton, undertook a letter-writing campaign to the Canadian government, the first time Ottawa felt compelled to respond to letters from the public. Ten years after the 1975 invasion of East Timor, the NSETG was instrumental in the Canadian component of an Amnesty International to raise awareness about human rights in East Timor. Under Indonesian rule, AI reported, some 200,000 Timorese had died.
Bill Owen (crouching) at NSETG literature table and banner showing, Halifax
Protesters hang a banner as part of an East Timor Alert Network rally held outside the Vancouver Art Gallery on Robson Street, Vancouver BC, prior to speeches delivered from the VAG steps.
East Timor Alert network protesters attempt to block access to a loading bay at the Pratt and Whitney factory in Toronto. Pratt and Whitney was one company issued with military export licences to Indonesia. The protest aimed to highlight Canada's role in arming Indonesia as part of ETAN's campaign for an arms embargo on Indonesia. Photographer at right is one of the reporters who covered this event. The protesters were removed and arrested by local police.
Photograph of East Timor Alert Network vigil outside the Indonesian Consulate in Toronto, date unknown [1990s]. Vigils took place on a weekly basis for some years in the 1990s outside the office building housing the Indonesian Consulate at 425 University Avenue, Toronto. The Consulate later moved to its own building on Jarvis Street.
Through the mid-1990s, voices reached more and more Canadians, especially in church groups, on university campuses and in trade unions. This image pictures a protest by ETAN/Ottawa in the 1990s.