Asia - Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) was founded in 1989 and Canada was hosting the annual meeting in Vancouver in 1997. The President of Indonesia was attending and students were protesting his arrival.

This item contains:

• APEC position paper for ETAN
• Anti - APEC action network minutes
• Stop APEC globalization people! (flyer)
• House of Commons debates
• Arrest Suharto campaign
• Alatas confident Canada can ban
• Citizen's arrest of Suharto
• Groups will demonstrate at APEC trade ministers meeting (ENG/FRA)
• Manila declaration and plan of action
• Souham: the limits of free speech
• Lunch with the dictators (leaflet)

This file includes documents from prior to the 1997 summit in Vancouver.

Contents:

• Protest against Anti People Economic Control
• Linking trade with human rights at the APEC meeting - an open letter to the Prime Minister
• APEC contact list
• South East Asian NGOs forum on human rights and development
• APEC plan
• Response to the open letter to the PM by the Minister of Foreign Affairs
• Prime Minister announces bilateral development co-operation projects with Indonesia

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.

• APEC 1997 protests at UBC (Elaine Briere)

Annual Report of the National Council of Maubere Resistance by Abé Barreto Soares.

This item includes various speeches by East Timorese youth ambassadors during the tour of America in 1993. It also includes a list of Abé Soares' relatives in East Timor.

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.