Forerunners: early Timor activism in Canada

Oxfam Canada, 1975-76

Oxfam’s Australian branch, Community Aid Abroad, tried to send a ship with medical supplies shortly after Indonesia invaded East Timor on 7 December 1975. Oxfam Canada issued a $10,000 grant for the project, but the Australian government impounded the ship.  Oxfam Canada and Oxfam Quebec also attempted (without success) to shift the Canadian government’s policy of silence and abstention on the occupation of East Timor.

Images: notes by Oxfam Canada director Helen Forsey-Contreras; telegram to CAA on grant; CAA letter on ship’s fate; Oxfam Quebec letter to Foreign Minister, all from Oxfam Canada fonds, Library & Archives Canada.

Nova Scotia East Timor Group, 1983-onwards

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.

Images: Bill Owen (crouching) at NSETG literature table and banner showing, Halifax; Owen’s letter to Canadian ambassador in Indonesia, 1983, and ambassador’s telegram to Ottawa seeking guidance; cover of 1985 AI report on East Timor; cover of AI Canada newsletter The Candle. From East Timor Alert Network papers and Library & Archives Canada.

Indonesia East Timor Programme, 1983-88

The Indonesia East Timor Programme was founded by Julia Morrigan and Derek Rasmussen in Ottawa in 1983. It later relocated to Peterborough, Ontario.  IETP worked with Dan Heap MP and with non-violent direction action groups to raise awareness in the media and public.