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I first visited Timor-Leste in January 1975, as a master’s student from Monash University. I spent two months travelling the country with Jose Ramos-Horta, Nicolau Lobato, and Mari Alkatiri. I rode Timor ponies with Mau Lear and Vicente “Sahe” dos Reis to visit the FRETILIN literacy programs.

Following Indonesia’s illegal and brutal invasion of December 1975, I was unable to visit the country again for another 24 years. But my concern for the Timorese people had not waned. In early 1976, I was in New York, assisting Ramos-Horta set up his office at the United Nations to advocate internationally for Timor-Leste’s self-determination. This was long before computers, emails, and the internet. We had a state of the art Selectric typewriter and received telex messages from Australia (including reports from Timor transmitted by radio to Darwin), and elsewhere.

Little did we know then that Timor solidarity activists, including the founders of ETAN, were to become pioneers of using the internet for activism.

Before I continue, I want to take a moment to urge you to donate in appreciation of ETAN’s information services and its work for justice, human rights, and self-determination. You can contribute here.

In the early 1990s scattered East Timor supporters around the world began to make use of electronic communications. Those specifically interested in Timor-Leste, such as Carmel Budiardjo of TAPOL in London, Elaine Briere in Canada, the Australia-East Timor Association in Melbourne (of which I was a founding member), the Comissão para os Direitos do Povo Maubere (CDPM) in Lisbon and others began reg.easttimor on APC, a progressive computer network. 

Helen with Max Stahl.

Thanks to Max Stahl’s film footage, the November 1991 Santa Cruz massacre became global news. ETAN, the East Timor Action Network was founded soon after that terrible event by peace activists John M. Miller, Charles Scheiner, and Indonesian-American Rev. Max Surjadinata, among others. ETAN successfully sought to change U.S. policy to one in support of Timor’s self-determination by restricting and for a time ending U.S. security assistance to Indonesia.

Global email discussion lists like reg.easttimor contributed throughout the 1990s to building up a sizable body of knowledge and opinion about the situation in East Timor, even though world media did not give the country’s politics any detailed coverage.

 ETAN increasingly took over the coordinating role in distributing a comprehensive set of messages, including nearly everything that was being said in the English-speaking media around the world about Timor-Leste. As the 1999 independence referendum approached, many thought that most solidarity groups like ETAN would close once self-determination was achieved.

 That did not happen.  

Instead, ETAN reaffirmed its commitment to the rights of the peoples of Timor-Leste and the wider Indonesian region, renaming itself the East Timor and Indonesia Action N Network, while continuing to press for human rights accountability. Please support ETAN’s work by donating today.