By Macalister Arendt This post summarizes documents from the Canada Asia Working Group archives about a Canadian church delegation to Timor-Leste (East Timor) in 1998, describing a demonstration that the delegation saw as a “turning point” in the march to independence. The original records are available to researchers on request. In 1998, after two years… More A church mission to Timor-Leste, 1998
By Jordan Sneyd-Dewar This post summarizes materials in the United Nations Archives just posted to the Timor International Solidarity Archive, especially the UN Secretariat’s 1975 file. On November 28, 1975, East Timor declared itself independent from their Portuguese colonial occupiers. The declaration should have been a landmark moment for a people that had finally gained… More The United Nations Response to Indonesia’s Invasion of East Timor (December 1975)
Canada is negotiating freer trade (a comprehensive economic economic partnership agreement) with Indonesia. It’s worth looking back at the history to see that trade alone is not enough. Here’s a policy brief making that point, originally published in 2019. By David Webster Original Publication: International Journal 2019, Vol. 74(3) 472–479 Abstract Canada–Indonesia relations recently passed their… More Policy brief: Canada–Indonesia relations, past and present
How traditional seeds and crops are bringing food independence to Timor-Leste A woman in Timor-Leste surveys her chili crop. (Creative Commons), CC BY-SA David Webster, Bishop’s University “We hear the voice of the farmers,” explains the acting director of Raebia, an organization in Timor-Leste working for sustainable agricultural development. I am talking with Mateus and… More How traditional seeds and crops are bringing food sovereignty to Timor-Leste
By Olivia Hewitt Between 1975 and 1989 the world was barred from entering East Timor. On more than one occasion the international community would catch a horrific glimpse into the situation unfolding in the region between the East Timorese and Indonesian military forces. Indonesian authorities opened the territory to visitors for the first time since… More Activist travels to occupied East Timor, 1989-99
Dadolin Murak, poète timorais, a publié ce poème en mai 2019 pour marquer l’anniversaire de « Mei Berdarah » (mai sanglant) de 1998, lorsque des Indonésiens d’origine chinoise ont été victimes de massacres et de viols. Le poème de Dadolin Murak, écrit en indonésien, est présenté ici en traduction anglaise. Il chante des souvenirs de… More Mai sanglant
This poem by Dadolin Murak was published in May 2019 to mark the anniversary of “Mei Berdarah,” or Bloody May of 1998, when Indonesians of Chinese descent faced mass killings and rape and the Indonesian government washed its hands of mass violence. Dadolin Murak’s poem, published in Indonesian as part of the proliferating “Facebook literature”… More A Bloody May – poetry by Dadolin Murak
FIELDWORK IN TIMOR-LESTE: Understanding Social Change through Practice | Edited by Maj Nygaard-Christensen and Angie Bexley NIAS Studies in Asian Topics, no. 59. Copenhagen: NIAS Press; Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press [distributor], 2017. xv, 261 pp. (Graphs, maps, B&W photos.) US$27.00, paper. ISBN 978-87-7694-209-0. Under Portuguese rule, Timor-Leste (East Timor) hosted numerous anthropological researchers. Indonesian… More Fieldwork in Timor-Leste: review
“Challenges of reconciliation: lessons learned from Timor-Leste” was a workshop held in October 2019 at Bishop’s University. The most recent post summarized the presentations of Father Jovito Araújo and Hugo Fernandes. This post summarizes the research shared by Amy Rothschild (Ithaca College, USA), Lia Kent (Australian National University), Hannah Loney (The University of Melbourne, Australia),… More Challenges of reconciliation: lessons learned from Timor-Leste – summary of presentations
A former truth commissioner from Timor-Leste and the director of the Centro Nacional Chega! (CNC) – the follow-up body to the Timor-Leste truth commission (CAVR) – spoke in October 2019 at Bishop’s University and the University of Sherbrooke. A summary of their presentations at Bishop’s follows. By Tomas Pelz Father Jovito de Araujo, a former… More Reconciliation as a process, not a project
You must be logged in to post a comment.