Canadian activists rally for East Timor
By Allison Hanes

OTTAWA — It took the outbreak of brutality that followed the East Timor referendum to get Canada to listen to a tiny activist group.

The Ottawa-based East Timor Alert Network (ETAN) went into overdrive in August, when  Jakarta-backed militias refused to accept the result of a vote on independence from Indonesia. 

As a campaign of ethnic cleansing focused

the world's attention on East Timor, ETAN intensified the message it has been trying to get across for the last 12 years.

The group has been active in Canada since 1987 but it, and the country it fights to liberate, have only recently come into the national media spotlight.

That makes this an opportune time for ETAN to whip up support among the Canadian public and put pressure on the government, says organizer and spokesperson Kerry Pither.

"We think this is a really crucial time to act."

For ETAN, the last few weeks have been a whirlwind of protests, vigils, speeches and media interviews, while gathering information daily from contacts in East Timor — some of whom are living on the run.

September ended with Canada committing peacekeeping troops to an Australian-led United Nations mission to restore security to the former Portuguese colony north of Australia.

Pither says that is not enough.

ETAN will step up the pressure on Canada in the coming weeks, with demands for full economic sanctions, a military trade embargo and an increased peacekeeping commitment. They are also calling for aid for West Timor, where many East Timorese have fled and violence has followed.

"There's this misperception that Canada has jumped to the rescue of East Timor, but our troops haven't even arrived there yet," says Pither, referring to the mechanical problems the delayed the departure of Canadian transport planes in mid-September.

ETAN's most important job over the last month, Pither says, has been feeding the Canadian public's appetite for information on East Timor and on Canada's relations with Indonesia.

Often, people calling ETAN had heard of East Timor for the first time a few months ago. East Timor has never got onto the international media or political agendas. Renowned linguist and left wing communications critic Noam Chomsky has used East Timor as an prime example of how Western media filter out certain international news stories.

"Our main goal right now is to respond to the public's need for information, which is very, very great," Pither says.

ETAN is getting some 200 calls of support a week, and at least as many copies of letters sent to politicians and the media.

The group held a panel discussion with observers just returned from East Timor, and academics familiar with the country on Sept. 21. About 100 people turned up at the University of Ottawa to watch video footage of the weeks preceding the referendum on independence and to ask questions.

ETAN has been the loudest voice calling on the Canadian government to act, and the best informed. The group does research on Canada’s trade relations with Indonesia. It also gets first-hand testimony from contacts in East Timor.

ETAN has also organized and mobilized a number of other groups to support the cause.

The labour movement in Canada is a long-time proponent of action in East Timor, says Jane Stinson, director of the research branch for the Canadian Union of Public Employees.

The Canadian Labour Congress has initiated its own embargoes on Indonesia. Postal workers have refused to deliver mail to the Indonesian Embassy in Ottawa. Other unionized workers have been ordered by the CLC not to handle goods imported from Indonesia.

Stinson was part of a delegation to East Timor in August, which included ETAN, New Democratic Party foreign affairs critic Svend Robinson, and members of student’s and women's groups.

It is important for Canadian unions to take up the cause of oppressed countries because labour in such countries can be a democratizing force as part of civil society, says Stinson.

"Our support of East Timor and our support of reform in Indonesia is in part due to ETAN in terms of them focusing our attention. But it's also part of a universal rights movement to raise awareness and create solid links."

Elizabeth Carlisle of the Canadian Federation of Students agrees. She says specialized lobby groups should look beyond their own interest.

Lobby groups must join forces with each other and present a united and more forceful front to government, Carlisle argues.

"Just like apartheid became a household word, we have to make East Timor the kind of issue where everyone knows what side they're on," she says.

ETAN shows what a persistent activist group can accomplish, and what happens when they are ignored, says David Wurfel, a University of Toronto professor of political science. He was an observer for the International Federation for East Timor during the referendum.

 "I think action happens because of groups like ETAN," Wurfel says. "Unfortunately, I think maybe the difference (they have made) isn't big enough.”

Cornell University professor Walter Dorn was a UN referendum organizer in East Timor. He says the group has been extremely effective.

"The Indonesian military has been unmasked, and the (Canadian) government has recognized that what ETAN has been saying for decades is true, and they recognize that they should have listened to ETAN much earlier."

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