Welcome to our occasional newsletter, highlighting recent CHART activities and related news.
To receive notice of each new issue, send an email request to chartnews[at]timorarchives.info
Click here for previous issues of CHART News
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CHART News July 2012 – March 2013
2013 – a big year
Personal circumstances required CHART work to be largely put on hold during the latter part of 2012 and early 2013. Work not done then and new possibilities arising means 2013 is likely to be our busiest year to date. In prospect are CHART projects in conjunction with major archival institutions, an intensification of our document digitisation program and possible Timor archives-related visits to Canberra, Sydney, Darwin, Timor-Leste and Portugal. Watch this space!
In the meantime, an update on recent work at CHART follows below.
Outreach
CHART continues to seek out private collection-holders for dialogue about their Timor collections and historical knowledge. Well-known and long-time East Timor human rights advocate, Jim Dunn, was visited in February. CHART also visited former senator Gordon McIntosh in Perth in March to discuss his Timor archives and to conduct an interview on McIntosh’s participation in the landmark 1983 Australian parliamentary delegation to East Timor.
In addition to CHART News, our work is promoted on the ETAN-run East Timor discussion list, Facebook and Twitter.
Annette Jansen at CHART
Researchers
In the latter months of 2012, Kelly Butler from Melbourne University spent many hours combing through boxes for her honours thesis research. Thanks to Kelly for donating a copy of her final thesis to CHART’s library. VU University Amsterdam’s Annette Jansen managed to squeeze in two days at CHART during a short October 2012 visit to Australia seeking materials for her doctorate studies on the Timor solidarity movement.
CHART continues to receive a steady flow of requests for help from Australian and overseas researchers seeking guidance on Timor archival resources. CHART is keen to facilitate researcher access to archives in its custody. Access is by prior arrangement; standard archival protocols apply.
Administration
CHART Inc held its first official Annual General Meeting of members on 13 August 2012. The CHART Board met immediately after the members meeting, creating a special ‘public fund’ to receive donations and applying for accession to the Register of Cultural Organisations. Both these actions form part of the formal process to gain tax deductible gift recipient status.
Website
The CHART website continues to attract steady traffic, including a notable increase in online visitors from Indonesia. Three articles have been added to the website during 2013.
Revisiting 1983 – an introduction to CHART’s website intentions for 2013 and a preliminary look at the historic 1983 ceasefire breakdown and subsequent Kraras massacres.
Indonesian killings 1965/66 – an account of a key Canberra seminar on the infamous mass killings in Indonesia in the mid-1960s and CHART’s contribution to the seminar.
Hawke Labor Government – a summary, with detailed documentary evidence, of Labor party Timor policy and its demise before and after the election of the new Labor government in march 1983.
National Film and Sound Archive
Chart archivist John Waddingham spoke with senior staff at the National Film & Sound Archive (NFSA) in February 2012 as part of an ongoing dialogue. CHART was directly responsible for the deposit at NFSA of two important occupation-era collections – Andrew McNaughtan’s audio-visual footage of Timor in the 1990s and recordings of Radio Maubere broadcasts from Timor, 1976-1978.
Prospective joint projects between NFSA and CHART include documenting in detail the content of these two collections and a longer-term aim to make copies of the material directly accessible in Timor-Leste. NFSA has significantly increased its Timor archives interest in recent years – most recently constructing and gifting to the Timor-Leste government a published guide to its holdings.
National Archives of Australia – Timor survey
CHART has initiated a comprehensive survey of Timor holdings of the National Archives of Australia (NAA). NAA holds national government official records from 1901 – including a large collection of Timor materials for the 1974-1999 period. The ultimate aim of the survey is to ensure that as much as possible is available for public access.
