On April 23, Indonesian scholar Dr George Aditjondro announced that he would be a sponsor of the August 25 national day of solidarity to demand withdrawal of Australia's formal recognition of Indonesia's annexation of East Timor.
The day of action is also being sponsored by John Pilger, the director of East Timor: Death of a Nation. Other recent sponsors include Hugh Ekeberg in Darwin, Australia's most persistent internet campaigner for East Timor. Also sponsoring from Darwin are social justice activist Colin Friels and from the Northern Territory Greens, Caroline Tapp.
The University of Adelaide Students Representative Council has joined the list of supporters, along with South Australian Aid to Ireland and the Urban Ecology Environment Centre. Diana Felipe, from the Adelaide East Timorese community, has joined the local August 25 organising committee. Maung Maung Naing, representative of the All Burma Students League, has also become a sponsor.
In Perth, Nelson "Mandela" Armindo Baptista, as well as being active in the local Fretilin Committee and East Timor community soccer world, has become a sponsor of August 25. Nelson earned the name "Mandela" as a result of his leading role in the youth movement in East Timor and later in Java.
In Canberra, Anthony Burke has become a sponsor. He was a founding member in Sydney of the East Timor Talks campaign and is now carrying out research in the Department of Politics at the Australian National University. He is part of the group, along with Campaign for an Independent East Timor (ACT) and ASIET, organising a protest against a regional security conference being held in Canberra in May.
A new student coalition in Tasmania, Students in Solidarity with Indonesia and East Timor (SSIET), the Tasmanian West Papua Association and well-known Tasmanian independent activist Austra Maddocks have also become supporters.
The East Timor Cultural Centre, based in Sydney, has also sent in a request to become a sponsor.
Anybody wishing further information about the August 25 action or who would like to be a sponsor should write to the initiating group secretariat, c/- Christians in Solidarity with East Timor, PO Box 1150, Burwood North NSW 2134 or fax (02) 745 3423.