CLANDESTINE RADIO LINK BETWEEN AUSTRALIA AND TIMOR

 The  ashes of  Toni  Belo , who  helped  run   the  Darwin  end  of  Radio Maubere, which  communicated  with  Fretilin freedom  fighters  in  East Timor  during  the early part of  the Indonesian  invasion , were recently  scattered  in  Baucau , Timor-Leste, according to information received from  Robert Wesley-Smith ,  in   Perth , Western  Australia .

 Belo was mentioned in the 2005 book  Last Flight out of Dili Memoirs of an accidental activist in the triumph of East Timor , by David Scott ,which described  how  the  important  radio  operated  from  September 1975 to December 1978.

The  National Film and  Sound Archive (NFSA)   in Canberra   has  a  Radio  Maubere  section  which  includes  the   Darwin receiver  and the photo, below , showing  Wesley-Smith , right , with Laurentino Pires  , talking to Timor,  from  a   location  near  Darwin . 

For years ,the receiver ,below,  with a home made antenna constructed around an empty  Goulburn Valley fruit can ,  was  kept  in  Wesley-Smith's Darwin  flat . 

Radio Maubere broadcasts were in a mixture of  English, Portuguese and Tetum, the native language of Timor Leste. Many broadcasts contained coded messages from  Fretilin. 

These broadcasts were recorded on audio cassettes in Darwin by the Darwin-based members of the Campaign for an Independent East Timor. The cassettes were then passed on to the journalist Denis Freney (1936-95). Some of  the 192 analogue cassettes, over 50 hours of broadcasts, were later lodged with the NFSA in January 2002 by John Waddingham,  the Perth-based  archivist and early publisher of the Timor Information Service.

The  Darwin  equipment was donated to the  National  Film  and Sound  Archive by  the  late   Martin Wesley-Smith , another  activist .