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for Ted Whiteaker
Ted Whiteaker
After a short stint as a labourer in a brickworks, Ted commenced work as a clerk with the Commonwealth Department of Works in Darwin, transferring to Alice Springs in March 1969. He trained as an Air Traffic Controller with the Commonwealth Department of Civil Aviation at the Central Training College in Melbourne from October 1969, graduating in October 1971, with a posting to Adelaide, SA. He transferred back to Darwin in late 1971 and left Air Traffic Control in 1977.
Ted then fitted out a 50 foot wooden sailing boat and sailed for a few years in Southeast Asia and around the NT coast before settling in Darwin again in 1982. He owned and managed a business trading consumer supplies to Aboriginal communities in Eastern Arnhem Land, with some building construction, until 1995. He then established a Foxtail Palm plantation in Darwin and exported seeds to Singapore and Thailand, invested in property and finally retired from active business in 2008. Ted is now living on a semi-rural property in Howard Springs, 30 minutes from Darwin Central.
In 1975 Ted was working as an Air Traffic Controller at Darwin Airport. Cyclone Tracy had devastated Darwin on Christmas Eve of 1974, and like many other survivors he had become less materially oriented and more focused on the aesthetics of life.
When Indonesia invaded East Timor in December 1975, Fretilin forces were in control of the Dili Airport control tower for a short period and were sending teleprinter messages via the aeronautical services link to Darwin Air Traffic Control, detailing the progress of the invasion and requesting urgent assistance from the Australian Government. This link was one of only a few communication facilities available in East Timor at the time, and the messages were forwarded as and when received to the Department of Foreign Affairs in Canberra.
After several days he realised that the information was being suppressed by the Australian Government, and the public media coverage of events was very sketchy and incomplete due to the lack of communication facilities otherwise. Ted followed the tragic unfolding of events with considerable interest, and became incensed when the then Australian Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser, denied local East Timor supporters a license to operate a radio to communicate with the East Timor resistance. The blatant heartlessness of the Australian Government position engendered a feeling of profound personal despair. Ted was aware of the subsequent setup and operation of the clandestine radio link by the Darwin supporters of the resistance, and the involvement of ASIO and Government agencies generally in attempting to locate the installation and close it down.
He designed this poster himself and screen printed it at home with the help of a couple of trusted friends, and then pasted them up around Darwin in December 1976. It was a limited edition of around 50 copies, and considering the interest of the authorities in all things purporting support for East Timor's sovereignty, the anonymity of the enterprise was surprisingly successful.
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