National Archives

National Archives

Introduction

As an autonomous Institution, the National Archives is affixed to the Ministry of the State Administration and Territorial Management (MAEOT) under the Government Decree No. 2/2003 of 23 July and its principle duty as stated in the article 3, verse 3, 4, 5 and article 13 are as follows:

In the domain documentation and the State Archive:

Promote documents which reconciled and reconstituted to inhale and develop the historic archive of the nation.
Propose and develop norms and instruction in regards to classification, treatment and the archiving of the documentation
Guarantee the researchers, students and public to have access to the archiving documentation which according to the government are no longer covert.
Promote modernization of service and specialization of work by personnel of Historical archive of Timor Leste;
Establish continue…
Ensure the researcher, students and publish in general to (same with c)
Promote patronization of norms and practices in the archiving of public administration

In the area of formation, staff professionalism and specialization will be promoted.

In the area of publication of official documents, the documents will be published as the are being release.

Article 13

The National Archive is an entity in the hierarchy of the Ministry of the State Administration and Order of the Territory which has mandate as follows:

To promote documents that reconcile and reconstitute. Thus it inhale and develop the historic archive of the nation.
Sketch and develop norms and instruction concerning classification, treatment, restore and archiving of documents.
Guarantee the researchers, students and public to have access to the archiving documentation which according to the government are no longer covert.
Promote modernization of service and specialization of work by personnel of Historical archive of Timor Leste.
The National Archive will have its own statute which will be approved in a year.

As public institution National Archive has the responsibility to exert, promote, inspect and manage the archiving information management such as concurrence documents which gathered through the different supports, different formation as well as by different natures whereby they are enact and accepted by all sectors, institutions and public entities when they exercise their duty and administrative role, legislative and jurisdiction in national level and local. The concurrence documents which are part of private right entity which uphold to perform public duty including private judiciary which has been declared as documents pertaining to public and social interest.
The National Archive has mandate to gather, keep, preserve, conserve and secure archives that are characterized as permanent when they are submitted and make them as part of national patrimony archives and as well as to promote access to the information of the permanent archives of country history.

Since 2000 National Archive has accomplished the following activities:

Collect documents that are scattered around the government palace; container of National Police of Timor Leste; PKF Camp at Tasi Tolu, INAP, Human Rights (Current building of Ministry of Agriculture and Fishery) at Fohomento (Current building of Ministry of Development) and in the districts and sub districts.
Prepare collected documents such as document of Portuguese Administration and Indonesian Administration; in 2000 we begun collect documents in 3 different areas, Government palace which contains administration documents of Portuguese and Indonesia. During that period through the orientation of 3 International staffs and Prof. Dr. José Matoso a Portuguese citizen, together with 8 national staffs were able to cleaned, sorted and collect documents in boxes which are appropriate for archiving. From this activity we may see in the picture shown the place at the government palace where documents are conserve.
Collect documents at districts and sub districts level as done during UNTAET period.
In 2004 National Archive is supported by an archiving consultant whose duty to prepare legislative material such as National Policy for Archiving and the statute of National Archive. Followed by the 2 weeks workshop in conjunction to the legislative material which has been proposed to the government. Staffs were being trained by the consultant on the management of archiving documents.
National Archive staffs are being trained by a trainer of Rádio Televisão Timor Leste together with the Chief of Audio visual National Archive on the utilization of media equipments such as Handy Cam and Camera.
National Archive staff were sent for practicum, training and oversees visit such to Portugal, Malaysia and Australia.
National Archive staffs are also conducting survey activity in accordance to the funds provided on the permanent documents such as Portuguese and Indonesia administration; selection and evaluation; as well as Inventory and registry.

The National Archive has not given yet public access to the document which are in phase of preparation for research instrument.