Indonesian Teachers Become Victims .c The Associated Press By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA DILI, Indonesia (AP) -- Someone guns down a teacher in a classroom in East Timor. Rebels are suspected. Thieves rob the house of another educator, and he suspects his own students. Youths stab an Indonesian high school principal on the street. ``You're not from East Timor, we're going to kill you,'' the principal, Carolus Sukarno, remembers one of his three assailants saying during the December attack. They left him bleeding on the ground. East Timor has become a fearful place for thousands of Indonesian teachers who migrated here, enticed by the promise of better government pay despite the bitter conflict that has prevailed ever since Indonesia invaded the territory in 1975. Now many want to leave, the victims of a swell of threats and violence by separatist activists, many of them their own students. A new round of U.N.-sponsored peace talks between Indonesia and Portugal is scheduled Wednesday and Thursday in New York. Indonesia has offered to grant independence to East Timor if its people reject an autonomy offer. The autonomy plan was to be presented by the end of April. About 50 East Timorese students rallied today in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, pressing their demands for independence as well as the release of Jose Alexandre Gusmao, the detained separatist rebel chief. At the same time, some 500 elementary and high school teachers held an emotional rally of their own in East Timor's coastal capital, Dili, demanding the government protect them and find them safe jobs in their home islands. An education ministry envoy from Jakarta urged the crowd to be patient, but his appeal was drowned out as teachers shouted their desire in English: ``Go home.'' As Indonesians, the teachers are resented by many native East Timorese who associate them with the human rights abuses perpetrated by the Indonesian military over the years. ``The students always intimidate us, they hit the teachers, they damage the schools. We and our families are under pressure,'' said teacher Didin Hernomo, one in a string of witnesses who testified before the Jakarta education delegate. In December, gunmen believed to be separatist rebels burst into a classroom and shot and killed an elementary school teacher in front of his pupils in the East Timorese town of Viqueque. The victim was suspected of collaborating with the Indonesian military. The government said Monday that it has agreed to fund the transfer of teachers who want to leave East Timor, but a departure date has not been set. The prospect of an exodus of teachers raises questions about how East Timor would survive on its own if Indonesia were to withdraw as hastily as the Portuguese did in 1974. Indonesian President B.J. Habibie has said he wants a solution to the East Timor quandary before the end of the year. Only about half of the 6,000 teachers in East Timor are native to the half- island territory, so the sudden absence of Indonesian educators would cripple the education system. A number of Indonesian doctors have already left, complaining of intimidation. Thousands of merchants and farmers from islands such as Java and Sulawesi have boarded ships for home. Separatist leaders have urged their supporters to avoid fighting with pro- Indonesian militias and East Timor has been largely quiet in recent days. But tension is unlikely to dissipate soon. At the teachers' rally, the high school principal, Sukarno, pulled open his shirt to reveal the knife scars in his belly. He said his students have only become more unruly since the attack, and on Monday were walking on the classroom desks. ``I told them, 'You can go, and don't ever come back,''' Sukarno said. AP-NY-03-09-99 0508EST Copyright 1998 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without prior written authority of The Associated Press.
