Timorese support call for scholarships

BY MICHAEL DOYLE AND KIM BULLIMORE

NEWCASTLE -- Young East Timorese are enthusiastic about calls for the Australian government to extend scholarships so they can study in this country, an activist recently returned from East Timor told a University of Newcastle forum on March 29.

Jackie Coleman, a member of Action in Solidarity with Indonesia and East Timor (ASIET), told the ``Rebuilding East Timor'' forum that ASIET's call for 1,000 university and TAFE scholarships to be extended to Timorese students would help develop the skills and knowledge needed to reconstruct and govern the new East Timor and had been well received in the emerging nation.

Coleman, who spent January in East Timor teaching English at the Maubere Cultural Institute in Dili, said that young people have very limited educational or employment opportunities in East Timor. The aid agencies operating there employ foreign English-speaking workers, instead of East Timorese.

Coleman said that living conditions are deteriorating because no concerted effort is being made to rebuild housing. The United Nations Transitional Authority in East Timor is still in its ``humanitarian emergency'' phase, concentrating on the distribution of food and medical aid, she said, and will not begin the rebuilding phase until August.

Coleman urged students to support the May 13 National Day of Action for Justice for East Timor and All Refugees, which includes the call for 1,000 scholarships among its demands.

In Newcastle the action will commence at the Stockton Ferry terminal on Wharf Road at 10:30am on May 13. For more information ring Peter or Adam on 02 49265328.

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