By Jo Brown
"The Australian government betrayed the people of East Timor. It supported the invasion. It supported Suharto. It signed the Timor Gap oil treaty with Indonesia. It supported Indonesia remaining in charge of security before, during and after the independence ballot in August — and so was complicit in the bloodshed of last year. There is a debt to pay", solidarity activist Martin Iltis told Resistance magazine.
Iltis is a representative of ASIET, Action in Solidarity with Indonesia and East Timor. "We're organising campaigns to demand that the federal government stop trying to kick Timorese asylum seekers out of the country, and for massive reconstruction aid to be paid from a levy on all Australian businesses which profited out of the oppression of East Timor", he explained.
Iltis said that ASIET did not support the "Timor tax" introduced to pay for Australian troops' intervention. "It is Australian businesses which profited from the occupation, and which wanted to maintain good relations with the Suharto government. They should be paying, not the Australian people."
Scholarships
ASIET's groups on university campuses are presently organising a campaign to demand 1000 government-funded scholarships for East Timorese, so that they can study at Australian universities and TAFE colleges.
The federal government used to provide such funding for overseas students from Third World countries to come to Australia to study, Iltis points out. But the program was cut in 1986, marking the beginning of the end of free tertiary education for all students in Australia.
ASIET's club at the University of Melbourne has called on the university itself to provide scholarships. A petition has been signed by hundreds of students since the campaign was launched during Orientation Week.
The club's members point out that Melbourne University Private, the full-fee paying section of the university, was involved in training Indonesian military officers in a "strategic studies" course in 1999, and that the university therefore has its own debt to pay to the people of East Timor.
ASIET's campaign is drawing on a widespread awareness and sympathy amongst students, generated by the dire situation in East Timor and the solidarity campaigns organised last year. The University Students for East Timor group at the University of Melbourne is also asking students to donate books and other materials.
At the University of Sydney the demand for scholarships has been included in a "log of claims" campaign seeking to improve on-campus conditions.
Universities
Those supporting ASIET's initiative believe that education will be important in building up the skills and knowledge needed to reconstruct East Timor's shattered infrastructure and social services, and for Timorese to administer and govern their own society. In many cases, educational programs have to start from scratch, as Timorese were excluded from many educational and administrative bodies under Indonesian rule.
Study areas of particular importance will be engineering, agriculture, architecture and building, geology and medicine, as well as social studies, politics, languages and journalism. But there are no functioning universities in East Timor at present.
Benevides Correia Barros, from the student organisation Renetil, explained in an interview on Sydney's 2SER radio on March 13 that, on top of students who were studying at universities in East Timor, thousands of East Timorese who were studying in Jakarta have now returned, and are unable to finish their degrees.
"There is no department of education. Everything is not working yet. As far as the youth and students are concerned, prioritising education is important", he said.
The East Timor Student Solidarity Council (ETSSC) has established a centre to provide study facilities for 6-8000 university students currently unable to study. Even before the events of last year, universities were short on basic needs such as books, typewriters, computers and scholarship funds. Now they need everything from tables to pens, scissors, and educational texts.
Barros and Nelson de Sousa of the ETSCC have been touring Australia seeking support, and meeting with trade unions and student unions in Darwin, Melbourne and Sydney. They supported the campaign for scholarships, but stressed the need to rebuild the education system within East Timor.
Some organisations are discussing specific campaigns to aid reconstruction. The National Tertiary Education Industry Union decided in September to aid the reconstruction of the University of Dili.
Schools
There are no public schools operating yet. The ETSSC is organising community study groups and rebuilding secondary schools in Baucau and Viqueque; its members are teaching primary school classes in many areas.
Schools focussing on basic literacy and English are being set up by organisations such as the Maubere Cultural Institute, and the Maubere Cooperative Foundation (KOPERMAR) set up by the Socialist Party of Timor in 1997.
English is often a requirement of employment with the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) and overseas non-government organisations.
English language teaching is viewed as important in allowing people to participate in the new society. Many see it as a bridge to the development of the indigenous language, Tetum, as a national language.
New curriculums have to be developed, as schools taught a prescribed Indonesian curriculum under the occupation. There are few available buildings and basic facilities such as books, chairs, pencils and paper (let alone photocopiers and computers) are scarce.
Iltis said "There is still so much to be done. We should not only be providing as much material support as we can, but building political solidarity with struggles for real justice in East Timor. Overseas workers with UNTAET and the various non-government organisations are paid well, while most East Timorese are unemployed or work for around US$6 a day."
The Socialist Party of Timor, amongst others, is calling for reconstruction to be speeded up, for improved aid distribution, an increase in wages for East Timorese workers and lower prices for basic goods.
[For copies of the scholarship petition, contact the ASIET national office on (02) 9690 1032 or see pages 28-29 for local branch and campus club contact details. Avelino da Silva, secretary general of the Socialist Party of Timor, will be in Australia in April for a national speaking tour being organised by ASIET.]