Garuda Indonesia recruits 19 Timorese technicians

BANDUNG (JP): Flag carrier Garuda Indonesia yesterday recruited 19 East Timorese who have just completed a one-year training course on aircraft maintenance with the Air Force.

East Timor Governor Abilio Jose Osorio Soares welcomed the Garuda's decision to hire East Timorese because he felt it has helped to strengthen East Timor's integration with Indonesia, especially for youth.

The 19 youths would be employed by the national carrier in various cities throughout Indonesia with a starting salary of Rp 127,000 a month. Before coming to Bandung, they were graduates of a polytechnic in Dili, capital of East Timor.

"By assigning them to places outside East Timor, these youths will feel they are part of the Indonesian people. They will feel truly integrated," Abilio said at the induction ceremony.

The last thing these youths want is to be sent back to their home province because then they would feel that they are not needed outside East Timor, he added.

Air Force Brig. Gen. Irawan Saleh, deputy of the Air Force technical college in Bandung, said these East Timor graduates received no preferential treatment while training at the college and had proven that they were just as good as participants from other provinces.

There was a language problem initially but this was overcome after a while, he said.

"Our doors are always open to East Timorese who want to study here," he said.

Abilio was more humble in his assessment of the education situation in his province, saying that it is still in the process of catching up with the national standard.

"One of the way of doing this is by sending them to study in other provinces," he said.

Since 1976, the year of East Timor's integration with Indonesia, some 1,000 East Timorese have been sent to study outside their home province, about 500 of them on grant from the provincial government. Many of them returned to help develop their province.

The governor said he has been talking with other state companies about the possibility of providing vocational training and recruitment of East Timorese youths.

"In general, they welcomed the idea and promised to arrange something," he said.

This year Garuda also recruited 14 other East Timorese youths who were high school graduates, 10 of them as stewardesses and the other four being assigned jobs at their subsidiary, PT Aerowisata. (yac/pet)