Violence in Dili as UN offers jobs
Violence in Dili as UN offers jobs
DILI, East Timor (Agencies): Violence broke out in Dili on Saturday when thousands of poor and unemployed East Timorese scrambled to apply for jobs offered by the United Nations administration.
Some in the crowd of about 7,000 threw rocks at a small group of international peacekeeping troops and UN police officers.
Witnesses said they were frustrated that their applications for about 2,000 available positions with the world body had been rejected.
About 70 foreign, mainly Australian, peacekeepers and UN civilian police protected UN administrative officials. Many took shelter behind walls.
One Australian soldier and a television cameraman were injured by flying rocks.
Clutching their forms, thousands of frustrated East Timorese had been waited since dawn behind a barbed-wire barricade at Dili's main sports stadium to apply for a range of jobs with the United Nations, which has a two to three-year mandate to prepare East Timor for self-government.
"I estimate there were about 7,000 who got somewhat out of control while they were waiting to be interviewed for jobs, and it became fairly nasty for a while," Fred Donovan, an Australian commander in the UN's civilian police force, told Reuters.
He said the crowd had become impatient with the slow pace of interviewing applicants.
"I think (the problem was) the delay in processing the applications, that's my assessment of it. Whether there were sufficient people on hand to process the applications I don't know."
Locals said the crowd was also angry that proficiency in English was a requirement for the jobs. Few East Timorese speak much English. Indonesian and Portuguese are mainly spoken in East Timor along with the local Tetum language.
"They are angry that their applications were rejected because of their lack of skills," a witness said.
About an hour after the violence started, Nobel Peace laureate Jose Ramos-Horta arrived at the stadium and appealed for calm. "To come here and see people using violence makes me feel ashamed," he said.
Interrupting his speech, one East Timorese man called out complaining of unfair treatment.
"We stayed here and fought for 24 years, but those who traveled around the world and learned English are now getting all the jobs," he said. "It's not fair."
The peacekeepers dispersed the crowd after UN officials postponed its job interview program by a week.
Unemployment in East Timor is a legacy of the systematic destruction of homes, businesses and government infrastructure by Indonesian armed forces- backed militias in September. The scorched-earth campaign followed East Timor's Aug. 30 vote for independence from Indonesia.
Hodzic said that among the UNTAET jobs on offer were language assistants, administrative and computer clerks, vehicle mechanics, air conditioning technicians and other experts.
"It is really a wide spectrum," he said.
All employees must have at least some knowledge of English.
"We could not study English like the pro-autonomy (pro-Indonesian) people,"said Pedro Gomes, one of the thousands queuing to hand in his application form.