Students go on the rampage after police break up demo

Several hundred students went on the rampage in the capital of Guinea-Bissau after police used baton charges, tear gas and shots in the air to break up a demonstration by secondary school pupils protesting at a strike by their teachers. Eyewitnesses said several dozen students were arrested in the disturbances that took place on Thursday. Bissau’s main avenue was closed to vehicle traffic and the city’s main market was shut down as a result of the clashes. Those arrested included Iaia Ture, the chairman of the National Union of Students of Guinea-Bissau. The students initially gathered peacefully to demonstrate outside the office of Prime Minister Artur Sanha. They were protesting against a strike by their teachers which began last Monday to demand the payment of four months of salary arrears. Schools in this former Portuguese colony of 1.3 million people have been able to achieve very little over the past two years because of a series of walkouts by unpaid teachers. The situation turned ugly after the police used heavy-handed tactics to break up the demonstration. The students reacted by marching on the headquarters of Sanha’s Social Renovation Party (PRS). There they set fire to a car belonging to the party, stole loudspeaker equipment and portable generators and destroyed materials prepared for use in the campaign for parliamentary elections on March 28. PRS spokesman Joaquim Batista Corriea accused other political parties, which he refused to name, of encouraging the students to attack the PRS headquarters. The PRS is the party of former president Kumba Yala, who was deposed in a bloodless coup last September. However, Sanha, who belonged to a dissident wing of the party, was chosen to lead a broad-based interim government charged with organising this month’s parliamentary poll and presidential elections in early 2005. President Henrique Rosa, a respected businessman appointed by the army to lead Guinea-Bissau back to democracy, said he blamed the striking teachers, more than their pupils for the disturbances. He questioned why the teachers had timed their strike just before the parliamentary elections. Official campaigning is due to start on Monday.