By Jean Christou
SOME 15,000 secondary pupils in Nicosia will be ‘punished’ for skipping school yesterday by effectively being given yet another day off, in the form of a suspension.
The majority of the capital’s 17,000 Gymnasium and Lyceum students left classes early yesterday, supposedly to attend an anti-Nato demonstration outside the US embassy.
Teachers had been unable to stop them, according to the Education Ministry, but they would be punished by individual schools, an official there said. This would most likely take the form of a one-day suspension, he added.
“They were not ‘allowed’ out,” the official said. “The Ministry does not give permission, and disciplinary action will be taken.”
It was the second time in a month that pupils left classes to demonstrate at the US embassy, and only two months since they went out to protest the capture by Turkey of Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan. These are in addition to the usual days taken each year to attend various anti- occupation demonstrations.
Asked why teachers seemed unable to prevent students from leaving classes, the Ministry official replied: “Unfortunately Madam, things have changed.”
“We have the names of all those who went out,” he added.
And despite the thousands leaving classes to participate in the protest, only about 1,000 turned up at the embassy, and these also included tertiary level students.
The remainder of the secondary school pupils, numbering close to 14,000, either went home or flocked to Nicosia’s shops and street cafés apparently unconcerned at the plight of the Serbs they had left school to support.
Dozens walked down Ledra Street singing football slogans or crowded into Woolworths, giving the shop’s security guards a nightmare morning.
Yesterday was only the second day back at school after the two-week Easter break. Children of school age have been conspicuous by their absence at the regular protests organised throughout the holidays outside the embassy by expatriate Serbs.
And as in the past, the demonstration lasted only as long as school hours, and by 1pm the protest area was empty.
The students who did go began to arrive at the embassy at around 11.30am, with banners saying: “war is not a way to bring peace” and “how many children did you kill today?”
Students’ representatives gave speeches and read out a resolution condemning the Nato bombing of Yugoslavia. They also called on the students not to throw eggs and other projectiles at the embassy. The plea fell on deaf ears, as eggs and lemons rained down on the shields of some 100 riot police. A small group of pupils also burned a European Union flag, but there were no serious incidents. Most of the children, apart from a hard core of around 50 waving Greek and Yugoslav flags close to the demo podium, stood around the fringes and chatted among themselves.
The speeches were followed by a short concert, which culminated in a rendition of John Lennon’s Imagine.
