BISSAU, Dec 4 (AFP) - Police in Guinea-Bissau used teargas Wednesday to
disperse about 2,000 students who demonstrated in the capital to back a
demand by state schoolteachers for the payment of long overdue wages.
   After the mainly teenaged students dispersed, they went to privately
owned schools in the capital of the small west African nation to drive
pupils out of classes there, an AFP correspondent reported.
   "If there's no school for us, there shouldn't be for other pupils
either," one of the youngsters told AFP.
   State schools across Guinea-Bissau had been due to open for the new
academic year in October, but teachers have kept them closed, asking the
government to come up with three months of back pay as well as bonuses that
have been due for a year.
   "Until our demands are met, there will be no classes," the president of
the SINAPROF teachers' union, Vincent Mendes, told AFP.

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