(submitted, courtesy author, by Francisco Monteiro 19 Dec 2001)
[Francisco Monteiro: This article was written on 6th March 1964 by Bonnie Lubega. The author of this article is an Ugandan journalist in his home country. He was educated at Holy Family Seminary, St Henry's College and St Joseph's Teacher's Training College in Uganda. In his capacity as journalist he came to England in 1958 at the invitation of the Colonial Office. He was also a guest of the Republic of Sudan in 1962 and until recently of the Federal Republic of Germany. A faithful seeker of truth, he is fearless in expressing his opinions. In his own words, he "chose to stick to truth, however bitter it may be".]
I want the reader to know from the beginning that my intention to write this is from a purely curious point of view of the political situation regarding Goa, from which part of the world I have had an opportunity to meet many friends.
There are many Goans living in Uganda and before I was journalist I worked with many of them in various occupations. I learned from them and from various writings that Goa was in the Indian subcontinent well settled, developed and through centuries became undebatably prosperous. This prosperity has never escaped the eye of the world press, which had to connect it with Indian Union's intentions to annex it. The few examples from the world press are as follows:
"Der Spiegel" a well-known German political news magazine, issued an article on 10th January 1962: "Behind the violent occupation of Goa by India stands the economic interest as Goa's export of iron will yearly add 250 million DM into the Indian Treasury to build up its money reserves from only 982 Million Rupees (825 million DM)."
"Miami Herald" of 19th December, 1961, reports of an American who spent a week in Goa negotiating the sale of three transport planes and who said back in America: "Iron is so plentiful in Goa that they use for building farm fences. Goa abounds in rich iron and manganese mines. While the Goanese may be poor compared with US standards, they are certainly not, compared with the peoples of the Middle and Far East. India's steel mills had reached their capacity and needed more iron ore."
"The Daily Telegraph" of 5th December, 1961, reported: "Goa earns more than 10 Million pounds a year at present from her mining operations by exporting mostly to Japan and west Germany. This incidentally is a good reason for grabbing the colony so far as hard-currency hungry India is concerned."
And on the 14th of the same month the same paper repeated:
"Until 1956 direct rail connections between Goa and the Indian Union and free interchange of passenger and goods traffic such as manganese from Mysore and Bombay States in India, and from Goa to India; coal for Indian railway; oil products for places in South of Bombay State, passed through the port of Mormugão".
"At the end of 1955 for political reasons, the Indian Government closed the frontier and a portion of the railway on the Indian side of the border was dismantled and the interchanges of traffic ceased. The action had a reverse effect. The mining of iron ore, which is of excellent quality and which was only on a small scale before 1956, was rapidly developed. By the resources and enterprises of mine-owners in Goa, ready markets were found in Japan and Europe".
"During the twelve months ending March 31st, 1961, no less than six million tons of Goa-mined ore were exported through Mormugão, bringing great prosperity to Goa and its people".
"It is therefore not surprising, perhaps that India casts envious eyes at Goa and would be pleased to incorporate it into the Union. Last year, 1960, Japan bought nearly three million tons of ore from Goa and have stated that they would like to take at least six million tons".
These are just a few examples I wanted to bring to the mind of the reader so that he may be well acquainted with little Goa and its dependencies (Damão and Diu) if he should know its political situation and its economic standpoint which, I am sure, if Goa were left to administer itself, she gives the country a good chance to develop its economy.
There should still be good relations, political and economic between Goa and India, as aforesaid, and India would only be proud to use her neighbour's mineral and tell the world how proud she felt of the little sister country, free from Portuguese or any other colonial rule.
Nehru in Bombay June 4, 1956!
"I want to make it perfectly clear that I have no desire to coerce Goa to join India against the wishes of the people of Goa... but the point is that we feel that Goa's individuality should remain and that whenever the time comes for any changes, internal or other, it will be for the people of Goa acting freely, to decide upon them."
"India's armed invasion of Goa will be viewed with shocked surprise by the nations of the free world. Mr. Nehru, who had become the embodiment of pacifism, with the policy favouring peaceful negotiations before the International Court of Justice, has shed his role of peacemaker, and now, against a roar of Indian aircraft and the thunder of their bombs, says India felt she had 'no alternative' but to move into Goa." - News Chronicle, 20th December, 1961.
The above statements which, by sheer coincidence, I came across in a library in Germany, aroused my curiosity and attention and, as an African individual among the rest of my fellow Africans who hate any sort of colonialism in any form it may appear, decided at my leisure time to dig a little bit into these interesting affairs connected with the eminent man who himself played a big role in the world peacemaking, and the turbulent angry voices raised against him and accusing him of dictatorship and colonialism, which he was known to hate so much.
But was Mr. Nehru, the Indian Prime Minister, really a colonialist and a dictator as far as these three territories are concerned? Did he not liberate them in the true sense of the world from the colony-hungry Portugal which still has African territories suffering under the yoke of its colonial rule?
According to historical notes concerning India and Goa, I have found that - facing truth and facts - although small in size, the three territories of Goa, Damão and Diu - all together 175 sq. miles, and with a population today of over 600.000 - existed officially 437 years, long before the gigantic Indian Union existed only 16 years ago, with her immense population of 450 million.
History tells us that a Portuguese captain named Afonso de Albuquerque arrived in Goa in March, 1510, only to face a great welcome from the natives who were then under a tyrant ruler styling himself as "Lord of Goa", the Adil Khan, an all-powerful ruler in western Deccan. On arrival of Albuquerque, the Adil Khan was absent being engaged in a war with the neighbouring lands.
When he heard of this Christian newcomer, the Adil Khan reacted by recruiting a large army of mercenaries from the Moslem Middle East. Albuquerque had only 1,681 men who faced a force said to have been ten times stronger but which, owing to lack of strategy on its side, he conquered in the battle on 25th November 1510.
"He then improved and developed Goa after the western Portuguese fashion. His intentions were to spread Christianity; to transmit a culture and establish a trade post for Portugal; otherwise he could have extended and set up a greater colonial empire in India had he wished to do so." We are also told that "the power of the Portuguese authorities over the Indian Christians sprang from two special circumstances: first, the Holy See in Rome had given the Kingdom of Portugal special rights over the dioceses within its overseas possessions, the Christians of India asked and received special Portuguese protection from their powerful non-Christian neighbours."
Professor J. B. Trend, of the Cambridge University, in his book "Portugal" says: Four hundred and fifty years afterwards, the Portuguese enclaves in India still have a Portuguese look a Portuguese mentality.... They have had, for centuries of their history, a type of rule and culture which has given them an affection for the European side of their ancestry; they think like Portuguese though they speak to each other in an Indo-European language of their own, the Konkani.
The Goans are not a creation of the New Indian Union. They are the creation of Albuquerque; indeed the differences in mentality from any of the inhabitants of the India of Dr. Nehru is always becoming greater, for the national characteristics of the Goans, whether they live in Goa, Bombay, are very different from those of the Union."
Now my arguments are based on my firm belief in freedom for all peoples and in the inalienable right of all peoples to choose, without let or hindrance, their own way of life. When the Indian Republic took over Goa and other Portuguese territories in the Indian subcontinent, I honestly felt that things had turned out, as they should. For the territories in question were undoubtedly colonial occupations.
I decided to brush aside as of secondary importance the uncomfortable questions of the use of force by India, after Mr. Nehru's repeated pledges not to attack Goa, and the Soviet veto in the United Nations debate on Goa, compared to the advantages of freedom which would accrue to the liberated people of Goa, Damão and Diu.
Nor was my faith in the liberation shaken when I learnt that the territories had been annexed to the Indian Union Republic by an act of the Indian Government. For years I had been reading and hearing that the Goan people were anxious to sever themselves from the Portuguese colonial rule and join to India. After all were they not, in a broad sense of the meaning, Indian too? And on the day of the liberation I happened to be one of the many invited guests for the celebrations thereof in the city of Kampala, by a community of Goans living in Uganda. I could not imagine what would be the later effects, for I took all this in good faith.
But the Goan Conference in Paris and their efforts to petition the United Nations for the right of self-determination, and the angry voices from the world press, of which I had hitherto never been aware, were the results to my doubts following my former complacent belief in the liberation of Goa. Could it be that the case of Goa was not exactly as I had figured it to be? Could it be, after all, that the Indian annexation of Goa and its dependencies was really a denial of the principles of self-determination?
We are told that the non-violent Gandhi, whose disciple Mr. Nehru has all the time been known to have been, once said: "The Goans have no problems to discuss like Hindus have with the British." But then we are also told that since India gained her independence from the British, Mr. Nehru has been very uncomfortable about the presence of Portugal in Goa, the solution to which problem had to be discussed many a time in his speeches, suggesting peaceful ways and means to see that Goa "joins Mother India."
The New York World-Telegram issued on 18th December, 1961, tell us among other things that ".... when he (Mr. Nehru) was Mohandas Gandhi's disciple, he accepted the master's doctrine of non-violence as a political weapon simply because it happened to be the right policy at the time India was seeking freedom from Britain. It was not something he believed in absolutely. He explained once: "The majority of us, I take it, judge the issues not on moral but on practical grounds, and if we reject the way of violence it is because it promises no substantial results."
On the question of Goa, the same paper says: "In 1955, when some Indians suggested taking Goa wasn't much a military problem, Mr. Nehru drew back from the thought of war and said: 'THE FACT THAT A WAR IS A LITTLE WAR DOESN'T MAKE IT LESS WAR.'"
Now let us see the argument advanced by the Indian Government resulting in its drastic action "to drive out the colonialist Portuguese":
• Goa and its dependencies, Damão and Diu, were foreign pockets on Indian soil. They are part of Indian territory;
Colonialism is permanent aggression;
• The Goan people, the majority of whom are Hindus, wished to be liberated from Portuguese rule.
Now considering these arguments in the light of facts, and admitting that the three pieces were foreign pockets on Indian soil, does it necessarily mean that we are given to believe that they are parts of Indian territory?
I personally suggest that defining the term "Indian territory" implies the notion of a state to which the territory belongs, which is in this case the Republic of India which came into being in 1947, many, many years after Goa had existed as a different territory in 1510. Here one finds it absurd to believe the inference that Goa, whether as a Portuguese territory or whether as a completely independent territory, should be deemed as part of the Republic of India which did not exist.
To me the Indian argument seems to imply that the Republic existed potentially perhaps since the Vedic times, as I understand it claims to represent a culture, which originated in the remote area.
If this line of thought, were to be accepted, one would have to admit that the whole Indian subcontinent should be the territory of the Republic of India or of some other Hindu State representing Vedic culture. But when one glances at the history of the Indian subcontinent, one knows that the geographical region known as India received in the course of time more than one cultural influence.
For instance, this subcontinent was for a long time dominated politically and culturally by Mohammedans; then later came the Portuguese, the French and the British, who took to the subcontinent the values of the western culture and of Christian civilization.
On the other hand, at no time in history was the subcontinent politically united, because history tell us that there were Hindus empires and kingdoms just as there were Mohammedan empires and kingdoms, and lastly there was the empire of British India, none of all these empires and kingdoms extending at a time over the entire geographical region known today as India. And during the rise and fall of all these empires and kingdoms, we hear of none of them affecting Goa which was well under way after the Western Culture and political institutions.
My argument in this field leads me to believe the fact accepted by the political leaders of the Republic of India that the subcontinent was the home of more than one nationality, and therefore agreed to the division of British India in two independent States as lately as 1947; and thus Pakistan came into being, although it is situated in the Indian subcontinent, it is not a part of Indian territory, that is, of the Republic of India, much the same as one would say of the old Hindu kingdom of Nepal and the princedoms of Sikkim and Bhutan.
The Republic of India as we know it today, if I'm right, grew out of a part of the former British India which was itself held a part of the Indian subcontinent which counts in Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan, Pakistan and, if you will, Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and Burma (Myanmar) as well. And does not the very description of Goa as a "foreign pocket" as often pointed out by Mr. Nehru, show that the territory was all the time regarded by the people of the Republic of India and their political leaders as a foreign territory and not a part of India?
Let us face the following facts, for instance:
(1) Before India severed her diplomatic ties with Portugal, as any sensible anti-colonial country would undoubtedly do in protest to see another country free from a colonial yoke, just as Uganda severed the diplomatic ties with Portugal in protest to see that all Portuguese possessions are given their freedom, she (India) through her then Charge d'Affaires in Lisbon, in aide-memoire, presented a request to Portugal to transfer sovereignty in Goa, Damão and Diu. Did this not mean that India had no political jurisdiction favour any claim whatever over Goa?
(2) From 1947, the year of India's Independence, until 1955, New Delhi kept a Consul-General in Goa, which means that from the day India came into being as a nation, for the next eight years, she recognised that Goa and its dependencies were not "Indian territories."
(3) I understand that on the 12th April, 1960, the International Court of Justice in the Hague, giving judgement on what is known as the Right of Passage Case, in which the Government of India was the defendant, ruled that India had no right of claim on the enclaves of Dadra and Nagar Aveli, parts of the district of Damão, and one of the dependencies of Goa.
(4) In the United Nations General Assembly India was among those members who voted for Resolution 1542(XV) listing Goa and its dependencies under a foreign administration.
(5) Here, to go back to the speech delivered by Mr. Nehru on 4th June, 1956, we find these words spoken publicly by the eminent man known to be playing a big role in the world peace arbitration:
"I want to explain myself. If the people of Goa, that is, minus the Portuguese Government, and when the Portuguese go and the people of Goa deliberately wish to retain their separate identity, I'm not going to bring them by force or coercion or compulsion in the Indian Union. I want them to come, and I'm quite certain they want to come too. But that is not the point. I merely say that my national interest involves the removal of the Portuguese from Goa, not coercion being used in bringing about the union of Goa with India although I wish it, I desire it and it is the only solution....
"That is matter ultimately for the people of Goa to decide.... I want to make perfectly clear that I have no desire to coerce Goa to join India against the wishes of the people of Goa.... But the point is that we feel that Goa's individuality should remain and that whenever the time comes for any changes, internal or other, it will be for the people of Goa acting freely to decide upon them."
From the forgoing statement it is therefore to my conviction that the Government of India and its political leaders; the United Nations General Assembly and the International Court of Justice, recognised that Goa and its dependencies were NOT Indian Territories.
COLONIALISM A PERMANENT AGGRESSION
I fully agree with the Government of India that "Colonialism is a permanent aggression." Colonialism, in my belief and conviction, is just that; whether a territory is directly colonised by a distant foreign power, or whether it is "liberated" by a fellow continental or sub-continental power that turns out to annex it to itself and make it its own conquered booty, instead of setting it free to administer itself, according to its own way of choice, without being forced to do things according to its "liberator."
We are aware of the United Nations' principles already laid down in Resolution 1541(XV), should such colonial possessions become free, that:
Principle vi: "A non-self-governing territory can be said to have reached a full measure of self-government by:
• Emergence as a sovereign independent state;
• Free association with independent state; or
• Integration with an independent state.
Principle ix: Integration should have come about on the following circumstances:
a) The integrating territory should have attained an advanced stage of self-government with free political institutions, so that its people would have the capacity to make a responsible choice through informed and democratic processes;
b) Their integration should be the result of the freely expressed wishes of the territory's people acting with full knowledge of the change in their status, their wishes having been expressed through informed and democratic processes impartially conducted and based on universal adult suffrage. The United Nations could, when it deems it necessary, supervise these processes."
According to the foregoing conclusions concerning the relationship between Goa and Mr. Nehru's India, and concerning the above-mentioned principles in the United Nations, which she, India, herself helped draft and accepted as the democratic means of cooperation and understanding between territories and nations, I just wonder whether India on the question of Goa did not disregard them, especially where means of armed forces were used.
Admitting that "Portuguese presence as a colonial power in Goa threatened the security of the Republic of India" and that even if there were no resolutions passed in UN applying to Goa and its dependencies, I fail to see why an armed action by India should have been used "to drive out the Portuguese" when the two powers, as members of the UNO, bound by Article 2 paragraphs 3 and 4 of the UN Charter, should not stick to that.
Article 2(3) tells us that "All members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security and justice are not endangered."
Article 2(4): "All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat of use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations."
The Houston Press issued an article on 18th December, 1961, with the heading: "THE GOA INVASION" and said among other things: "It is deplorable that Indian Prime Minister Nehru has resorted to the use of force to try to take over Goa and the other small Portuguese possessions on the Indian subcontinent... Mr. Nehru - the alleged pacifist - chose to ignore the suggestion made by Portugal itself that: the principle of self-determination be invoked, with the people being allowed to decide by plebiscite whether they wanted to remain Portuguese or join to India..."
The New York World-Telegram of the same date said: "He (Mr. Nehru) ranged from critical to indignant when Britain, France and Israel invaded Egypt; when Russia crushed the Hungarian revolt, and when the United States backed the rebel invasion of Fidel Castro's Cuba... The Prime Minister in this invasion of Goa, ignored President Kennedy's plea to avoid the use of force... He has now adopted the philosophy that might makes right... Portugal has no more right to Goa than Britain has to India or France to Indochina. All three took territory because they had power to and held the natives under thumb. That was imperialism. Mr. Nehru has been a life-long foe of it. But action against Goa also is imperialism, although he may call it "liberation".
The New York Times also issued on the same date had this to say: "Prime Minister Nehru has abruptly answered peace appeals from President Kennedy and from UN Acting Secretary-General U Thant, by sending troops into the little Portuguese enclave of Goa...
"The explanations that Gandhi's former associate gives for this action are not compelling. Apparently the Portuguese have been strengthening their forces in Goa and Mr. Nehru speaks of 'provocative attacks' but it is hard to see what damage the tiny Portuguese units could do to anything except India's pride...."
The paper went on to say: "It is true that Portugal's claim that Goa is a Portuguese province is unconvincing. Goa is a colony, no matter what legal fiction has been contrived in Lisbon, and, if the Goans agreed, it should have been amicably transferred to India years ago, as were the small French enclaves that remained on Indian soil after India became independent.... It is nevertheless inexcusable that India - a self-styled champion of peace - should now resort to military invasion of Goa."
The New York Journal-American issued another attack on 19th December, 1961, saying: "How are the US, the United Nations and the 'neutralist' nations going to handle this case of bare-faced aggression by a nation which hypocritically has arrogated for itself the role of moral judge of other nations? Are we going to let this become another case where the UN is stymied by Soviet vetoes or ganged-up 'neutralist' votes, if those parties find the aggression to their self-interest? After the debatable US support for crushing anti-Communists in the Congo, can we this time do more for our self-interest than merely 'deplore' or 'regret' aggression?
"There is no question but that India is acting purely in self-interest, gobbling a neighbour. And this is not the first time; Nehru grabbed Kashmir from Pakistan and has defied UN resolutions for a plebiscite since 1948.... Americans reports from inside Goa gave the lie to India on the eve of invasion. There was no Portuguese military build-up, as the Indians claimed."
We read from records that all the time before the invasion India had refused any kind of negotiation short of her claim of a transfer of sovereignty, and that from Portugal's obstinacy to do so, India lodged attacks to the effect that Portugal was threatening the security of the Republic of India, and so had herself to resort to the use of force.
But if her accusations were true and convincing, the Republic of India, in my perhaps unqualified way of argument, as a member of the United Nations, should have referred the matter to, and left it entirely in the hands, of the Security Council, and so without violating the Charter of the UN and the relevant resolutions of the General Assembly.
I find that indeed significant were the words uttered by Indian representative when the Security Council met, at Portugal's request after the invasion had started. He is reported to have said: "It must be realised that this a colonial question. It is a question of getting rid of the last vestiges of colonialism in India. That is a matter of faith with us. Whatever anyone may think, Charter or no Charter, Council or no Council, that is our basic faith which we cannot afford to give up at any cost."
But the question that still hangs high over every freedom lover is. "Was it necessary then for the 'liberated' territory to be annexed to the 'liberator' rather than be left completely free choose its way of administering itself? Or by means of a plebiscite asked whether it preferred the annexation to India?
GOAN WISH FOR LIBERATION
The third argument advanced by the Government of India was that the Goan people, the majority of whom being Hindus, wished to be liberated from the Portuguese colonialism, and join the secular State of the Republic of India. But a well-known Indian citizen and advocate of Bombay High Court, Mr. B. K. Bohman-Behram, seems to refute this argument in his book "Goa and Ourselves", when he said: "One finds that a true Goan feels a bond of kinship with distant Portugal, which (bond) de does not share with his great neighbour on the other side of the frontier...."
The same writer goes on to say: ".... The Hindus of Goa, linked by centuries of political tradition, are a Portuguese type. A particular system of Government and certain environments prevailing for centuries naturally changes the character of a people; and the Hindus of Goa definitely differ from the Hindus inhabiting the adjoining territories."
The Bombay weekly, "The Current" issued on 21st December, 1963, in an article under the heading: "For the Congress a Trouncing to remember", commenting on the elections held in Goa by the Indian Administration, had this to report: "In any case, the fact a large number of Hindus voted for the United Goans, made it clear that the strength behind the United Goans was not just Christian strength. It was equally Hindi strength. Whatever the Goans might decide, their future is not in their hands. It will be Mr. Nehru who will be deciding the future of Goa."
But what was the outcome of the elections in Goa? The answer is simply given in seven words: "For the Congress a trouncing to remember!" The elections did not succeed. The Indian Administration was trounced.
From the notes compiled and issued in "Diário de Notícias" on 9th January, 1962, from the city of Rio de Janeiro in South America, we read: "The Goans to be found in India, especially in Calcutta and Bombay, consider themselves to be foreigners on Indian territory. They complain of the discrimination to which they are subjected, principally because of their tongue and religion. Well-trained members of the liberal professions, educated at the University of Bombay, alleged that they live in poverty because their own clients came from the Goan territory, while the population in general in India will have nothing to do with them. They emigrate to all countries, even to Great Britain, where they think their situation will be less difficult.
Perhaps one can best draw a line from the operation of what we hear today scattered all over the world: The Goan Freedom Movement, which I have been given to understand that is not anti-Indian, but that it claims the right of free and unfettered self-determination for Goa and its dependencies.
This organisation, I understand, has repeatedly written to the Secretary-General of the UNO claiming that here was a rising tide of overwhelming Goan reaction to the failure of the Republic of India to hand over Goa to Goans to decide their political status.
"Our Organisation may have a very recent past, but it is grounded on a universal and age-old desire of Goans to be independent to nurse their unique traditions in the sub-continent of India. Our primary object is the attainment of an Independent Republic of Goa, and we earnestly request you to bring to bear your international influence and reputation on the Government of India to place Goa under UNO Trusteeship with a view to plebiscite to ascertain the wishes of the Goans."
The Movement says again: "We are convinced by far and large that the people of Goa and the Goans overseas have more than an overwhelming desire to be free from outside rule, whether of Portugal or India....In the political turmoil of world affairs, your organisation, the UNO, is being drawn in the role of protector of the weak. It is this spirit that we submit and we ask you to appeal to the Government of India, which professes to be and indeed is a democratic State, to allow us this fundamental right of self-determination."
The communiqué issued by the delegates of the movement who met in Paris on 3rd December 1963, tell us that there were other conferences at the same time in other parts of the world. It named conferences in Nairobi, in Kampala and in Tanganyika, all three in East Africa; Then in Mozambique and in Angola, the two big possessions still suffering under the Portuguese colonial paw; then in Macao in Far East; in Ceylon; in Pakistan and in the Indian Union itself; in the Arabian Gulf area; in Ethiopia; in Iraq; in the United Kingdom; in Germany and in Brazil.
All conferences vehemently condemned "the Indian aggression and occupation", demanded immediate acquittal of their territories and called on the United Nations to uphold the inalienable right of the people of Goa, Damão and Diu to self-determination and appealed to all Governments in the world that "should the latter fail to comply with the terms of our declaration, the people concerned will use all possible means to secure this right."
It is said to hear that on 10th December, a week after these conferences a four-men delegation went before the Front Committee of the United nations intending to defend in the world organisation, their cause, but that they were not allowed to mention Goa and the reasons which prompted them to petition the United Nations.
Nevertheless the Republic of India should refute the world press accusations by only emerging with enhanced prestige if it made the gesture which justice and the accepted principles of international democracy demand.
After closely looking into these affairs and carefully reading from various writings, my conclusions I draw on this subject are:
1. I will never be convinced, like any other freedom-lover, that the Republic of India had any valid claim to annex Goa and its dependencies to herself, merely because these territories were situated in the Indian peninsula or because they had a Hindu majority;
2. The only best way there was to reach the solution for the liberation of Goa from Portuguese colonialism was through the terms of Resolution 1541(XV) of the United Nations General assembly;
3. While the use of force is outlawed by the Charter of the UN, the unilateral annexation of Goa and its dependencies still reflects a denial of the right of self-determination;
4. The strong pleas made by the world-wide Goan Freedom Movement on behalf of the annexed people of Goa should be justified in an honest way, however unpleasant it may be for the friends of the Republic of India to admit that the latter made a gross mistake. I personally as an African am a friend of India, that is why I constructively have to criticize her, democratic as we know her to be, so that she get out of the same boat in which she is with those she repeatedly condemned of colonialism or imperialism or neo-colonialism and the like.
To me it seems unfair to force upon a differentiated community another way of life and other political and social institutions, which have not been done with the free choice of such a community. And if I may put it more clearly, until and unless the Goan people are allowed to exercise their birth-rights of deciding for themselves the future of their country, they will always become strangers in their own land.
5. As soon as the newly elected consultative assembly met, elements of the Maharastrawadi party tabled a motion thanking the Indian Government for invading Goa, Damão and Diu, No one can be so naive as to believe that the Goan people, so proud of their traditions and so jealous of their distinct personality as a community, would be so abject as to express gratitude for an act of force by which they were subjugated without having the least say in the matter. But with the Anti-Secession Act and Defence of India Act hanging like a Damocles' sword over their heads, the members of the consultative assembly found no alternative but to vote for this motion, although some did it with reservations as to the form. For this attitude, the members have been accused by the "Chief Minister" of Goa of being 'secessionists' to be dealt with in accordance with the above-mentioned laws.
6. These are the plain, unvarnished facts. No more need be said to qualify the elections, which the Indian Union Government has widely advertised as free and democratic. Nothing could be farther from the truth. It should be noted that the Indian Union invaded, occupied and declared Goa, Damão and Diu annexed without consulting the people of the territories in violation not only of the Charter of the United Nations but also in defiance of General Assembly resolutions, notably resolutions 1541(XV) and 1542(XV). Further in order to hold elections in those territories, it adopted the extraordinary measure called the Anti-Secession Act. If the Indian Government still claims to command the loyalty of the people of Goa, Damão and Diu, instead of proceeding unilaterally, it could clear its name be agreeing to hold a FREE AND UNFETTERED PLEBISCITE in those invaded territories.
Will the Indian Union Government Accept This Challenge?
CONCLUSIONS:
Now after these arguments, which I believe will portray a clear, unbiased picture of the situation in hand, I would like to end my writing with perhaps a few more words that: according to unrestlessness of the Goan people in Goa and all those scattered all over the world, Goa and its dependencies may some day turn up to be like Kashmir, from which we often hear of uprisings and instability.
From the various newspapers in the world press, I very often came across bitter attacks on India in which she was painted in the same colours as Nazi actions to invade small countries around. One can only deduce from India's principles that France would have to find some excuse to march on the small Principality of Monaco, much in the same way as Germany would have today to claim Luxembourg or Spain to seize Gibraltar.
In the same way also the giant Congo in Africa would not find any difficulty to make it is duty to annex Angola nor would Tanganyika in East Africa following the same suit fail to annex Mozambique, since these African free states want and intend to see all the Portuguese colonial possessions in Africa are released from colonial bondage.
In such cases as these, I find that here UNO would have to exercise its power of attorney over India and Portugal instead of having to dance to the tune of some powerful countries. If human rights in the United Nations Charter mean anything, self-determination of small countries for self-determination would and must be defended, otherwise the PEACEFUL WORLD COEXISTENCE sought by this world organisation and preached by some hypocrite countries would mean nothing, and we would at once be seeking RESTLESS WORLD COEXISTENCE.
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