Despite Mr. Nehru’s efforts to convince the U.N that Goa is back to normal after its "Reintegration" with India, the truth is that thousands of Goans have left the country for Portugal and this means "Real Goans", not Portuguese "Colonialists.” The Price they pay is the loss of all their property.
Within Goa itself-where a third of the people are Catholics there is much dissatisfaction and significant elements of passive resistance. The concept of Goa as “Portugal Overseas” is not the fiction it is alleged to be.
“Catholic Herald” Correspondents in Portugal have questioned repatriated military prisoners and the Goan Refugees arriving in Lisbon. Here are some of the facts they have turned up
1. Many Christian Goans in responsible posts, though allowed to continue at first after the Goa Invasion, have now been removed and replaced by Hindus favourable to India who were active in the Pre-Invasion fighting inside Goa.
Displaced Christians include district administrators in Bicholim and Canacona, the director of the Misericordia Hospital, the chief of the Health Bureau, and a directors of the analytical laboratories. The daily paper “ Herald° ” has been forced to close. After many obstacles put in his way, the editor, Alvaro de Santa Rita Vaz, has now reached Portugal.
2. Though the abolition of religious instruction in school time simply brings Goa into the line with the rest of India, and such instruction can be arranged for after school, the fact remains that anyone wanting it for their children must make a formal application in writing.
ROBBERY
3. At Angediva, after the fighting had stopped, some Portuguese officers were shot by the Indians in cold blood. Others, turned over to the Indians by the captain of a Ship they were escaping in, were beaten up until they were unconscious.
Prisoners were robbed of everything from jewels to books. One has testified to hearing an Indian officer, involved in the illegal seizure of cars, telephoned his wife to find out which kind she would prefer! There was to be a parade of Military prisoners in Bombay until the city`s 100,000 Goans threatened to demonstrate. Many of the Bombay Goans are thinking of going to Mozambique.
4. Goan Refugees reaching Lisbon arrive with nothing but what they stand up in. They are not allowed to sail from Goa until all their debts are paid, and to detain any of them it is only necessary for someone to make a declaration claiming that they owe money. But for this, Goan Refugees, would number thousands more.
TO AFRICA
5. Rich Goans have given up everything rather than live under the Invaders. Pakistan is helping the Refugees, and 560 who arrived in Lisbon on June 18 came via Karachi. One of them, bringing his wife and nine children with him, she had been a nurse in Goa’s world famous medical school.
Another Goan, speaking for rich and poor alike, declared : “Our country is in the hands of St. Francis Xavier: We shall return one day to OUR India.”
6. Some of the Goan refugees are being put to work in Portugal as teachers and nurses. Others are expected to go to Portuguese Africa. Recent arrivals have included Jose Antonio Ismael Gracias, a Judge of the Goan Appeal Court.
7. Goa was the most prosperous area of the Indian Sub-Continent. Now it is involved in India’s economic problems, Public Servants have had their wages reduced by half. The cost of living in Goa is rising Sharply.
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