Goa Freedom Fighters Resent Portuguese Offer
Lisbon-based Fundacao Orient (Orient Foundation), a leading Portuguese private trust, wants to turn Goa into Asias most sought after historical tourist spots. But its plans to glorify the Indian coastal states colonial past is likely to run into trouble with Goan freedom fighters.
Fundacao Orient, which is restoring a church in Goa and arranging two-way exchanges of scholars and artists, says excavations in the old quarter of Goa will unearth the historic role of the city as a meeting point of East and West in the 16th century.
The foundations chairman, Carlos Monjardino, said that Portugal wanted to carry out historical excavations in the city of Old Goa, the former capital of the region that now lies abandoned and partly in ruins.
Old Goa can be converted into one of the most sought after historic tourist centres in Asia, if we find out whats underneath the city, dig it up and then protect it, said Orient Foundation representative Paulo Varela Gomes.
An architecture historian, Gomes said Old Goa was a historic meeting point between east and west right since the early century when Portugal established its presence there.
The foundation, whose India headquarters is in Goa, is also repairing monuments, including the dilapidated Church of Our Lady of Monte there. It has also offered funds to beautify the surroundings of the picturesque locality of Fontainhas in Panaji which is also known as the Latin Quarter of the Goan state capital.
But Portugals restoration plans for Goa are stirring a controversy as Goanese freedom fighters object to any role for the former colonists who ruled the region for more than four centuries.
During his visit to Goa, Fundacao Orient chairman Monjardino met veteran freedom fighters who protested against the steps aimed at glorifying the former colonists. They also demanded a ban on celebrations to mark the 500th anniversary of the landing of the Portuguese voyager Vasco da Gama on Indian shores.
However, Monjardino told the freedom fighters, to let bygones be bygones. You are dealing with a regime which is very much like your own, he told them, adding that New Delhi and Lisbon had normalised diplomatic ties after the fall of the dictatorial regime in Lisbon in 1974.
The Portuguese foundation which is financed by funds raised from a gambling tax in Lisbons colony of Macau, also wants to increase its activities in Goa when Macau is handed back to China in 1999.
An acting governor of Macau, Monjardino said that activities of the decade-old foundation he heads would not be threatened after Macau reverts to China. The Orient Foundation, which collected over Rs 500 million from the gambling cess in Macau in just one year, is now developing alternative sources of funds.