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* G * O * A * N * E * T **** C * L * A * S * S * I * F * I * E * D * S *
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Sangath, www.sangath.com, is one of Goa's leading NGOs.
Sangath is looking to build a centre for services, training and research
and is looking to buy land of approx 1500 to 2000 sq mtrs
betweeen Mapusa and Bambolim and surrounding rural areas
If you have land to sell, please contact:
contac...@sangath.com or yvo...@sangath.com or phone +91-9881499458
http://lists.goanet.org/pipermail/goanet-goanet.org/2009-July/180028.html
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Dear Goanet Moderator,
Might you repost this Letter to the Editor ,sent to OHeraldo and published
August 2006?
The referenced politician has changed, the editorial leaning may have
changed, but the issue remains the same.
thank you.
I. Nunes lyra...@yahoo.com
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Caveat emptor
I. Nunes
31st August, 2006
To the foreign property purchasers who lecture Goans on the ills on spurning
their economic largesse, I would contend, caveat emptor, from that civilizing
Roman influence, is appropriate.
If you are settled in on land acquired through fraudulent property deeds with
falsified residency permits, you deserve to forfeit your ill-gotten holdings.
If you have acquired communidade land, it can never become private property
because it rightfully belongs to the people of Goa.
To claim ignorance of the law in property purchases and business operations -
and this from a seemingly sophisticated group of westerners; seasoned
travellers at that, with disposable incomes enough to access legal advice and
information at their fingertips - is a tall order.
Wilful blindness cannot become the basis for exculpation [ Ignorantia juris non
excusat ], as it would undermine the enforcement of any law, in any country.
Laws create and protect a functioning society.
As to granting amnesty as has been suggested, this measure would create a
special, protected class of individuals who on the basis of their foreign
origin and skin colour alone, would be exempt from prosecution, and allowed to
skirt the laws.
It would mean that they could proceed on as before, hanging on and increasing
their illegal holdings in prized coastal zones, acquire agricultural land,
operate businesses as they have, because of the grant of ‘oblivion’ or
‘amnestia‘.
While accepting them as guilty, which they are, amnesty would restore them to
the class of ‘innocent‘, which they are not.
It is after all, looking the other way that got Goa into this mess in the first
place.
Why should Mr. Rane, not then empty the jails of all prisoners? Are they are
not equally deserving? Drug dealers? Paedophiles? Thieves? All could claim
ignorance of the law, and want amnesty.
The Goan people are unfairly being castigated with charges of intolerance and
racism, and bear the brunt of the indignation of these foreigners, and their
mouthpieces. This is the public, from whom a consensus on land development was
never sought and who find the land being sold from under their feet.
It is the Goan people, and their best interests that matter. Not the
politicians or developers, and least of all the foreigners, who reside in Goa.
With the growing disparity and economic inequality of the locals, communal
riots could be provoked by the sheer injustice of looking the other way and at
the special dispensations afforded foreigners.
The current press on the anti-foreigner feeling, would pale in the reporting of
the causes of the unrest, with the major contributory roles these foreign
residents are playing in the land grab.
Some foreign residents warns us that Mr. Rane “ ..risks invoking the
intervention of foreign consulates, and raising a local issue to an
international one”.
This is simply not true.
Consulates are loath to confuse issues such as this, much less intervene on
behalf of their law-breaking nationals, when it comes to matters of law and
sovereignty of countries. Gunboat diplomacy is passé.
Tourism development has been allowed to run amok --- unregulated, unplanned,
resulting in obvious environmental destruction and societal and cultural
breakdown.
The crime rate, environmental degration, and institutionalised fraud are
precisely the fallout from the frenzy to participate and profit in this tourist
trade. ‘Greed is good’ would appear to be their maxim.
Tourist destinations evolve from discovery to development and then decline.
Goa, has reached a critical mass, and is on the last phase. This might be a
blessing of a kind.
*************
