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Ongoing: Exhibition of paintings, Art Chamber, Calangute www.goa-art.com
Dec 13: Dance workshop, with Jaap Van Maanen. Tel 2275733 BB Cafe
Dec 14 onwards: Shireen Mody's Goa 2002 exhibition, Arpora. Tel 2276759
Dec 14: Customer Relationship Mgt Seminar, Xaviers, Mapusa Tel 2262356
Dec 17, 18, 20: Lectures on Indo-Port. furniture, Fundacao Oriente Ph 2230728
Jan 18-19: Int't kite carnival at Morgim beach, Pernem
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I d e n t i t y c r i s i s
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A lucrative racket enables bogus applicants to assume identities of
deceased Goans to apply for Portuguese citizenship, writes Devika
Sequeira from Panaji
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Five centuries ago, Vasco Da Gama opened up the sea route to India
with historic repercussions in the colonisation of Goa, Daman and
Diu. Five hundred and four years on, a Portuguese citizenship
facility available to Goans has given unscrupulous agents and touts
a lucrative means to establish an illegal migration route to
Portugal, and the economic opportunities of the European Union.
A huge international racket in granting Portuguese nationality under
a clause meant only for persons from Goa, Daman and Diu (which were
former Portuguese colonies) has edged out genuine applicants from
Goa, and is
being grossly misused even by extremists, says former union minister
for external affairs and Congress MP Eduardo Faleiro.
Terrorist Masood Azad (who had been released by the Government of
India during the Kandahar hijacking) and Abu Salem were both found
with Portuguese passports. This in itself revealed the extent to
which the system in Lisbon's Conservatorio dos Registos Centrais
(the Central Registrar's office), responsible for processing
applications, had been compromised, the MP points out.
Most genuine applications made through the Portuguese Consulate
General in Panjim have been mired in Lisbon's bureaucratic red-tape
for years (one applicant said she has been waiting nine years). But
a payment of $5,000 can fetch one a Portuguese passport (under the
Goa clause) within three months in Lisbon, Mr Faleiro's
investigations have established. The sub-system operates through
agents and touts working in collusion with the registrar's office.
What the Rajya Sabha MP finds particularly galling, is that the
consulate in Goa, established during his tenure as external affairs
minister to facilitate procedures for the people of Goa, Daman and
Diu has been rendered totally ineffectual and has shut down the
channel for new applicants here.
Sources in the consulate confirmed that the decision was taken by
the new Consul-General Miguel Calheiros Velozo. "He was so shocked
by the extent of the racket, that he asked us to discontinue
accepting applications," they said. 'Documentation agents' (those
who can facilitate the recovery of crucial birth and residency
documents from a Kafkaesque registrar's office here, and have them
attested), once identified only by word of mouth, are openly
advertising their services here today.
Consular staff say though they know many applicants are fake, they
have to just turn a blind eye to the racket. "We have seen Punjabis
and even Bangladeshis and Pakistanis applying under assumed Goan
identities, but
can do nothing about it because we are no more than a sorting office
to reroute applications to Lisbon." The consulate has handled 3,000
applications from the time it was established here in 1994. Yet
15,000 applications (received directly in Lisbon) are believed to be
pending with the state's home department for the attestation of
documents. Less than half of these would be genuine, sources say.
Some agents are said to have resurrected the identities of dead
Goans, recovered their birth certificates from the archives, and
falsified records.
"The entire process is based on Indian documentation that is easily
falsified, making it all the easier for unscrupulous people to
manipulate the system," consulate sources say. Since no co-operation
agreement exists between India and Portugal in the matter, bringing
the culprits to book becomes all the more difficult. When
authorities in Diu wanted to book agents involved in falsifying
documents there, the Portuguese authorities refused to part with the
documents in their possession, sources said.
Under Portugal's nationality law of 1975, those born in Goa, Daman
and Diu before 1961 (when Goa was liberated) and their descendants
upto a third generation are still entitled to Portuguese
citizenship. A similar -- but time-bound -- option had been offered
to former Portuguese colonies of Mozambique and Angola. Said to be
under pressure from the European Union to wind up the option for
Goa, Daman and Diu after the tide of traffic from here to Europe in
recent times, Portugal's right-wing government would be only too
happy to oblige, many here believe.
"If they did that, they would have to wind up their consulate in
Goa, and this would be seen as an unfriendly act toward India," says
Mr Faleiro The MP counters criticism that those seeking to migrate
are anti-national. "It is obvious that people from here who seek
citizenship elsewhere do so purely for economic reasons. But they
remain wedded to their country of origin," he says.
Consulate sources say the problem of bogus applicants could be easily
weeded out of the system, if Portugal's external affairs ministry
set its mind to it. It shut down the Mumbai consular office and
expelled staff involved in the passports racket from the Delhi
embassy some years ago. But it has failed to clamp down on the
racket in its own backyard in Lisbon. Hopes are now being pinned on
the new consul-general here to both clean up the system, and
rejuvenate a laidback consulate which has achieved close to zero in
terms of trade or culture in this part of India. (ENDS)
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***** CHRISTMAS PARTIES 2002 *****
Dec 14 - New England Goans, Wellesly, MA, USA [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Dec 14 - Goan Association of New Jersey, Inc., Somerset, NJ, USA
+1 (732) 599-7644
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+1 (714) 821-6168 (late fee on tickets after Dec 10)
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