--------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2008 International Goan Convention Toronto, Canada
Early Bird Discount Registration closes March 31, 2008 http://2008goanconvention.com/registration.html --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seedy Underbelly Of Goa's Tourism Exposed By Fr. Desmond de Sousa CSsR, SAR NEWS PANAJI, Goa (SAR NEWS) -- Drowning or murder? The death of 15-year-old British girl Scarlette Keeling on Anjuna beach in north Goa, has opened the proverbial can of worms. Goa's international fame as a tourist destination has been shattered. The glossy tourist brochures projected Goa as an idyllic beach-holiday destination, with swaying coconuts palms, silver-sanded beaches, easygoing lifestyle and affordable hotel accommodation. The seedy underbelly of tourism: the easy availability of hard drugs, wild rave parties and free sex was deliberately ignored. On the night of February 18, Scarlette, already high on drugs and alcohol, staggered alone into an Anjuna beach shack. She was fed with more drugs by a local dealer Placido Carvalho. The shack owner Samson D'Souza, loaded her with more alcohol, then raped her. As she began to collapse, he dragged her onto the beach to revive her. He finally abandoned her in the shallow water, where she drowned. Her half-naked body was discovered the next morning. The first autopsy indicated death by drowning. Her mother Fiona Mackoewn, in Goa with her eight children and her partner, came in November. She left Scarlette alone in Goa with a boyfriend-cum-tourist guide while holidaying in Karnataka. Summoned to appear before the juvenile unit of the Goa police four days later, she refuted the verdict of the first autopsy. Scarlette was a good swimmer and could not have drowned. Accusing the Goa police of a cover-up, she demanded another autopsy. The case got national and international news coverage. The Goa police and government admitted a lapse in the investigation. Fiona vowed to expose the politicians-police-drug mafia nexus. She accused IGP Brar and Home Minister Ravi Naik of orchestrating the nexus. They ordered an investigation into her presence in Goa and her finances. Meanwhile, the newspapers both in India and England began publishing unsavoury details about Fiona's past. Law minister Dayanand Narvekar, fearing losing his portfolio, sought to distract attention by announcing a change in the law about foreigners owning land in Goa, before the Cabinet's decision. Notoriously, corrupt politicians like Narvekar have literally sold Goa to the local and foreign land mafia. The Russian and Israeli mafia own large areas of land along north Goa beaches. The Coalition of continental Churches called the Ecumenical Coalition on Third World Tourism (ECTWT) in 1982, prophetically denounced mass and luxury tourism as an unmitigated disaster for third world countries. Even the Vatican rubbished their critique as unfounded. >From a European, tourist-sending perspective, the way tourism was structured was good, provided certain negative fallouts like drugs and prostitution were contained. The Third World perspective starts from a different premise. The tourism industry is a clone of capitalist society, where profits are more important than persons. This is endemic to the very structuring of the industry. From a Third World perspective, the very structuring of mass and luxury tourism industry reflects the structures of sin of capitalist society. The tourism industry in Angeles City (the Philippines) and Pattaya (Thailand) were the Rest and Recreation centres for the American navy and army during the Vietnam War (1965-75). Tourism co-opted their already existing infrastructure after the war. So mass and luxury tourism was structured around the already existing function of rampant prostitution and hard drugs, rather than around people seeking to understand one another at leisure. Goa was first "discovered" by the hippies in the late 1960s. These protestors against the Vietnam War were dropouts of society. Their rampant drug use, blatant nudity and free sex lifestyle was a "gentle poison" (according to a Goan playwright) for transfusion of their decadent lifestyle into the culture of local youth along the beaches. Droves of male Indian tourists came to ogle at this "tourist attraction!" Today, this decadent lifestyle has created the infrastructure of Goa's tourism. It has become an attractive hangout for dysfunctional people from all over the world. Goa's beaches are infested with drug dealers from all over the world. The foreign tourists that fuel Goa's tourist industry are often low-income tourists and adventurous youth out for cheap thrills. Easy availability of drugs and Goa's reputation as a tourist paradise where liquor flows uninterruptedly has perpetuated its image as a permissive haven, away from the rough and tumble of the outside world. If Scarlette's death and Fiona's tenacity expose the politicians-police-drug mafia nexus and shake up the lethargic and corrupt administration, it will not be in vain.