To Goanet - Soter is absolutely right to air his concerns about the upcoming GRA rally. This does not mean that we are disparaging the efforts of those who have taken the initiative to rise and fight back. Not at all. As I have said, May the Force be with us!
It simply means we have a MEMORY. And that memory ought to teach us something. It is a memory of repeated betrayals, of tricksters leading innocent Goans down the garden path under the pretext of activism. It is a memory of crooks wrapping themselves in the robes of activists and using ordinary Goans to further their own personal interests. In short, it would be a dereliction of our civil duty to not put forth these concerns at the outset. Some key items to watch out for are: - Do any of the lead guys have close association with the usual suspects? Have Timblo, Datta Naik, Digu & Co infiltrated the leadership with their moles? (Think GBA, Shridhar Kamat, etc etc). Are any architects or builders part of the consultative committee? Do the lead guys have sympathy towards any of the big builders or miners? I mean, we may find later that X is the brother-in-law of Y's sister whose husband Z is a major builder, in which case X may be 'persuaded' to lose enthusiasm for his activist cause midway. We have lost count of the times this has happened in the past. So keep a close eye on these details. - Have the goals been defined clearly? What are they, and how will they go about achieving them? There has to be a ROUGH roadmap, and it has to be adaptive. This is VERY important. - Do these guys have the staying power? Digu, miners, builders, are FULL-TIME crooks. You CANNOT fight full-time crooks with part-time activism. Just the other day there was exultation over some MINOR triumph at the Cavrem mine. I do not wish to diminish the efforts of Nilesh Gaokar or the villagers, but please, can we have SOME PERSPECTIVE? Goa is being dug out of existence and you do high fives after a small concession? So let us imagine a scenario - there's a massive turnout at Azad Maidan on March 15. Digu and his cabal have thought of the next 10 moves in advance (have the GRA folks?). Wily that he is, he tosses a bone to the GRA. A great victory is declared, SMSes fly around furiously declaring that Goa is saved. Fiction? No, this is roughly what happened after the Dec 18, 2006 and the Jan 2007 rallies held by GBA. Digu then appoints a "committee" and gives a high sounding position to one or two key GRA leaders, he calls them true freedom fighters, maybe even awards them a Goa Ratna. You can fill in the rest. Bottomline: Digu, the miners, the builders, are not going to give up so easily. They have CRORES of rupees landing in their bank accounts EVERY SINGLE DAY. There is an immense amount at stake and politically and financially powerful people are involved, not just in Goa, but in Delhi as well. Finally - if the GRA guys want to make a bold statement, they should go shut down the floating Casinos on March 15. Now THAT would be a minor victory, and a clear signal to the govt that it is time for it to fold up. Regards, r
