Dears,
A consortium of Green organisations gathered at Colomb and Sulcorna, mourned
the untimely death of Gurudas Gauns, teacher, Principal, Pale MLA and resident
of the mining village of Naveli-Bicholim.
The meeting to mark the World Environment Day was called by GAKUVED
[Gawda-Kunbi-Velip-Dhangar Federation] in association with NEST [Nature,
Environment, Society and Transformation], the Goa Foundation, GGRM [Ganv Ghor
Rakhann Manch], Nirmal Vishwa and other CSOs and NGOs. When heavy rains made an
outdoor meeting at Colomb-Sanguem impossible, the same was adjourned to the
nearby Don Bosco School campus at Sulcorna-Quepem. Both the venues had tight
security provided by Reserve Police in full riot gear.
Speaking soon after the welcome address and a narration by Mathew Antao or
Motes of the farce about Public hearings for environmental clearances, Adv.
John Fernandes, the young lawyer who defends the 55 accused in a case before
the Civil Judge at Quepem, may an obituary reference to Gurudas Gauns. The
death of this MLA, aged just 42 years, was perhaps aggravated by the mining
dust in his native village of Naveli. He pointed to the irony of the day when
the people are commemorating the World Environment Day while the Goa Police in
riot gear provide protection to the mining companies that destroy and pollute
the environment. Salvador Dias, a villager form Colomb, brought the news that
the local MLA had come to the village today to mark the occasion by planting a
seedling on a mine that destroyed a natural forest that the villagers had
protected for centuries, even during colonial rule. Rama Lavu Velip, in whose
name stands a writ petition [No136/2008] in the High Court to
protect Government and Private forests from destruction by mining companies in
Colomb village, echoed this irony.
Miguel remembered the soft-spoken Gurudas Gauns, the Principal of Vividha
Higher Secondary School, on the border of the villages of Naveli and Amona in
Bicholim taluka. He shared the grief of his father, Prabhakar Yesso Gauns, whom
he knows as an honest and hardworking cashew cultivator. He quoted from page 7
of the Interim Report of the Task Force the last line that reads, In the
ultimate analysis, planning is about what we want to become. Surely, Gurudas
would have planned development of Naveli differently from the plan that is
being prepared by the very government that he was a part of, until yesterday.
If the Goa government wants to pay a tribute to its departed member, they have
to deal with the mining issue with greater sensitivity to the people living in
the mining belt.
Miguel Braganza
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