COMPLAINT BY PORTUGAL
The following text is provided me by Xacuti Vindalho, a patriot and activist for the Resistance. I have done some editing. - Prakash João Maskaren
Origin of the Issue
By a letter date 8 December 1961 (S/5016), addressed to the President of the Security Council, the representative of Portugal complained that India was moving naval units near the territorial waters of Goa, exercising military forces at the frontiers of Goa, violating the airspace of Goa and Diu, mounting a campaign of false charges via its radio, press, and other media against Goa and the Portuguese Government. The government of Portugal considered that it was being made a victim of unprovoked aggression that constituted a grave threat to peace and security.
Security Council Action
At the Council's 987th meeting on 18th December 1961, the Soviet representative stated that his delegation opposed the adoption of the agenda. The letter of the permanent representative of Portugal, which formed the only basis for the convening of the Council meeting, had characterized the events taking place in Goa as aggression by India that violated Portugal's sovereign rights. The Soviet delegation did not agree with that characterization of the events and therefore could not accept the Portuguese letter as a basis for discussion in the Council. Under the United Nations' Charter, a question concerning the situation within a territory, Goa that was part of sovereign State of India could not be the subject of consideration by any United Nations organ. Undoubtedly the present question fell exclusively within India's domestic jurisdiction, since it concerned territories forming an integral part of India, and only provisionally held under Portugal's colonial administration. Those territories were linked with India not only by their geographical situation but also by their history, language, and traditions. They had been torn away from the Indian State in the era during the formation of European colonial empires.
At the 988th meeting of the Security Council held on 18th December 1961, France, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States submitted a draft resolution (S/5033) that the Soviet Union vetoed.
The draft resolution reads as follows:
Recalling that in Article 2 of the Charter of the United Nations all Members are obligated to settle their disputes by peaceful means and to refrain from the threat or use of force in a manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations,
Deploring the use of force by India in Goa, Daman and Diu,
Recalling that Article 1, paragraph 2, of the Charter specifies as one of the purposes of the United Nations to develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples,
Explanation of Veto
In explaining his country's negative vote the Soviet representative maintained that the draft resolution applied certain provisions of the United Nations Charter to events which had a completely different meaning in the light of General Assembly resolution 1514(XV). These provisions could not form the basis for the adoption of a decision where the issue involved the liquidation of colonial possessions.
Further, the draft resolution called upon the Indian Government to withdraw its forces. But it made no mention of the Portuguese forces, which had entered Goa as reinforcement and had been threatening all of the people of Goa and the neighbouring population of India.
Background
Note: Who is the author of the following text? Is it part of the Soviet explanation of its Veto? - P. J. M.
Goa, Daman, and Diu lie on the western coastline of India. Their eastern borders project deep into the western coastal region of India. Their western and southern borders extend into the Arabia sea. Goa, Daman, and Diu are more than 5000 miles from Portugal.
After decolonialization the Portuguese wanted to retain the port cities of Goa, Daman, and Diu. Portugal's own economy was much less develped than most other Western nations, so it feared Western competition and was reluctant to surrender exclusive control of its colonies.
Goa's history spans more than 5,000 years. The Indian epics of Ramayana and Mahabharata and the Puranas contain references to Goa.
Goa's earliest settlers belonged to a Dravidian clan called Kannadigas. The kings invited Brahmin priests from north India to preach Hinduism. During the period of Emperor Asoka, Buddhism spread to Goa and took root here. After Asoka, about 200 B.C., Goa passed under the control of the Kadambas of Banavasi. Trilochana Kadamba was a powerful king of his dynasty in 120 AD. For many centuries, the Batpuras, descendants of Trilochana Kadamba, ruled over Goa. The Kadambas of Goa were a branch of the famous Kadamba dynasty of the Carnatak, the Canarese royal family whose ancestor was Trilochana Kadamba. During the reign of the hindu king, the city of Goa flourished. Goa became a centre of trade and commerce and a great market of the Orient unrivalled in the whole of India.
Malik Kafur, a General of the Sultan Allauddin of Delhi brought Islam to Goa in 1312 AD. Kafur overan and plundered Goa and the western coast as far as the Cape of Rameshwaram. He burnt Gopakpatna, whcih was the permanent residence and capital of the Hindu kings, and his troops occupied it. Kamadev, then the Kadamba ruler, fled, but his son recovered the entire territory and Goa once again came under the Hindus. Nevertheless, in 1327 AD Mohammad bin Tuglak, Sultan of Delhi, sent an army to conquer south India and Goa again fell to the Muslim invaders. Tughlak's army left after plundering Goa and Kamadeva's grandson became king of Goa. Howerver, Goa once gain fell to the Muslims and the Hindus King Kamadevas's great grandson died while fighting. The queen was not in the capital. The princess and the women of the court, in desperation, destroyed their jewellery and jumped from the city walls into the river. This was the end of the Kadambas.
In 1347 AD Hasan Gangre Bahamani, the founder of the Bahamani dynasty of Kalburga, siezed Goa but lost it to Vidyaranga Madhave of the Vijaynagar empire. Mahmud Khwaji, a Bahamani, recaptured Goa in 1472. After the downfall of the Bahamani empire, Goa became a part of the territory of the Sultan of Bijapur.
Under the Muslim rulers, during the 15th century, Goa became the meeting place of sailors of all eastern trading nations.
In the 15th century, Europe was searching for new trade routes to the east. The Portuguese, who were well advanced in nautical astronomy, believed they could reach India by the rounding the African coast. Columbus' discovery of the West Indies spurred the Portuguese to renew their attempts to reach India by the South African route.
The first Portuguese to set foot on the Indian soil was Pedro de Covilha, an adventurer and the personal agent of Kind John II of Portugal. Disguised as an Arab merchant, he arrived at Cannanore in 1488 on board an Arab trading ship. The voyage on this ship taught him the sea routes to India. His reports home played an important part in the Portuguese expeditions to India.
Vasco da Gama, the great Portuguese admiral who left Lisbon for India on 8th July 1497, rounded the Cape of Good Hope and reached Zanzibar (now in Tanzania). The people there knew India well and he easily obtained their help to reach India. Da Gama anchored off a small village eight miles of north of Calicut, India, on the 17th of May 1498. The Hindu ruler of Calicut greeted the foreigners congenially and granted da Gama permission to set up a factory in the town. When da Gama returned to Lisbon after two years his ships were loaded with spices and pepper. On 9 March 1500, another Portuguese, Pedro Alvarez Cabral, left for India. On his arrival, he set up a permanent factory to carry on the trade.
The King of Portugal once again sent da Gama to India in February 1502. After estabilishing another factory in Cochin, he returned to Lisbon on 1 September 1503.
By 1505, the Portuguese realized that sending their fleets at regular intervals to India offered little profit. So they soon estabilished themselves on India's western coast. A Viceroy had already been appointed. He, with the help of 1,500 soldiers, build fortresses at various points. Soon no Indian vessel could sail safely without carrying a pass issued by the commandants of these fortresses. By 1509, the Portuguese had increased substantially their armed forces in India.
In 1510, another Portuguese Viceroy, Alfonso d'Albuquerque, came to India to destroy every Muslim ship and thus ensure for Portugal complete mastery over the Indian Ocean. He attacked and conquered Goa. Goa thus became the first Indian territory since the time of Alexander the Great to be ruled directly by Europeans. Alfonso d'Alburquerque was responsible for the estabilishment of this Portuguese colonial rule. After the capture of Goa, the Portuguese turned their attention to Diu, another important port in that part of the Arabian Sea. After Albuquerque, Martin Alfonso de Sousa became governor in 1542. In 1545 he was succeeded by Dom João de Castro. Castro was the last of the great Portuguese governor in India. With his death in June 1548, Portuguese power and prestige in the eastern seas began to decline.
The descent of Portuguese power in India resulted primarily from two causes: first, the encouragment of mixed marriages at home and abroad, and second, religious intolerance being pushed to its utmost by the zealous fervor of the Jesuits who selected Goa as their headquarters outside Rome. In 1540, by the order of the King of Portugal, all the Hindus temples in the island of Goa were destroyed.
In January 1780, the Portuguese also gained control of Daman island. The Government of Goa and other Portuguese settlements, however, received little attention from Lisbon between 1794 and 1814. This was mainly because of the French invasion of the Iberian Peninsula. To protect Goa and any contigency, an English auxiliary force (the British wre already in India then) garrisoned the two fortresses commanding the port. This garrison remained until peace was established in Europe after the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.
The Goan people under Portuguese rule began in the second quarter of the 16th century to try to drive the foreigners out. In 1946, the first civil disobedience movement against the then 435 year old Portuguese rule was launched in Goa. Even the people of the settlements did not accept Portuguese sovereignty over Goa, Daman and Diu. Geographically, culturally, economically and even religiously, Portugal had no justification to be there. The people of Goa and Portugal had nothing in common. The Portuguese ruled Goa only by right of conquest and the settlements were under their occupation. The Portuguese tried hard to suppress the movement.
With the British withdrawal from India in August 1947, the movement for the liberation of the French and Portuguese pockets on the subcontinent ganed momentum. In February 1950, the Indian Government suggested that the United Nations oversee a referendum to determine the future of the Portuguese pockets. The Portuguese Government refused to consider a transfer of sovereignty. The battle lines were clearly drawn. The Portuguese strengthened their garrisons between the spring and summer of 1954.
The Government of India suggested to Portugal that it should withdraw. But Portugal maintained that the settlements were part of metropolitan Portugal and it was 'unable to discuss, and much less accept, the solution proposed by the Indian Government.'
Meanwhile, Portugal had joined NATO and India saw a new danger in this regional defense pact, particularly in view of the Cold War and the strained relatios between India and Pakistan. Indians believed that in any future war, Goa would become a base of operations and thus India would be dragged into that war. Between 1956 and 1961, the Indian political parties adopted several resolutions demanding the early liberation of the settlements.
Indian Prime Minister Pandit Nehru was already beginning to wonder whether force was the only language Portugal would understand. He had warned the world that if the Goa issue was not settled, India might be forced to adopt 'other methods' to resolve the situation. In 1961 India finally revolted against the occupation of Goa, Daman, and Diu and overthrew Portugal, the occupying Power.
While dealing with the Portuguese, the Government of India had to consider one of the anachronistic treaties between Great Britain and Portugal, signed in the 14th century. Referring to this treaty Prime Minister Nehru said in Delhi:
During their visit to India in 1955, President Khruschev and Marshall Bulganin of the Soviet Union supported India's stand with regard to Goa and other Portuguese settlements. They denonunced the colonial exploitation in Goa, Marshall Bulganin said, 'there is no justification of the continued existence of the Portuguese colony of Goa on the territory of India. The sympathies of the Soviet people are always on the side of those fighting colonialism.'
In 1960, as the question of Goa, Daman, and Diu was being discussed in the Security Council, the national liberation movements in Asia and Africa were intensifying. The United Nations at the suggestion of the Soviet Union and other states had adopted the well known Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples.