Weighing Our Options

© Prakash John Mascarenhas. 25^th November 2002.
During the last years of the ninties, Goa and Goans were wracked by the bitter resistance we threw up to the construction of the Konkan Railways (KR) with its present alignment; all in vain, for the Occupation successfully bulldozed through our ranks and built the railway, and it seems that we have resigned ourselves to this reality.

I too was infected, in distant Bommai, by this holy war to protect our country's environment. Finally seeing the utter failure of the resistance and the resigned acquiescence of my defeated countrymen, my blood boiled and kept on boiling. It was not a thing that I could or would allow myself to forget or resign myself to. Therefore, I kept on thinking what I could do.

In January 1998, shortly after my dear father died, I took a job offer in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. There was more than economic benefit behind my decision; it was the time when Atal Behari Vajpayee finally succeeded in winning a general election in the Indian Union, even though by coalition, and this posed a great threat to us Christians. Also, I had tried to apply for a Portuguese passport, but I resolutely baulked at the procedure: that I submit documents endorsed by the Occupation as a requirement. This I was morally not prepared to do then and I am morally not prepared to do so even today, under any circumstance. I, therefore, in my ignorance, thought that my application would be much more the easier in Riyadh, a foreign capital, than in Bombay or Goa, since I had all the original passport documents of my mother and maternal grandmother, together with my father's original EIP Teor. In this I was for a disappointment, as the Portuguese embassy in Riyadh stonewalled me just as the Consulate in Goa had.

(I had hoped to link up with the Moluccans, East Timorese and others based in Europe, because I am aware that, with a Portuguese passport, I am free to travel anywhere in Western Europe: England, the Netherlands, etc., where the Moluccans and others have their main bases.)

When in the KSA, then, after having failed with Portugal, I was at a loss for a time, till I decided to take courage in my hands and approached the Pakistani embassy who put me in touch with their intelligence personnel. I asked them to provide me with military training and arms, and in exchange I offered to co-ordinate my activities with theirs. My main target was the KR, always a vulnerable target, with its alignment along hill-tops, innumerably tunnels and bridges. I knew that any fight that I began was hopelessly doomed to failure, but remembering the Easter Rising staged by James Connelly, Patrick Pearse, etc., I hoped that by targetting the KR, I and my colleagues would emulate these, mine heroes, and, just as similiarly, provoke our people into a serious awakening to the facts and the possibilities. I know, I am confident, that in the final end, our work will be crowned with success, but I know just as much, that someone has to become the sacrificial goat to spark the awakening. I was prepared to be that goat.

However, my plans here too hit a snag: I entirely failed to persuade any other Goan to join up with me, a necessary pre-condition that the Pakistanis set, and with good reason. My countrymen were all very ready to rue the fate of their land, and accepted and acknowledged the obvious fact that our culture is sharply distinct, but the idea that the EIP has not been legitimately obtained and absorbed by the Indian Union seemingly was not able to penetrate their skulls.

In the end, despite a trip to Karachi and Islamabad on my way back, my plans still were no closer to materialisation than before. The Pakistanis offered to join me up with the Kashmiri militants, but this was not something I could or would accept. So, finally, I came back to Bombay. In leaving, the Pakistanis suggested that I keep on trying to gather my people and in the meantime suggested that I commit small acts of sabotage, such as removing railway fishplates, thus causing derailments. Although I did not say it, this is also not acceptable to me; the idea of targetting innocent travellers. I see this as plain and inescusable terrorism.

It was never my intention to blindly target people, even Indian Union citizens, in my acts of sabotage directed against the KR, for I had always planned that while the main group would place explosives in stragetic places and time them, others would stop passenger trains from approaching these spots. My goal was and is to cause maximum nuisance, rage, exasperation and damage, together with its concommitant demoralisation and disbunking of the might and invincibility of our enemy, with the minimum of bloodshed.
My plan for seeking aid from Pakistan has proved a non-starter. However, the motive force for my actions have not gone away, and I am just as determined today as I was yesterday to achieve my goals. I keep on looking for an opportunity, and I keep on trying to persuade my people, so dumb and stupid, to wake up and see reality. It is a long and hard road, but I know that one day I shall succeed.

Some one has to make a beginning.

The reader of this article will be conscious of the risk, of the foolhardiness of my making these facts public. However, I am willing to lay down my life for my cause, and I burn with a deep, deep, cold anger for my country's plight, for the shameful manner in which the Indian Union has kidnapped and raped my motherland.

I am willing, absolutely willing to take the help of any power whatsoever, that is willing to aid me. However, I think that it is the moral duty of Portugal, first of all, together with all the states of the Portuguese family: Brazil, Cabo Verde, East Timor, etc., to aid and assist Goa, their sibling in its fight for liberty. I ask and I solicit such aid both from governments and from individuals. I ask for military training, even if I am all alone and no one is willing to join up with me, and I ask for arms. I ask Portugal, Brazil and East Timor to aid us, me!, by giving me this necessary assistance. Brazil has extensive forests which are just suitable to learn and to train for guerilla warfare. The Fretelin and other patriotic forces have just finished fighting a long and bitter war to force the evacuation of the invading Indonesians. I ask: Is there anyone person or state that is willing and ready to do more than just gas and talk, and actually put its money where its mouth is by aiding me in my objectives? Stand up and be counted!

I am willing, absolutely and entirely willing, to put my life on the line for my cause. Is there anybody out there who will aid me?

I am not a madman, and I am deadly serious. I do not waste my time in idle talk, but I am willing to soil my hands in the good fight.
My aims and objectives are clear: I want my fellow Goans to join me and I want to undergo military training in guerrilla warfare and sabotage. I need funds, arms, boats, aircrafts, etc. I do not believe in whining and then lying down like a good dog, and snapping up the crumbs thrown me by those who have made themselves our masters, but I believe in fighting like a man and redeeming my honour, my country's honour.