MEMORIES OF 12TH NOVEMBER 1990.

To magnify, click on the photos.

Today 12th November 1990, Goans evacuated from Iraq invaded Kuwait, gathered in the capital city of Goa,Panaji, in India, and organised a rally on the streets of Panaji, held open demonstration in support of Kuwait and also held a public meeting at Azad Maidan, Panaji. Some Kuwaitis have also attended the day long protest including a ranking officer from the Ministry of Interior - Kuwait, Col. Juma Al Kholifi. Col. Kholifi also addressed the public meeting along with other speakers.

Seen in the first picture, top, Goans preparing to start the public rally while in the second picture are seen Goans proceeding with the big public rally and the third picture shows the public meeting in progress.

Thru this pblic rally and public meeting, Goans are showing their strong support and gratitude to Kuwait.

By organising pulic rallies and public meetings and open demonstrations in Goa, we the Kuwait Goans showed our love and solidarity to Kuwait and its citizens during their hour of sufferings. I as a convenor and initiator of this movement went ahead in the formation of this movement in Goa under Goa-Kuwait Solidarity Center with the consent of the people whom I invited with public announcement thru newspaper, at TB Cunha Hall, Panaji, for this purpose. This movement was not of mine alone, it was of all Kuwait Goan evacuees who associated with us in G-KSC and who loved Kuwait. By organising this movement nothing bad came to anyone, on the contrary everything good happened thru the enermous goodwill gained from Kuwaitis for Goa and Goans.

To organise this rally, close associates of G-KSC worked very hard by bringing people in especial buses from Verna, Navelim, Agacaim, Sanguem and other places in Goa. It was a sea of Kuwait evacuee Goans at Azad Maidan at the time of starting of this rally at 3.00 p.m., it looked we were all in Kuwait only, people were carrying the banners of Kuwait and posters and photograhps of Amir and Crown Prince of Kuwait. Never in the history of Goa such a massive rally was organised in Goa for the cause of a foreign country. My close colleagues in this movement namely Caetano Joao and Manuel Fernandes from M/s Boodai, Elvino Rodrigues from Alghanim, Evaristo Fernades from National Bank, the late Jack Santano Fernandes from Commercial Bank, Sheikh Agnelo and Mario Rebello and many others worked very hard to help organise this rally very successfully. The contribution and participation of every participant was worth admiring. It was they all who deserve the highest compliments. It was an unified effort of all, even financial contribution for the necessary expenses shared by all.

Though we were expecting more crowd than what attended yet none openly opposed this movement except one wretched, uncultured, uncivilised and ungrateful Kuwait Goan who is currently working in Kuwait as before the invasion of Kuwait. After meeting me in Kuwait following the liberation of Kuwait he threathened me with dire consequences for initiating this movement in Goa in support of Kuwait. Because he is a Goan I refrained from initiating legal action against him. He never associated with us in any of our activities in support of Kuwait. He wants Kuwait only to make money and not for anything. Such traitors do not deserve place for employment in Kuwait. Even the Kuwaitis working with him should be careful and Kuwaiti companies should not employ such traitors and anti-Kuwait people. He is the shame on Kuwait Goans.

Before the invasion of Kuwait many of our Kuwait Goans helped many of the Goan causes in Goa by donating lakhs of rupees but to our regret none of the recipients of our donations joined us, none of them supported us in our movement organised in support of Kuwait's liberation. The PDF Government of Dr. Proto Barbosa ruling at that time in Goa was totally away from us, not a single member of this Government joined us and never supported us openly, on the contrary some Ministers were accusing and threathening me for initiating this movement.

The current NRI Commissioner was in a Congress mode having pro-Iraq leaning. Goa based Tiatrists who are regularly coming to Kuwait and making lot of money never supported our movement, on the contrary some of them criticised us and Kuwait as well while all other Tiatrists watched silently their colleagues giving us "Zupattis"; the padris and madris who received our donations in lakhs of rupees totally forgot our movement; the recipients of our funds in lakhs of rupees for Goa Cancer Hospital and Konkani movement mainly "Novem Goem" did'nt even bother to openly show their solidarity with us. Why they only, even some families of Kuwait evacuees deserted their own people. Brother deserted brother, mother deserted father, sons and daughters deserted their parents and guardians. Through this missery we realised who was mine and who was not mine. It was a very good experience of life. When one person went with folded hands to his brother asking him to take care of me, he said "Am I My Brother's Keeper?" It was nothing but missery for many of us because we were evacuated from Kuwait empty handed. God alone helped us and the same God brought many of us back to Kuwait though all wanted to return but their wishes remained unfulfilled due to many factors.

Because of Kuwait many of us gained a lot though we are working very hard in Kuwait with lot of hardships and humiliations. Yet we love Kuwait and grateful to Kuwait and will always remain grateful to Kuwait for all the benefits we acquired from Kuwait though we may have difference of opinions in many respects.

May God protect Kuwait from where we earn our sustenance and thru this we maintin our people back at home.

A. Veronica Fernandes,
Kuwait.

MARGAO'S "SUFFOCATED" ROADS. By Valmiki Faleiro.

MARGAO'S "SUFFOCATED" ROADS.
By Valmiki Faleiro.

When this column began on Nov 13 four years ago, it did with a piece on Margao.May I wind it up with two more on my hometown: on the twin and acute problems of traffic congestion and parking. Both are inter-linked, not exclusive to Margao, but are endemic to all of Goa's major towns. Margao, though, is advantageously placed to address them. Its MLA is the State's Chief Minister. Digambar Kamat, despite what his critics may say, has done much for Margao, perhaps more than all her MLAs since 1963. If he can successfully tackle this major headache dogging Goa's "commercial capital," the strategy can be replicated elsewhere in the State.

In today's chaotic vehicular traffic scene, walking, riding and driving are becoming increasingly difficult in Goa's towns. It is no longer possible to cross a road, drive or park with any semblance of ease. We don't need consultants and no amount of Traffic Plans will help. Unless the elementary causes that warrant simple solutions are identified and implemented. (Kamat will recall that when he, 13 others and I constituted the Margao Municipal Council in June-1985, in a few months we managed to bring some semblance of order on Margao's roads. With free help from lecturers of Goa Engineering College and their enthusiastic students, who conducted traffic surveys at some crucial city traffic intersections, and the experience of then Goa Police Inspector-Traffic,Gurudas Zuwarkar.)

Any observant road user knows that private buses and off-street parking are the root causes of traffic congestion in downtown Margao. Let us consider the latter first. Parking on narrow lanes and double parking on slightly broader streets is the prime cause of daily traffic snarls. Off-street parking reduces the effective carriage way to a single lane for two-way traffic. And everybody's in a mighty hurry! The problem cannot be wished away overnight. Motorists also cannot be blamed for haphazard parking. They have no choice. With the public transport system in a mess(it takes an hour to get across a short distance, as say from Betul, Cavelossim, Cuncolim or Curchorem to Margao), people are forced to use their own vehicles. Once here, they find no place to park their two- or four-wheelers. Most places they need to visit, including schools and government offices, are concentrated in a small central area, with narrow lanes and streets. One could not expect people to park at the Konkan Railway parking lot and walk to central Margao.

People have no option but to be part of the parking mess. Margao fortunately has three State-owned sites in the downtown area: the old Tempost and, old fish market and old bus terminus. Develop multi-level parking lots at these three places and provide FREE parking in them. Then make off-street parking in the entire central commercial area steep-tariff PAID parking. Half the traffic congestion in downtown Margao will disappear overnight. Margao's parking needs for the next half century will also have been taken care of. The move to decongest downtown Margao in the mid-1980s was a good decision. The bus terminus and fish market were shifted away from the town centre, to the comunidade paddies near Old Market. In this market complex, a substantial area was acquired for parking, but is yet to be developed. A former Town Planning minister sought to commercialize it. With many public offices shifted to the SGPDA complex, there is an urgent need to develop the parking lot between Osia and NH-17. Several public complexes have come up in this area. District & Sessions Courts, Nehru Stadium, Swimming Pool & Indoor Stadium, Ravindra Bhavan. All have limited parking provision. Acquire the patches of paddies, uncultivated since the 1960s, between the Colva traffic isle and Ravindra Bhavan, esp. those on the south side, before they are converted and commercialized. These patches will serve as a buffer and provide future parking needs in the area. And when the Collectorate and Hospicio are shifted, ensure that no public offices that attract substantial volumes of visitors are brought in their place. For the heritage Hospicio edifice, an apt reuse would be a South Goa archives office, with facilities for preservation and digitization. (To conclude.)
(ENDS)

POLITICS OF SUSPENSIONS IN SOCCER.IN KUWAIT.

POLITICS OF SUSPENSION IN SOCCER.

Somewhere in 1982-83 soccer season at Sour Ground in Kuwait, in the League cum Knock-Out tournament organized by UG, their match between G.O.A. Maroons and Flying Arrows was abandoned. The confusion started when controversial Referee Jennifer Rodrigues disallowed a clear goal scored by Maroons after blowing his whistle first for the goal. Maroons players asked the referee “why you allowed the goal first and afterwards you changed your mind?” Referee was afraid for his safety from some ruffian type of players from the opposite side. Maroons players stopped playing further unless referee maintained his original position on this goal. Having no choice, referee abandoned the game giving much wanted excuse to UG the great opponents of Maroons to punish Maroons with outright suspension. Then the hell broke out not only at Sour grounds but also in the community since G.O.A. had then the most powerful committee with highly talented and prominent figures, such personalities are not seen anywhere now and such personalities are not existing either now. Maroons supporters and few members then blocked Sour grounds from having further matches there till their issue was sorted out. Supporters of Maroons then joined together and organized a parallel tournament named as Mercedes Cup with the sponsorship of Mercedes Car agents in Kuwait. Most of these supporters were Goans working in Mercedes and they only prepared the second ground at Sour with their efforts.

Because of this suspension more on malicious grounds, a few supporters of Maroons devised a strategy to physically assault some UG members responsible for this suspension of their favourite team and they succeeded in executing their plan in Calangute, Goa when one member of UG was badly assaulted when he came to Calangute beach with his wife and daughter, during his vacation in Goa. There was also a plan to kidnap a school going daughter of UG member in Goa but was not implemented though it could have been easily carried out. This secret I am releasing now to caution our people to think twice before taking any harsh decision on punishing and suspending any team either rightly or wrongly. Suspending a player or a team is not a small matter, it gives a permanent black mark on suspended team or suspended members. Today’s suspension is tomorrow’s revenge either in Kuwait or more in Goa and from my experience point of view this type of revenge can be easily taken as earlier taken. For this reason some people dissociated from involving in soccer in Kuwait not to get involved in kitchen politics
and revenge.

I do not subscribe to indiscipline, discipline should be there but one must not risk one’s safety and that of his family members back at home by applying rigorous mode of discipline. There should be a lenient view and soft punishment for any infringement otherwise one must have guts to face the threat and consequences. As it is I know our people are cowards of first grade, they will only talk. Many of our retired people back at home are living like “chor” in Goa to avoid physical attacks on them for their misdeeds in Kuwait during their employment in Kuwait, these “chors” were known to harass people working under them, for this reason they don’t enjoy peaceful retired life in Goa. Other "chors" in order to avoid such unpleasant life in Goa fled to Canada where you live like a cockroach in isolation. For one person in Magao thru my contacts I had to provide physical cover during one occasion when he was threatened by some people who felt they were harassed in Kuwait by him. Goa is not what it was, it is no more a “Saibachem Goem”, it is become now a “Goondamchem Goem”.

This write-up is necessitated because of the suspension and rigid punishment inflicted on some teams by the KIFF. This apex body KIFF is not flawless, it should not think it is omnipotent and running the affairs of World soccer. Even FIFA is considerate in its punishment. If KIFF was little soft and considerate, today another soccer body would not have been born thereby creating bad blood and divisions among us especially Goans who need more unity and not others running KIFF, "tanchea mar Konkear". The need of unity is great now, even in the Church where most of the KIFF and splittist members go, before the end of the mass priest and other faithfuls read the especial prayer for unity. Do we practice it in our daily life? In the past, to promote Goan causes we made use of Goan unity at Sour Grounds. Split in our soccer activities means a great harm for Goans causes and Goan unity. Munglurkar, Mumbaikar, Keralkar amkam martat konkear. They love our disunity and they are working for it silently.

KIFF is always known to have some idiotic minded members in its fold as it is now and it is due to their idiotic ways of assessing the situation things went thus far though the splittists were not faultless. I am surprised that there is not a single member in our community to patch up the differences erupted. Where are the people boasting of their top positions in their companies? Can't they apply their top wisdom and top power to rise to the occasion and creat some good effect in our midst? Here among us everyone wants to play soccer but due to some mistakes follies can occur. Because of these follies hell should not be brought on to the earth surface We are ultimately all one, we have to see and meet each other back at home. Is it nice to create unnecessary enemies among us and that too because of this KIFF which is a toothless body beyond its own jurisdiction? Even while inflicting punishments on erring players, KIFF used high rudeness in a Hitlerian manner. While punishing some erring players KIFF many times acted worst than Saddam Hussein. Many of its members in the past proved to be fit for nothing though they thought they were running the administration of FIFA. For this reason, once at Panji-Betim Ferry-boat, during his vacation in Goa, one KIFF member was given blows by one such punished player in the open galore of passengers travelling in the Ferry Boat. Good that I was present to stop the blows because I was known to him otherwise as he screamed there, he said “I would throw you in the sea”, to the KIFF member. I hope no KIFF member from Goa would go into the sea in future because of KIFF and politics of suspension.

A few years back some members of the KIFF brought a proposal in the KIFF meeting to punish me for writing critically of KIFF and of Sour ground soccer. Wisdomatic and efficient the then president of KIFF, Mr. Vohra enlightened the house of its folly in proposing punishment for me because he knew KIFF is a paper tiger to confront me. Then I sent a word to those members of KIFF saying “you have to sell your wives to punish me. You are people from the streets in Goa. Kuwait made you what you are today. In Goa you are nothing. In Goa you are adored only by Posorkar – Motorkar & Dukonkar”. See these idiots of KIFF who wanted to punish me when I was nowhere in KIFF nor in any team. These rascals think KIFF and Kuwait is their “xepaicho fath”. If it was not for Kuwait, they would rot in Goa. These persons got girls to marry only because of their employment in Kuwait. But none of them supported Kuwait when we came on to the streets in Goa in support of Kuwait during the invasion of Kuwait. Such anti Kuwait elements still exist, one such is an ex “bebdo” president of KIFF who was also involved in robbing the funds of KIFF and shamelessly moving in society. It was a pity to see KIFF was headed by a "chor" and a "bebdo" elected by members of his calibre in the KIFF. This was the quality of KIFF.

While concluding, I feel some saner counsel must prevail to bring about fusion in our soccer organizers and still it is not too late to bring about this patch up. Some senior members must come forward and do the needful. KIFF must as a senior and seasoned body condescend and thru its official or unofficial emissary start a negotiation to bring back the teams gone away from its fold. While doing this KIFF should not feel defeated or low. By doing this, KIFF will prove its greatness which is required for the smooth functioning of society, of our community and our soccer which is very beneficial for us. To start this soccer none of the current KIFF nor splitted group members done what I have done. Those who have gone astray must also show some elasticity because by returning back they stand to gain more. They must know that by creating a split they cannot succeed in undoing the good work of KIFF during its 25 years of existence. They must respect KIFF as some of them were responsible to support and promote KIFF earlier. After all KIFF is KIFF having a history of 25 years. KIFF has its base which cannot be shattered by the minnows and “Matare” who will soon disappear like ether.

A. Veronica Fernandes,
Kuwait.