DIGAMBAR KAMAT A WEAK CM OF GOA.

By Nisser Dias.
11th Aug 2011.

State of lawlessness. Digambar Kamat has not taken any hard decisions as Chief minister. Digambar Kamat seems to be getting into combative mood to face the upcoming assembly election next year. His statement to the media that he is not a weak and that he has taken hard decisions seems to have been made in that direction so as to send a message across to the Congress voters that they need to remain with the party. He might try to convince all and sundry that he has a spine, but the general public have judged four years of misrule. We have experienced total lack of administration, complete breakdown of law and order machinery and to top it up corruption has scaled heights like never before. To sum it up in a sentence, Digambar Kamat has been a complete failure as an administrator and thereby chief minister.

Immediately after taking over the reins of the state, he stated he would formulate a new regional plan to replace the draconian 2011 plan. He formed a task force and appointed some of the best Goan planners on the committee to formulate the new regional plan 2021 and then set about dismantling the same. Health and educational projects were kept out of the purview, suggestions by various gram sabhas and village groups were not included, eco-tourism zones made a back door entry into regional plan. The government also delayed in providing genuine documentation to the committee so as to delay the process and give opportunity to builders and developers to continue destruction of Goa’s hills and beach belt and replace it with concrete jungle thereby vitiating the entire process of planning and forcing members of the committee to resign in a huff. Thus, to replace the 2011 version of regional plan was not hard decision as it done with huge element of insincerity and deceit by taking into confidence and forming a parallel coterie of architects of the same plan and providing expert planners with distorted data.

Digambar Kamat will complete his term as chief minister of Goa, nonetheless the rape of Goa’s natural beauty continues unabated. If he was genuine about his concern for Goa, Aldeia de Goa project would not be completed. This project is a deep wound on Goan hills which will never heal and more such have been allowed in various parts of Goa, the latest being in Chicalim. Raheja’s project in Carmona is another example of destruction of our land and rivers. Let us not forget that Raheja’s had also been allotted huge tracts of land to set up SEZ.

Coming to Special Economic Zones (SEZ). Chief minister Kamat also promised to do away with SEZs in the state the moment he took over in 2006. On eve of new year of 2008 he scraped all the SEZs in the state and said that it was a gift to the Goans. However his government’s intentions were not very clean because SEZ policy was scraped a year later after scraping of SEZ. In between Goa government in written correspondence to Union government had stated the state cannot accept SEZ in the present form. Which means chief minister and his comrades in arms had hopes of bringing in SEZ in a different form.

If at all the SEZs have been driven away from Goa, it is not because of the efforts of the Digambar Kamat led government but because of the case filed in the court by the NGOs, wherein they proved to the court that huge tracts of land was allotted to the promoters by skirting the law and violating the procedures for acquisition and allotment. Incidentally most of the godfathers for the SEZ promoters in Goa happen to the ministers of the previous government led by former chief minister Pratapsingh Rane.

Then comes the illegal mining issue that has rocked assembly proceedings so many times. For the last more than three years, opposition leader Manohar Parrikar has been raking this issue. He has gone to the extent of stating that half of the ministers in the Digambar Kamat cabinet are allegedly involved in illegal mining. Why has the chief minister who also holds the Mining portfolio not challenged him to prove it. This indicates there is truth in it. If so why has he not put an end to it. Such rampant destruction would really not be in the interest of the state.

Then comes the Medium of Instruction issue. Because of assembly elections were closing in the government gave in to the demands of the parents wanting English as one of the languages of MOI. As of today it is lying before the High Court while the managements of the schools do not have a clue in which language to instruct. Did the chief minister study the legal implication before allowing parents to make a choice of language. If so why can it not explain to the court and urge for an urgent disposal, so as to allow school management and children to get on with the syllabus in the language of their choice.

Since the last four years Goa has been in the news for all the wrong reasons. Various police officers have been allegedly involved in drug trade, fake currency, improper investigation, dereliction of duty. What the government has done is just suspended them. Why has the chief minister not seen to it that departmental enquiries are conducted in a time bound manner and the officers dismissed from service instead of burdening the state exchequer by paying the disgraced officer part salary.


Corruption has become a cancer in all the government departments without exception. Even for a birth or a death certificate money is demanded from the common man otherwise he is made to run from pillar to post. What has the chief minister done to curtail this?

If the chief says he has taken hard decisions, why have there been so many agitations.
The only hard decision that chief minister Digambar Kamat has taken is to subtly override Supreme Court order holding extensions to Cidade de Goa as illegal by introducing Ordinance and regularizing them. This surely is not in the interest of Goa.


Send your comments/reactions to nisserdias@gmail.com Or SMS 9422437029)
(Nisser Dias writes a regular column in GT every Thursday).

For Goa News Log on to WWW.nizgoenkar.net

PRIESTLY OBLIGATION TOWARDS HARASSAED MAIDS IN KUWAIT.

“The hand that serves humanity does better service than the tongue that preaches divinity, thus goes the saying”.

The above saying I told Fr. Gabriel Dias the ex Priest of Kuwait Catholic Church when he was posted to Kuwait by his Carmelite Headquarters in Mangalore. Fr. Gabriel was a late vocation Goan priest from Navelim having joined the Seminary after obtaining a degree in Electrical Engineering, then working for a while in Bombay and Goa as an Electrical Engineer. He was a brilliant preacher and orator, Kuwait Church is yet to see another of his type. Though he was playing the role of a Parish Priest yet officially he was not given this post by the ex Bishop Mechallef with the logic that officially appointed Parish Priest may turn into unofficial Hitler and thus destroy the peace in the Church. For this reason Bishop Mechallef did not introduce this post in Kuwait Church under his supervision.

Fr. Gabriel was not a ruffian nor rough nor rude. He was a humble Carmelite and not an arrogant and revengeful Capuchin or Secular. He had decency, civilised family background and disciplined manners to deal with the faithfuls in the Church. He never played dirty tricks and satanic politics with Pastoral Helpers to create disunity in the Church. He never showed jealousy to the laypersons doing excellent job in the Church. Like a “Goonda” he never threatened the faithfuls by using the name of the Police during his preaching knowing very well that such threatening language is below the dignity of the priests and that such terminology disgraces the Christ’s doctrine. He never taxed the pastoral helpers by forcing them to decorate them with expensive dress code as show pieces in the Church.

He never used Church money collected from the poor faithfuls to decorate the Church premises as if it is a dancing hall. He said the House of God should be simple and not luxurious in keeping with the simple living of Christ. He never liked to pinch financially the faithfuls by taxing them for the facilities they were getting free of charge in the Church. He fully understood the financial difficulties of the faithfuls. He said we as priests must imbibe simple living habits in a true Christian spirit when I questioned him why he is not using more luxurious car. For which he replied “my car is only for necessity and not for luxury” and as such I need not change it every now and then at the cost of Church money which contains sweat and blood of poor the faithfuls mainly the domestics. He never created chaos in the Church area among the faithfuls and Pastoral helpers by imitating Saddam Hussein’s tactics.

When I questioned him once why the weekly collections from the Church not disclosed to the faithfuls openly and finally where it goes? Unfortunately he had no answer. According to me Church is not a commercial organisation, the money it generates comes from the faithfuls and as such faithfuls reserve the right to know how much it comes and where it goes. Accountability and transparency should be the principle of the Church finance because some Bishops, Priests and Parish Priests are “Chors”, they use Church money after wine, women and drugs. Today for many Goan priests, priesthood is not a vocation but a mission to live in luxury against the principle of Christianity.

I introduced Fr. Gabriel Dias to our international organisation “Writers Guild” where in his excellent speech he made the gathering comprising all intellectuals including top diplomats from different countries, astonished. He also addressed at Plaza Hotel one of our meetings organised under Goa-Kuwait Solidarity Center whereby even the top locals were surprised to know the calibre of our priest. He was a pride of our community in Kuwait ad not a nuisance. He was a metropolitan and not domestic type of crook, he was meant to be in international arena as he never suffered from inferiority complex. He never used threatening language against anyone by saying “I can send my boys to hit so and so”. He never refused giving good spiritual advice to anyone and never refused any Catholic the privilege of listening Confession saying “I have no time for your Confession”. He never killed the livelihood of any faithful to take his personal revenge. Priesthood was a mission for him and he never took pleasure when faitfuls stopped coming to the Church. He never inducted in the Church as pastoral helpers men with questionable character especially those who treated very badly their fathers in Goa. He did not destroy pastoral helpers and others close to his adversaries. He always acted as a matured priest and not as “Kalcho Porcho Potto”. He never inducted as Pastoral Helper any man by keeping eye on his wife and daughter.

The maid problems when he came to Kuwait around 1995 was at its peak. Many of the maids at that time were from Goa, Mangalore and Bombay. They were either physically or sexually abused by their employers and because of these abuses they escaped from their work places and took shelter in the Safe House provided by Indian Embassy. Though Church every Sunday receive a fat amount of collection from the maids and other domestics yet Church leadership failed to help the suffering maids during their financial crisis thereby forcing many to fall into the hands of human vultures thus losing their Catholic souls to the Lucifer’s kingdom.

I spoke to Fr. Gabriel to do something for this sickness which was afflicted mostly to our Goan maids only. Hence under his leadership we formed an organisation “Konkani Heritage Kuwait” mainly to help repatriation of the Konkani Maids housed at Indian Embassy Safe House, by financing their return air tickets to India. In this manner KHK under the skippership of Fr. Gabriel Dias repatriated many Goan maids safely back to their homes. Otherwise their fate would be very desperate and many of them were subjected to the physical, sexual and torture abuses.

In this forum earlier posting the readers have seen how cruel the Kuwaiti employers can turn. See the way the poor Filippina girl tortured. Like this there are many such cases not surfaced yet and still remained hidden. Some of these cruel Kuwaitis will never change; they are sadistic minded taking pleasure in torturing their domestics. Such cruel acts against poor expatriate maids go against the teachings of the religion they practice. The incident of poor Filippina girl reminds me of the poor young girl Fantine as depicted by Victor Hugo in his epic “Les Miserables” where the poor young girl Fantine was put to miserable treatment by her employer.
I reproduced that write up in this forum to remind once again our Goa females to take note of such atrocities, tomorrow they may be also be the victims of such torturing. I hope our Church leaders and social workers will enlighten our maids coming to Kuwait on this topic.

A. Veronica Fernandes,
Kuwait.

TORTURING OF MAIDS IN KUWAIT.

Herebeow I am reproducing a news item appeared in the local Arab Times dated 04.08.11 with the photograph of the tortured Filippina Maid showing marks of tortures on her feet and hands. These tortures were inflicted on her body by her Kuwaiti lady employer. the story goes thus as written by Michelle Fe Santiago under the title 'Endless Torture'.
A. Veronica Fernandes
Kuwait.


QUOTE “ KUWAIT CITY, Aug 3: A Fillipina household service worker escaped from her Kuwaiti employer and sought refuge at the Philippine Embassy after alleged suffering severe maltreatment that almost damaged her eyesight. Angela, 24, single and native of Lanao Del Sur in Southern Philippines who arrived in Kuwait on Aug 14, 2010 claimed that she had been maltreated by her lady employer since the day she started working for that household. She showed to the Arab Times on Wednesday the scars and bruises that dot various parts of her body, detailing every form of abuse that she allegedly suffered at the hands of her lady employer. She also complained that she was not paid her salary since she started working for them. “She just let me sign a piece of paper that I got my salary but I didn’t receive any money and I wasn’t able to send to my family to the Philippines” she disclosed.

Angela with tears welling in her eyes can barley open her right eye after her lady employer poked it with her long fingernail. “She pokes my right eye every month. She would insert her long fingernail into my eye and she tries to pull out my eyeball till it bleeds profusely. I cry for mercy but she doesn’t stop until the blood oozes from my eye”, she recounted in between sobs. She added that one of the five kids of her lady employer is blind. “Her nine-year old son is totally blind and she wants me to be like him, so she pokes my right eye every month. There was a time, that I can’t see anything anymore. It was total black, then now my vision is blurry”, she lamented.

Angela narrated that her lady employer also banged her forehead on the wall for no apparent reason. “She wants me to do all things fast but I’m all alone in their house. The other Sri Lankan maid was able to escape. So she would hold my hair and bang my forehead on the wall,” she stated. She cited that her lady employer also strangled her with her bare hands that she gasped for breath and almost choked to death “These are the scars after she strangled me. I thought I would already die,” she stated. She also showed the scar on her left arm when her madam pressed a steaming hot iron on her arm

“She also stepped on my feet till they bled. These are the wounds that have healed”, she showed. She then took off her jacket and rolled up the sleeves of her blouse and showed a scar near her shoulder blade. “She bit me so hard with her teeth digging into my flesh. I cried for mercy but she still went on till my back bled,” she wept.

Her hands are also wrinkled and scarred after her lady employer allegedly tried to break her fingers. “I just prayed to God to give me enough strength and I also thought of my family. I want to go home alive and in one piece. On July 27, my prayer was finally answered when I was throwing some diapers, I saw the door was open, so I ran outside till an Indian couple found me and helped me. They dropped me at the embassy the next day and I want to thank them for that,” she narrated.

Currently, Anjela is temporarily housed at the Philipino Workers Resource Center in Jabriya under the care of Philippine Labour Attache David Des Dicang. “We have already brought Angela to the hospital for medical examination and treatment, especially her eyes. The doctor gave her some eye drops as she has been complaining of a blurry vision. She will be going back there again for another check-up,” pointed out Dicang. He cited that the Assistance to Nationals Unit at the Philippine Embassy headed by Dalidig Ibrahim Tanandatu has already endorsed the case of Angela to the prosecutor’s office and vowed to file a case against her lady employer.

“The Philippine embassy under the leadership of Ambassador Shulan Primavera will extend all the legal assistance to her so justice will be served,” stressed Dicang. “ UNQUOTE.