Persecution Alleged In Goa

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30553, 23 September 1964, Page 17

Persecution Alleged In Goa

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright) LISBON, September 22. Portugal has protested to U Thant, United Nations Secre-tary-General, and the Security Council at the “persecution” of Portuguese citizens in Goa, the Portuguese Foreign Ministry said today. A Ministry communique said the Indian police had abandoned the final individual guarantees which were still in force, and Goa was now living “in a climate of anxiety and horror.” Living conditions in Goa had seriously deteriorated since 1962, after a series of explosions there, the communique said. The population had now reached “a state of revolt and despair which the New Delhi Government can longer conceal.”

According to Indian newspaper reports, there was a new series of explosions in

five Goanese towns last June, which caused considerable damage to property.. The New Delhi authorities had apparently ringed Goa with troops, made mass

arrests, invaded private residences and made arbitrary raids arid searches. India had attributed the explosions either to international adventurers, foreign agents or to “friends of the Portuguese,” the communique went on.

“None of these allegations has been proved, and the Indian authorities refuse to admit that the state of revolt among the Goanese is responsible for these acts of protest,” the Foreign Ministry added. In accordance with their policy of completely annihilating Goanese individuality and culture, the representatives of India had aggravated persecution of the Christian religion. They had also encouraged racial segregation, destroyed all public liberties, suffocated the expression of Goanese sentiments and paralysed Goa’s commerce, the communique alleged.