Dear Eddie Fernandes
Your write up in Goanet, gives me an understanding that you were lucky guy
to settle with Canadian passport, although you were entitled for
Portuguese citizenship as your parents were from Goa origin and that you
and your kids are not Goans. You also said that one Bangladeshi cheated and
now working in Portuguese stores after cheating Goa Government and
fraudulently managed to get Portuguese passport. What a luck of him too.
Like this I have quite a number of people especially Gujratis, Damanis and
Diu, who have done Portuguese passport although they none of them
including their parents were born during Portuguese regime before 1961 but
they are in Portugal with Portuguese passport. What a Luck?
Now we have our true Goans and my cousins and friends too, who are
struggling to get Portuguese passport on account of these foolish guys who
have created nuisance for true Goans. .Should I say the Portuguese are
stupid to recognize who is a true and real Goan and who is Cheater "
FOTKIRO"
With all these cases Goans are spending more than 2 lakhs of rupees to get
the Portuguese passport and that too gets Portuguese passport which takes
at least one year minimum if all the papers are correct. Who makes
the business are these smart people so called agents who go to Portugal and
come back with the documents and still they cannot manage to hand over
passport to our poor Goans within few months, because Portuguese consulate
in Portugal demands proper documents and have doubts of everybody going to
settle to Portugal. It is because of these idiots who are already in
Portugal and one of them working in Stores as you said.
We CALL THE PAKLE BURR PITA SUR.
One person appears to have given almost Rs. 0ne lakh to one
agent although his parents were born during Portuguese regime before 1961
and the agent only it seems did birth and marriage attestation in
Portugal after 8 months for his parent only ( i.e called first step) and
still their son is struggling to get his documents attested in Portugal.
After that he might have to pay another one or more Lakhs to this agent .
GOD only know why these guys go to Portugal after spending so much money
and after reaching there they have no good or decent jobs, even in UK.
Remo is another fool, now he is still in more trouble not because of
accident by his son, but because of Portuguese and lately 3 activist file a
PIL against him for many issues in respect of citizenship. Like this many
cases or skeletons will surface even from the BJP side who may be holding
Portuguese passport and that needs to be inquired very strictly by the Goa
Government.
Stephen Dias
Dona Paula
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Message: 2
Date: Sat, 2 Jan 2016 23:06:18 -0000
From: "Eddie Fernandes" <eddie.fernan...@gmail.com>
To: "Goa's premiere mailing list, estb. 1994!"
<goanet@lists.goanet.org>
Subject: [Goanet] Portuguese Passports. Stray Thoughts of a Toronto
Goan - By Roland Francis
Message-ID: <009801d145b2$30dc8a70$92959f50$@gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
It may have been Dictator Antonio Salazar's last revenge on the Indian
authorities. Either that, or his love for Goans (and Damanese and Diucars)
was so overwhelming, that he did something for them that no colonial
government anywhere had ever done for the people it once governed. In fact,
even the Portuguese themselves had never done any such thing for its other
subject people whether Africans, Brazilians, Timorese or Macanese.
I am talking about the granting of Portuguese citizenship to people even of
the third generation. Take my own example; my parents who were born in Goa,
left the land when young to search for and find employment in British
Bombay. I was born in Indian Bombay and also when about their age, left
India's shores for overseas climes, ending up as a Canadian citizen. My
children were born neither in Goa nor in India nor anywhere remotely
connected to Portugal, yet because their grandparents were born in
Portuguese Goa many decades earlier, they become entitled to Portuguese
citizenship (it's another matter that they may never want it). The surprises
don't end there.
>From the mountains of Kashmir in the west to the plains of flood prone
Bangladesh in the east, down southward to the Gujaratis living in the areas
outside of Daman and Diu, to the coasts of Kerala, people in India,
dishonest or enterprising, depending on whichever way you look at it, pass
off false documents showing themselves of Goan origin and fool the
Portuguese passport-issuing authorities into giving them their citizenship.
The reasons for getting another nationality vary. Most want it so they can
work in the rest of Europe, others want it for tax purposes to launder away
their untaxed money (India has generous tax advantages for non-resident
Indians and foreigners of Indian origin), still others use it as rainy day
protection if the Indian economy collapses (not a far-fetched possibility
given the extreme corruption there) and a few others want it to escape
Indian justice. An example of the latter is a well known top Muslim gangster
of Bombay who fled to Portugal before the long arm of the law could catch up
to him and then gave the Indian Police a hard time before they could get him
legally extradited to India. I don't know why Portugal gave him its
citizenship protection considering he had quite obviously fraudulently
obtained it.
I was quite amused with the story of my cousin in Toronto who told me about
his recent visit to Lisbon. He was looking out for Scotch Whisky and when
stepping into a convenience store was told by the Bangladeshi owner that he
could give it to him for a few Euros less since he was a fellow Indian
(irony is my cousin is Canadian and the Bangladeshi storekeeper is
Portuguese). Anyway when asked how he came to Portugal, he said he went to
Goa and easily obtained false documents showing his ancestors were from
there.
I see the hand of St. Francis Xavier in keeping the Portuguese nationality
route available to this day for Goans who want it. It must take the
extraordinary power of a saint to resist the protests from the European
Union to make Portugal change the law to make all those 'job-taking Indians'
enter England where they usually end up, adding to the 'trouble-making
Pakistanis' already there, not to mention the Poles, Slavs and the Arabs.
One of those who will not see eye to eye with the Patron Saint, will be
successful and well-known musician and entertainer Remo Fernandes who has
recently landed himself in hot water in Goa and must be cursing his decision
to take Portuguese nationality. Our Remo had styled himself as a political
activist poking thorns into the sides of Goa ministers' misdeeds while being
a foreign national taking formal part in politics and official positions,
clearly afoul of his legal status. Make no mistake. All the accusations of
his verbal abuse against a minor girl who was injured in a car accident
where his son was a driver and he a passenger, are just a smokescreen. Remo
is not out of his mind to have done that since he has enough to lose from
the negative publicity fallout he would have foreseen. But now, he must face
the music of his illegalities. It is ironic that he of all people would need
to opt for being a Portuguese citizen. But, the law must triumph even in a
country that has little respect for it.
Wish all readers a happy and healthy New Year.
Forwarded by Eddie Fernandes
