------------------------------------------------------------------------ Remembering Aquino Braganca (b. 6 April 1924), who fought for freedom of the former Portuguese colonies in Africa. An online tribute http://aquinobraganca.wordpress.com/ (includes many historical references, some photographs and documents)
------------------------------------------------------------------------ Goans got sucked into Brit colonialism, says Kenya ex-politician Goanet News Fitz De Souza, former deputy Speaker of the Kenyan parliament, says Goans formed the "backbone" of the British colonial administration in East Africa, and suggested they could have been more critical of White colonialism in the 'dark continent'. Speaking here during a function last weekend, the Kenyan lawyer and ex-politician, said, "You may not like what I'm going to say. But Goans in fact were the backbone of the British administration" in East Africa. "Britain could not have ruled Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania without the Goans. The Chief Secretary and Cabinet were only Europeans, the district commissioners were from Oxford or Cambridge. But the army of clerks -- from district clerks, to prison clerks and law clerks -- came from Goa," he said. "They had a lot of power in that country. Anybody could not open a shop or get a gun license without a Goan's approval," he said. He criticised the British for their "complete racism", and said it was they who planted the idea that "Goans are not Indians, but Portuguese" and that "Indians were crooks and thieves" while the Goans were honest. "Unfortunately, many Goans believed in that," said Fitz Remedios Santana de Souza (born 1929, Mumbai), often known as Dr. F. R. S. de Souza. Souza, who made these comments at the International Centre Goa during a Friday evening function, was an important figure in the campaign for independence for Kenya, a member of the Kenyan parliament in the 1960s and Deputy Speaker for several years. He helped provide a legal defence for those accused of Mau Mau activities, and he was one of the people involved in the Lancaster House conferences held to draw up a constitutional framework for Kenyan independence. Born to a Goan family in Mumbai, de Souza lived in Zanzibar before settling in Kenya in 1942. Fitz de Souza took a first degree in England and trained as a barrister at Lincoln's Inn. As a young man in 1952 he joined a team of lawyers from various Commonwealth countries, lawyers educated in England but not born there, defending Kenyans accused of Mau Mau activities by the British colonial administration, in a series of trials including that of Jomo Kenyatta. Feelings in the country were running high, with some settlers of European ancestry disrupting any legal process for people they considered assassins, while other people in Kenya were convinced of bad faith amongst those involved in the all-white British prosecution. In this atmosphere, de Souza and an Asian colleague faced implied allegations of 'encouraging' defendants to criticise police witnesses, but judges at the East African Court of Appeal supported them, praising their assistance to the court. For part of the 1950s Fitz de Souza was studying for a PhD at the London School of Economics and was politically active both there and in Kenya. His doctoral thesis was on "Indian Political Organization in East Africa" (1959). He knew Kenyatta and was a major figure in the movement towards an independent Kenya. He has been described during this period both as a "freedom fighter" and as someone "organiz[ing] Africans and Asians against the colour bar", according to online tributes to Souza. In the early 1960s he was a legal adviser at the Lancaster House conferences in London where Kenyatta and the Kenyans worked with the UK Colonial Secretary, Reginald Maudling, and his team to develop a constitution for the country. De Souza was an elected member of the Kenyan Parliament even before full independence in 1963, and Deputy Speaker of the Lower House from June 1963. He left this post in 1970, spent many years in private practice, and is now semi-retired. Souza has been quoted saying in a Pulitzer prize-winning book written by Caroline Elkins that he believed at least one hundred thousand Kikuyu disappeared at the time of Mau Mau, in "a form of ethnic cleansing on the part of the British government". ENDS