PANJIM: A senior Portuguese Socialist Party leader, Dr Edgar Valles asked Goans “why an apology is not being sought from Great Britain, who treated Indians like Dogs”.
Hailing Portugal for accepting Goan-origin politician Antonio Costa as Prime Minister, he said that people in that country don’t discriminate, and expressed unhappiness over certain sections of Goan society demanding an apology from Portugal for their 451 years of colonial rule.
“I really don’t understand, how people from Goa can ask an apology from Portugal now. If that is the case then why the British who treated Indians like dogs are not asked for an apology? Great Britain too owes an apology to Indians,” said Valles on Friday, delivering a talk on Present and Future of Portugal organized by the ‘Indo Portuguese Friendship Society’. The Socialist Party is currently in power in Portugal.
“No person of Goan origin… in fact no Indian origin person would ever be able to become Prime Minister of countries like England, France or Africa because they treat people differently. But in Portugal it is different. A Goan origin person became PM only because people there don’t discriminate,” Valles said.
The Socialist leader expressed apprehension that even today Goans believe that Portugal is a ‘dictatorship’. “Many people have the idea that Portugal is a dictatorship but that was before Liberation of Goa. In 1974 there was a revolution in Portugal and there is now democracy,” he said.
In an unexpected disclosure, Valles said that ‘when Costa became Prime Minister, people from other parts started to make fun that a ‘Monhe’ (a term used by Mozambique to describe persons of Indian origin) has become a PM’.
