More on The Cidade Ordinance and Mining...

The now infamous ‘Cidade Ordinance’ by which Goa’s elected representatives have made a mockery of The Supreme Court and made their fellow Goans the laughing stock of the country, is a clear indication that Goa’s elected representatives have nothing but their own interests in mind.

Some now say that the shelf life of an ordinance is 6 months and to become a law it will have to be ratified by the Legislative Assembly. Some feel it will be opposed, but, and this is a big but, what happens if the same people come to power? Or if not them, perhaps a few new faces even worse than them?

Moreover, one should not forget that the Government of India and, more importantly, the strong big business lobby within it, only see Goa’s importance in terms of the foreign exchange its mud fetches from being exported to China. It is sad that we have Goans who will willingly do this, but sadder still that we have a Ministry of Environment and Forests that has turned its back on the precious Western Ghats and ceded shallow victory to those in the mad race to pip China to the final post. If there is a toss-up between agriculture, ecotourism, social forestry, rainwater harvesting and shall we say, mining, there is no reason to doubt what the choice will be.

When Indian corporate bigwigs smirk and say that China and India have come out of this mess smelling like roses, they accept their new roles as destroyers of the environment with glee. One would need a lot more space to document what China is doing to vast tracts of land in Africa, in return for which, by guise of ‘infrastructure’, they provide roads and build the malls that will send cheap, badly-manufactured Chinese goods.

India is no better. We have hit Africa too playing catch-up with the Chinese and working with governments there no different from the 40 persons we have in Goa, paying money left, right and centre, because big industry takes pfrecedence over the natural environment and other forms of non-human life. Says who and with what assurance?

With governmental backing, approval and support, The Jindals for instance have invested in Trinidad to put up a steel mill threatening mangrove forests and aquatic life; in Bolivia the government has given them 600 acres of private land to mine for iron ore, in exchange for their $2.1 billion investment. When America’s auto-industry belches after it has a full meal, don’t even think of how much the Jindals stand to make.

Never forget too that the Cidade de Goa is built from the huge profits Timblos made and continue to make even as this is being written from taking away Goa’s greenery and replacing it with waste mud and pools of stagnant water. What reason will the Government of India have to overrule this farce of legalizing what is obviously illegal, when they want the Timblos to export ore?

Those interested in how even the Supreme Court can favour industrial imperatives over an environment that includes in this instance, tribal peoples and their beliefs, can refer to the ruling that gave the infamous Vedanta Mining Corporation clearance to rip the forests.
If one discounts the small-time mining contractors who are doing the dirty work for the Timblos, we have just a handful of ‘traditional’ mining ‘barons’, men, who let us never ever forget, sided with the colonialist and Fascist government till the very end. It was a pro-mining Goan government, which, at the behest of a mine-owning Chief Minister, legalized colonial mining leases intended to systematically decimate Goa.

There is no way that I can believe that these same families are cash-strapped. Notice that not one of them has asked for a bail-out. Apart from their personal reserves that keep them (and ten other generations) in luxury, their reserves would have to be huge.

The global recession is actually a wake-up call to the entire earth and to all the people who care about its survival and this is where our mining barons need to put a stop to their greed, resynchronize their postulates and BE the CHANGE! Think of ways of how they diversify to environmentally-friendly industries…

To put it simply, they need to hire the best possible brains to help them think out of the box. To put this conversely, if they had the ‘vision’ of a better Goa, they would temper their greed and follow the law.

A little bird tells me that one of the Timblos is desperately calling up his old friends in Goa, almost in tears, saying that his friends have deserted him, that no one talks to him any more, that they avoid him like he has the plague. Some would say that this Timblo’s tragedy is not too different from that of Macbeth, the grief of an individual whose eyes were bigger than his stomach. From the other side, from where the woods once used to be before Timblo machinery got to work, where the villagers of Ambaulim, Kawrem, Maina and Collomb stand in the thick of the mining dust, it is a tragedy so monumental it can only be comprehended by those who see it on a day to day basis.

The foothills of the Western Ghats are disappearing. Even as this is being written more than 600 trucks are moving out of this area daily while the Timblos of course, wonder why the whole of Goa now sees them with the contempt they deserve. They can hold their soirees and their cocktail parties and flirt with the rich and famous, but when push comes to shove, thanks to the internet campaigns and various forums, everyone knows how many pieces of silver were palmed and by whom and for what.

The same Timblo who now grieves that those not in the mining fraternity are repelled by him, should know, if he has a heart at all, that this damage can be repaired. For that to happen though he would have to be able to see beyond the end of his wife’s diamond-studded nose.

Hartman de Souza to e-group western-ghats@googlegroups.com on March 10, 2009.