A senior leader of the ruling Socialist Party of Portugal today said it was pointless to demand apology from his country now for the colonial rule.
Goa transport minister Ramakrishna Dhavalikar had said in the Assembly recently that Prime Minister of Portugal Antonio Costa, who has roots in Goa, should tender an apology for the 450-year-old oppressive Portuguese rule in the state.
Speaking at a program here, Dr Edgar Valles, a senior leader of the Socialist Party in that country, said, "I really don't understand how people from Goa can ask an apology from Portugal now."
"If that is the case, why the Britishers who treated Indians like dogs are not asked to apologise? The Great Britain too owes an apology to Indians," Valles said at the program organised by Indo-Portuguese Friendship Society.
"No Goan-origin, in fact no Indian-origin (person) would ever be able to become the Prime Minister of countries like England, France or Africa. These nations treat people differently," Valles said, adding that "the situation in Portugal is different" where a Goan-origin could become the PM because the people in the country did not discriminate.
He also said that several Goans think of Portugal as the country with dictatorship from which Goa was liberated (in 1962), but "since 1974, the revolution has come in Portugal and the country now is a democracy".
