Pubdate: Thu, 28 Nov 2013
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2013 The Washington Post Company
Contact: http://mapinc.org/url/mUgeOPdZ
Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Author: Rama Lakshmi
Page: A10

DRUG WARS TAKE SHINE OFF INDIAN BEACH DESTINATION

Residents debate whether Goa has paid too steep a price for a tourism
boom that also brought narcotics traffickers

The American tourist sipping a frosty beer by an oceanside shack had
been in Goa just a few hours before a man sidled up to him and asked
whether he wanted to buy drugs.

"I heard the waves, my toes dug into the sand, and my weekend holiday
had just begun," said Pablo Rosa, 48, from Texas. "Even before I got
my feet wet in the water, I was offered drugs. That's how easy and
open it is here."

Over the past three decades, the tiny western Indian state of Goa has
become a popular beach destination for Indians and foreigners alike,
offering a mix of sun, sand, dance music festivals, ayurvedic-healing
resorts and businesses bearing names such as Karmic Cafe, Buddha
Tattoo and Nirvana Bar.

But the sun-seekers' haven is rapidly acquiring a darker reputation -
as a hub for international drug trafficking and Ecstasy-chasing tourists.

A few weeks ago, the shadowy subculture of the area dubbed India's
"cocaine coast" by the news media was exposed when violence spilled
onto the streets: After a Nigerian man was killed in a turf war
between drug gangs, more than 150 outraged Nigerians dragged his body
from a police hearse, attacked the officers and blocked a national
highway for hours.

The protest sparked a backlash against Nigerians among local
residents, part of a growing uneasiness about the Africans' presence
here, which some observers say reflects a wider trend of racism in
India. Banners bearing slogans such as "Say No to Nigerians, Say No to
Drugs" hung in the streets. Many Goans said they will not rent rooms,
motorcycles or scooters to Nigerians. One Goa politician said
Nigerians are like cancer; another likened them to wild animals.

"Soon every Goa street will be ruled by drug gangs and their political
cahoots," read the headline of a column in a newspaper called the Goan.

"People in Goa are reacting in a mixed and confused manner to all the
changes tourism has brought," said Frederick Noronha, who runs a
nonfiction publishing house called Goa 1556.

The tension was exacerbated when the government ordered the arrest and
deportation of all Nigerians without valid documents, triggering a
diplomatic furor. Thirty-four of the 52 Nigerians arrested in the
highway protest lacked valid papers, according to a state immigration
official.

"Indian people do not like us, some clubs say they do not want to
serve us, and now these calls for boycotts against us," said Joe
Prince, a 31-year-old Nigerian businessman who said he had not stepped
out of his home in a village in Goa since the killing. "We have
silently suffered insults for years, but now it is out in public.
Indians look at us and think ' black' and 'drug peddlers.' "

The turmoil has shaken Goa's easygoing cosmopolitan culture, which has
drawn hippies from abroad since the 1960s. As tourist season gets
underway, many local residents are debating whether the region has
paid too high a price for the tourism boom.

"What we are seeing now is what we have known for years. The situation
did not develop overnight," said Dattesh Parulekar, an assistant
professor of international relations at Goa University. "So many
foreigners have come here and set up local businesses, beach shacks
and hotels, run the drug trade and bought up huge tracts of land. The
local people have watched helplessly as their area changed, but they
are also unable to extricate themselves from the profit that tourism
brings."

For many in Goa, a former Portuguese colony, the gang-fighting comes
as a warning to clean up the tourist trade, which attracted more than
2.7 million international and domestic visitors last year. Worried
residents say some of them are the wrong kind.

"We know what goes on in the name of tourism here - drugs and flesh
trade," said Vasudev Arlekar, president of the local taxi-owners
association. "India's tourism slogan is 'Guest is God.' But how can we
worship guests who are doing all this nonsense?"

Goa's narcotics trade is worth about $950 million a year, police
officials say, and includes marijuana, heroin, cocaine, meth, ecstasy
and synthetic drugs.

For a long period, drug trafficking in Goa was controlled by separate
gangs run by Britons, Israelis, Russians and Indians, who maintained
an uneasy peace by operating on different beaches, police said. But in
the past four years, Nigerians have infiltrated the trade, with scant
regard for others' established turfs.

"The Nigerians have entered in large numbers and will sell to anybody
and everybody - on the beach, outside clubs and on the streets," said
Kartik Kashyap, superintendent of the police anti-narcotics unit.
"That is why the public perception about them is negative."

Police said 189 Nigerians have been arrested in Goa since 2010, on
charges including lack of valid travel documents and involvement in
drug trafficking. About 40 percent of the foreigners arrested on
drug-trafficking charges in the state since 2009 are Nigerians.

Just two weeks before the killing of the Nigerian man, Goa's police
busted two major drug rackets, seizing more than four kilograms of
amphetamine from a British drug-dealer and more than 450 grams of
cocaine from two Nigerians.

Police say they have recovered more drugs from raids this year than in
the past four years combined.

The drug gang wars are "a manifestation of the rot that has set in,"
Kashyap said. "These activities cannot be divided among groups
peacefully for long. If these gangs are not controlled now, things
might turn horribly bad in future."

But the drug-tourism trade has grown deep tentacles here. Last month,
the Goa legislative assembly released a 104-page report on the nexus
among politicians, police officers and the drug lords.

"How can the government tackle the menace when such powerful people
are protecting and profiting from it?" said Mickky Pacheco, who
chaired the lower-house committee that wrote the report.

Many in Goa say they worry that the wave of negative publicity will
tarnish the state's sunny sheen permanently. Goa did not report
significant growth in domestic tourist arrivals last year, and it is
no longer among the top 10 Indian states that attract foreign
tourists, according to the national government.

Monika Burnier, a Swiss tourist turned travel agent, said she
discovered "paradise" in Goa 20 years ago and began working to bring
in new European visitors.

"Over the years, the chartered flights with tourists from Switzerland,
Denmark, Finland and Holland have stopped," Burnier said, shaking her
head in dismay. "Look at what Goa has become now. Do you blame them?"
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MAP posted-by: Matt