From colonial loot to offshore loot: A legal parody?

http://bit.ly/1TWSGRa
Teotonio R. de Souza
A prominent Lisbon-based Goan, who retired recently as judge of the Supreme Court of
Portugal, wrote in his personal blog [normetica.blogspot.com] that according to some
published media, in February 2013 the public debt of Portugal had grown to about 203,000
millions at the end of 2012, equivalent to 122,5 % of the national GNP. In March of this year it
was expected to reach 233,000 millions, largely as a result of the accumulated interest. During
2014-2014, nearly 10,200 millions were transferred to the off-shores, largely to Caiman islands
so as to escape the State taxation, which was deemed excessive by the clients of off-shores.
The actual president of the EU commission, while PM of Luxemburg is known to have opened
the doors to offshore seekers in his country banks by paying lower rate of taxes, causing
thereby damage to other EU partners. Ironically, he was even rewarded by being elected to
the post he now holds.
Asks the above mentioned judge with rightful indignation, why and how are such fortunes
accumulated by those engaged in such transactions? If they need to be hidden from the State
vigilance, would that not mean laundering of black money through off-shores and other ways?
I have been reading and puzzled that such transactions do not imply legal violations, but
permitting them would not mean a self protecting legal system manipulated by a confraternity
of large-scale looters, which include business houses and some prominent individual citizens,
many of them influential in shaping the politicial and fiscal policies of their respective
governments?
I have been denouncing repeatedly in these columns and elsewhere the games that
bourgeoisie plays in a democratic political system, which suits well their capitalist interests,
while feeding and keeping satisfied the small collaborators with liberal doles, and promising to
the rabble of naive voters freedoms and human rights, all empty of any substance?
The so-called Panama Papers may have helped to disclose some of these abusers and to
identify the experts in hiding their rightful or misgotten fortunes, but it contributes to loss of
moral authority of the responsible politicians and their claims of serving the public. The
common citizens have the right to know why they can be looted from their modest earnings,
while some citizens are privileged to bypass the laws imposed upon them.
If such off-shorish behaviour is regarded as legitimate, no one should be surprised if public
anger and outcry seeks to question the legitimacy of the so-called democratic regimes, and
mob violence takes care of those hiding their fortunes and sends them too to take refuge in
the Virgin islands or other such nests of hoarders.
These issues have merited world-wide attention and are frowned upon ever since the middle
classes of the western, including former colonialist powers, are becoming the victims of fiscal
frauds. I doubt it would matter if only ordinary masses of former colonies and less developed
countries continued to be the victims. Since 2008, following the colapse of the Lehman
Brothers, with its domino effect upon leading banks of Europe, the dirty games of the financial

elites are getting exposed. State structures grown dependent upon banks for their routine
functioning, are getting sucked in and seek remedial measures through recapitalization of
banks at the cost of the savings of the ordinary citizens arousing their anger and dispair.
I believe that my theory (supported by economic historians like Jacques Adda) leaves no place
for any surprise about the new developments. The capitalism was born and has always grown
in an ambiance that favours lack of transparency. All the discourses about democratic
transparency is a hoax and fraud played upon common citizens. The long distance trade,
including overseas trade, were particularly favourable in this respect. The institutional
loopholes were many, new and difficult to close. It became increasingly difficult for the home
authorities, initially the feudal rulers in Europe, who could keep watchful eyes upon the
internal transactions, but were unable to follow the riches acquired overseas. All that we see
happening now is only a replacement of overseas with off-shores, aided by ever sophisticated
digital transactions.
Prior to this new phase of looting through off-shores, the looting overseas was a routine form
of colonial exploitation. There was obviously nothing to object about it, because since 17th
century of the age of Discoveries the West had created an international law that suited its
interest, soothed its conscience, and protected its colonial loot against rival looters, or against
colonized people whose development as civilized, or even as humans, was at times
questioned by western legal luminaries. But the dominant colonial elites have had no apetite
to solve until now the problems of their own citizens who opted to flee from the colonies as
retornados in the wake of decolonization. Few from Goa, but mainly from Angola and
Mozambique, which were the richer milching cows for crowds of Portuguese colonial settlers.
Strange though it may seem, some former colonial title holders in Goa are hoping to be
indemnized by the Indian government on the basis of international law and a treaty of 1974
whereby the post-Salazar regime in Portugal renounced its rights over Goa which they had
already surrendered to the Indian armed forces. It remains unclear to most Goans how a
previous colonial conqueror can claim rights over and above a new conqueror.