If any Goan deserves a media tribute, it is good old George Vaz, who was one of the last of the vanishing breed of eminent Goans, says his Assonora gaumbhav VALENTINO FERNANDES

GEORGE VAZ, who had dedicated himself to liberate the oppressed, was in the forefront of Goa's freedom struggle, braving bullets for well nigh two decades. He was also the kingpin of Goa's labour front for as many years. Thanks to comrade George, the mining labour wages are the highest in the country. Nearly three to four lakh inhabitants of Goa have, directly or indirectly, benefitted from his relentless bargaining at conference tables.

George never lived for his own pleasure or profit. Many freedom fighters have been demanding benefits, facilities--political or otherwise--but he never did. Trade Union leaders are known to ply their own little trade with the managements of companies, which George was not known to do. The utterly simple bachelor, gifted with a fine sense of humour, always wore very self-effacing humility.

George got part of his initiation into Goa's freedom struggle from his late father Sebastian Xavier Vaz, who used to edit a journal called Amigo dos Povo (Friend of the Poor). Sebastian hated high class politics resorted to by the Bombay Goan elite of his times. While schooling at St Xavier's High School, George watched avidly the pitched battles the Satyagrahis and the British cavalry were locked in. At College too he feverishly debated with the Spanish Jesuits for extending their support Franco's regime during the Spanish Civil War.

When George abandoned college, he ran into fellow Goans--Laxman Pai and Francis Newton D'Souza, both eminent artists--who played their role in the freedom struggle. During the Quit India movement, Vaz threw in his lot with the students' protest movement.. Charles Gerard, who was a British director of the Art School, got Vaz rusticated, taking the latter's nationalist activities as a personal insult.

On June 18, 1946, Dr Ram Manohar Lohia was arrested and jailed for launching the freedom movement in Goa. Vaz, who had accompanied the stormy petrel of Indian politics, was also arrested and sentenced by the Portuguese Military Court for nine months of rigorous imprisonment at the Fort Aguada Jail.

George would reminisce nostalgically, "It was an experience. My fellow jail mates were people like P.P Shirodkar, Upendra Talaulikar, etc.. People say many nasty things about the police. We enjoyed much freedom. The trouble began only when we insisted on our rights."

Little is known about the film career of this labour leader. "I was an art director for a time. You see after my externment to Bombay, following my imprisonment in Goa, I found myself at a loose end. So my brothers roped me into this film line. I worked with people like Balraj Sahani. We even went to Kashmir to do the filming of "The Story of Kashmir. Krishna Menon, the ten Defence Minister of India was also with us."

George figured among those who led the movement of the Warli tribe to invade the 70 villages of Dadra Nagar Haveli in 1954. He also canvassed in various parts of India for Goa's liberation. He marched to the North Goa border with the Goa Vimochan Samiti. Vaz rejoiced when the Jawans marched into Goa and liberated the territory from the Portuguese in 1961. Of course, he admitted that his house4 roof got blasted when the Assonora Bridge was guillotined by the Portuguese saboteurs.

For George, the Liberation of Goa did not end his fight for the freedom of the common man and workers. He was a pioneer of the trade union movement in Goa. "What is the use of political freedom if toilers are deprived of their fruit of labour," he would often lament.

The hardcore communist party leader was invited twice for the May Day rallies in Moscow. But he refused the invitation. "I prefer to work for our May Day rallies not at Moscow but at Vasco," he told me once.

The matchless leader of the masses breathed his last in the early hours of July 25 and his funeral rites were held on July 27 from his residence "Julio Villa" in Assonora.