Justice Minister Edson Kirindongo has the right idea (see Tuesday paper). One can react in anger and take a defensive attitude when parliamentarians in the Netherlands keep painting an often quite one-sided and exaggerated picture
of crime in St. Maarten, or engage them on what actually could be done to improve the situation.
By choosing the latter, the recently-appointed minister is showing maturity and pragmatism. The fact that he is not a career politician and comes from the law enforcement sector may have something to do with it.
After all, the committee in charge of the Plans of Approach concluded that the local police and prison still have not achieved the desired progress, so yet another two-year extension was discouraged. Dutch Minister of Kingdom Relations Ronald Plasterk wanted to seek other ways to address the problem, but a majority of the Second Chamber in The Hague passed a motion telling him to prepare proposals by mid-May with “binding agreements and clear objectives” to upgrade the two institutions in question.
As Plasterk said, there is already a protocol to strengthen the Justice system on the island in which his government has committed to invest 22 million euros. Perhaps that can form the basis for the new improvement plans he is supposed to present.
So, the motion in itself should not be seen as a direct threat or big deal, but rather more of the same. What ought to be monitored closely is the assertion that The Hague would “absolutely” hang on to separate control in this process, independently of the Government in Philipsburg.
A good way to do that is by guiding the Dutch effort as best possible and keeping the communication lines wide open. A lot of things can be put on paper, but it’s their execution in practice that usually matters most.
Ultimately, better law enforcement is in everybody’s interest. At least trying to work together on realising such is therefore indeed the sensible thing to do.
