Some readers who took note of Justice Minister Dennis Richardson’s reaction in Parliament to earlier statements by Attorney-General Guus Schram may have found it rather blunt. Those thinking so would do well to check the latter‘s complete speech on Tuesday’s opinion pages for themselves, to determine exactly what he said at the installation of a new judge last week Friday.
In addition to the various integrity reports, the head of the prosecution in Curaçao and St. Maarten mentioned several specific penal examples such as the Bada Bing bribery scandal and a current parliamentarian convicted for tax evasion and forgery – who has appealed and thus can stay in office, according to the country’s constitution – plus the partly-still-open vote-buying case. But it is the conclusion he subsequently drew that raised quite a few eyebrows.
“In short, there are numerous indications showing that the underworld and legitimate society in St. Maarten are structurally intertwined. This expresses itself through subversive crime: corruption within politics and governance, abuse of power, self-enrichment, intimidation, election fraud, criminal organisations which are unassailable, etc,” Schram stated.
Of course, there is no arguing that the Dutch side has seen a number of serious integrity breaches involving either active or former public administrators, politicians, high-ranking civil servants and even law enforcement officials. However, to then act as though the underworld has taken over indeed seems a bit much.
After all, the only local person claimed to have ties to the mafia in recent times is a casino boss with legal issues in Italy, where the court actually has prohibited authorities from referring to him in that way. Not only that, but the kingdom ambassador in Rome who had first reported this matter to then-Prime Minister of Curaçao Gerrit Schotte didn’t receive any formal backing from The Hague in the end.
Perhaps the Attorney-General knows of other “smoking guns” that will prove him right, because while there indeed have been many transgressions and irregularities related to the governmental sector, these alone don’t appear to justify a gross generalisation depicting the entire community as some sort of nest of organised crime. When that nevertheless is done precisely by the highest law enforcement authority of the land, the Minister’s call to either “put up or shut up” becomes more understandable.
