Dear Editor,
The elected officials of our island must understand that it is a privilege and an honour to serve the people. They have the responsibility to portray themselves exemplary because they represent all of us. The United People's Coalition (UPC) felt the need to emphasize the following, after listening to the ignorance uttered by Mr. Clyde van Putten last week in Curaçao. First of all he introduced himself as the prime minister of Statia and spoke on behalf of Statia and her people in a borderline delusional way, addressing a gathering of Kursou Fuerte I Outonomo.
This brings to mind the Dunning-Kruger effect. A person of low ability suffering from the illusion of superiority mistakenly assessing their cognitive ability as greater than it is.
The UPC had hoped that with the passing of Irma and Maria that he and his cronies would have had a semblance of understanding to tone down the inflammatory rhetoric and make use of this nature given opportunity to really engage in talks with The Hague, without losing face, in an effort to finally get the development of the island going.
What is sad and surely an offence to our people is for this island council member of the ruling coalition in antagonizing, lying manner and with much fanfare, perceived to tell The Hague that if they send people to Statia to take over government backed by marines, he and his followers will hunt them down, burn them and drag them in the street of Statia. Now, in the state our island is in, these types of provoking statements are unbecoming and not in the interest of the people.
As the UPC pointed out already in previous articles this delusional quest of him for more autonomy is only championed because he so eagerly would like to be the first prime minister of Statia. We hope the people are paying attention to what is going on and understand that this fight for more autonomy has nothing to do with them, but only is pushed to feed this “gentleman’s” huge ego.
Taking the above-mentioned into consideration the UPC condemns in the strongest terms the statement coming from this council member and also feels the need to tell the world that our people are resilient, but also a friendly people and will not be incited to violence by this deranged politician.
Reginald C. Zaandam
Leader of the United People's Coalition
