Dear Editor,
I would like to address my comrades in a very candid way about independence.
Comrades, St. Martin (North) and St. Maarten (South) are Siamese twins. The twin-island people are family.
But constitutionally St. Martin and St. Maarten are different. Therefore, if St. Maarten should go for independence without St. Martin that would create a serious political crisis. And it would create a serious social crisis as well.
Furthermore, St. Martin with all its colonial issues has not been clamouring for independence from France. And with all those hefty social benefits from the French system, an SOS call for independence seems unlikely. Unlike the abolition of slavery (emancipation), St. Maarten and St. Martin would have to go for independence simultaneously for the twin-island to coexist.
While independence would be possible for St. Maarten, St. Martin would have a major struggle to get its independence from France.
Think about that, comrades.
Julien F. Petty
