Dear Editor,
It should feel good to know that also in St. Maarten there is support for the plight of the people of Statia in their battle with big bad Holland. It is, however, unfortunate to read that the arguments that are used are rather inaccurate. This is most likely results from the lack of knowledge of the exact circumstances. In a letter to the editor, Mr. Elton Jones mentioned that in anticipation of the evaluation the Dutch pre-emptively tried to have the islands absorbed into their constitution as so-called Kingdom Islands.
Let me start by saying that Statia, Saba and Bonaire are and will not be Kingdom islands. This was an idea that was floating almost two decades ago. Secondly, there is no plan to absorb the islands in the Dutch constitution, but merely to create the possibility in the constitution for the islands to be special public entities.
Thirdly, the evaluation was carried out two years ago. Finally, that this was to happen was agreed prior to 10-10-10, when all five former Antillean islands, including St. Maarten, did agree to temporarily make a provision for this in the Kingdom Statute. An amendment of the constitution would take too long and would have also delayed St. Maarten’s change to an autonomous country. Furthermore, the constitutional amendment was not vigorously resisted by Statia and Bonaire. Statia’s government on top of that had given their written consent to the change in constitution in February 2016.
Contrary to Mr. Jones statements, the Dutch government did not decide that the voter turnout in the 2014 referendum was insufficient. Our local referendum ordinance, passed by Statia’s island council before the referendum, requires a 60% voter turnout for a constitutional referendum. A little over 45% voted. The Dutch government had nothing to do with this. Even the UN committee that monitored the referendum mentions in its report that the referendum was invalid. Mr. Jones continues by stating that he knows that they (the Dutch) collect USD 9 million from Statia terminal, an amount he clearly must have sucked out of his thumb.
The other article in solidarity of Statia in yesterday’s paper quotes Dr. Rhoda Arrindell from the St. Maarten Independence Foundation. I recently also saw a letter of support from the St. Maarten government. This should make us feel really good, was it not that in reality St. Maarten isn’t really worrying that much about Statia. Some examples: The turnover tax, St. Maarten is charging the people and businesses of Statia, is against international practice, whereby you don’t tax people in other nations. Many attempts to have this matter resolved remained futile, while this is something that is directly hurting the people and businesses of Statia and Saba.
I also remember the stumbling blocks St. Maarten put in the way of our emergency helicopter, which was hampering the transport of our patients. We pay USD 220 for a round trip ticket with Winair to St. Maarten, which makes it the most expensive in the world. Almost 30 per cent of that ticket price goes to St. Maarten taxes. This ticket price makes it extremely expensive for the people of Statia to travel and obstructs the development of tourism to the island. Only last week St. Maarten Medical Center finally agreed with the increase of the specialisms offered at the hospital and the upgrading of the existing ones in order to accommodate patients from Statia and Saba. Hopefully this will reduce the need to ship our patients all the way to Columbia. This improvement will of course also benefit St. Maarten patients. All this is with the financial help of our national insurance office ZVK. We had to wait for this more than six years.
Koos Sneek
