Dear Editor,
If for sixty odd years the new police recruits in the Netherlands Antilles were trained and schooled in the Police academy on Curaçao; if over the years many many crimes nationally as well as internationally were successfully solved by those same police of the Netherlands Antilles; if in the Kingdom of the Netherlands justice has always remained kingdom affairs; if we continue to proclaim if it is not broken don’t try to fix it, then why have we messed with the police recruits training. I have always said it and will always maintain that politics has no place in a police force. Politics should never be incorporated in police affairs.
Where am I going with this. I was called and told that what I always said is coming to pass. Government is bringing twenty police officers from Suriname to mentor the police here because of the incompetence of the local police. I could not believe that it was said that way and could not discuss it further because of load shedding and the battery of my phone ran down. Which in a sense was good also. I did not really say much about reinforcement, but I always said in Papiamento, “Pa Antillas, polis bo ta bira na Corsow.” (Police for the Antilles are made in Curaçao”).
What I have also said is that the young men and women from the Windward Islands should spend at least two years working on Curaçao before coming back home. They need the experience and the seasoning. The nucleus of the population of St. Maarten and the lack of sense of decorum is not conducive and may even be prejudicial for a police school on St. Maarten. To go along with that, reinforcement from Holland or Suriname has not proven to be successful because of, sad to say, people having their own agenda and not having St. Maarten sufficiently at heart to maintain law and order as it should be maintained.
When you care about something you take care of it. If it is not yours that’s a different story. Most of all if government does not show any good example, those who have to maintain law and order go about it accordingly and the attitude even becomes if they don’t care, why should I.
The person who called me knew that in 2005 the then prosecutor asked me to stay on and help him with the written fines because too many of them lacked the correct description and the essentials of the act. I told him that I would do better in a place (police station) where I could discuss with the younger police officers what happened during their patrol and assist them with compiling their reports. That would ensure that those written fines reach his desk complete and in order.
From then already the establishment knew that the quality of the force was at risk. If now our government is looking for reinforcement for that reason that would indicate to me that all that was done before has failed. Send our recruits to Curaçao. This is not placing bus stops, this is assuring the community of adequate protection when necessary.
I’m a bit confused. Our laws are in Dutch and we are asking Holland and Suriname, who’s official language is also Dutch, to reinforce and mentor our policemen, but we are urging our government to make English the language of instruction.
Russell A. Simmons
