Dear Editor:
It is heart-warming that people from Curaçao and the Netherlands together have raised millions of euros to show their compassion for and solidarity with St. Maarten. What happened on St. Maarten is most serious and devastating. We know the stories insofar as they can be known: about 90 per cent of the buildings is damaged, other houses and shacks are completely taken by the storm, there is rubbish everywhere, shops and private houses are looted and people feel on a large scale unsafe. Hence, all help is most welcome!
In the short term, the Red Cross seems to be the designated organisation to offer that help. The money that has been donated to “Giro 5125” is governed by the Red Cross and hopefully these donations will enable the Red Cross to deliver food, clean water and other resources to those who have no access to them, so that their primary needs may be met as well – until the infrastructure has been rebuilt to a sufficient level. The assistance of the Red Cross is of course very welcome. However, I do want to raise some critical questions on the political context of the help offered.
Conflict between Dutch and St. Maarten governments seems greater than the need of victims
First, I remark that it is at least very sad that the help is not directly coming from the Dutch Government. Apparently the step is too big to say “Sorry, St. Maarten government, there are lives at stake. We realize that we may have our differences in how to deliver the help you need, but we first acknowledge the lives at stake and in the second place our differences. When we talk about structural measures, we can have our differences again and we will listen.”
That is sad for numerous reasons, but I shall highlight three. One: the conflict between the St. Maarten government and the Dutch government seems ‘more important’ than the human lives at stake! Two: the Dutch state has potentially access to more and greater resources, both in personnel and materials, than the Red Cross and we now settle for the potentially lesser option; that is to say, the option of the more limited resources. Three: both St. Maarten and the Netherlands – at least – implicitly accepted that the help from a non-governmental organisation (NGO) was favoured over the help from a democratically legitimated and controlled institution: a government.
Of course, the Dutch state has delivered help to St. Maarten, as did other Kingdom partners. The power to maintain the public order and to defend the states against threats from outside is solely vested in the state, at least constitutionally speaking. That assistance is being offered, but furthermore the help seems to mainly come from the Red Cross.
For completeness, the hesitation from the Dutch government to “jump in” and deliver spontaneous help seems understandable, however unfortunate it is (!). Due the bad relationship between the countries in combination with this disastrous and stressful situation, it seems very difficult to deliver adequate help on the one side and not be accused of too much interference on the other.
Such was illustrated by the comment of the prime minister of St. Maarten, who noted that the Marines had not stopped the looting. Without judging this comment, it has been argued in the Trouw (by Marno de Boer, September 19) that indeed there was insufficient staff to prevent this. But then the question might be: what if at once 500 Marines entered the island, would it then be too many and would it have given the impression that the Netherlands took over control (and aimed at re-colonising St. Maarten)?
Unfortunately, the relationship between the Netherlands and St. Maarten has been too fragile to respond adequately at once. The Netherlands may have needed to bear in mind that it could have been accused of re-colonisation or at least potentially coped with the fear thereof.
Some critical remarks: rather help via a non-democratic organisation than via a government
It is striking that an NGO plays such a big role, given that the task is most important and, at least in the longer run when resources are closer to exhaustion, will require that policies are being made: for instance, on how to distribute the limited resources. How to prioritize? Will first the elderly be helped or rather the children? Is clean drinking water for all more important than sanitation for fragile groups of society? etc.
After all, the Red Cross is, if it is at all, only accountable to a limited extent, whereas governments are at least accountable to a representative body. The Government, accountable to Parliament, will have to justify their policies and the choices they made with regard to the distribution of the food, water, etc. If Parliament feels that certain groups are not looked after sufficiently, it can influence the Government to reconsider choices.
Through democratic elections the politicians are ultimately accountable to the people of St. Maarten, and so by involving the Government to a greater extent, the people can have some influence or another on the process of rebuilding the country and the distribution of limited goods.
Luckily the confidence in the Red Cross is widely shared and uncontroversial, so that at least those in need may be served. However, it does demonstrate that people are rather willing to set aside democratic values than to trust one another’s government. St. Maarten does not want to appear to be re-colonised and the Netherlands does not wish to be accused of it and realizes that it is equally irresponsible to “just donate” the necessary recourses to the St. Maarten Government.
How to look at the future? Which problems must be resolved in order to stay in line with constitutional values?
At the moment, the Red Cross offers emergency help. The question is, however, for how long? One must guard that it takes too long, because then the emergency help becomes structural and the Red Cross will inherently act on the basis of policies (on how to distribute resources, etc.), which, as said, are preferably made by a democratically legitimized and controlled government – or Parliament if the Government lacks a legal basis to act upon.
At some point – hopefully in the very near future – the Government of St. Maarten will be able to take over these tasks and work on the rebuilding of the country - if, of course, the Government has not yet been able to have started that process effectively already.
For the rebuilding of these infrastructures money from outside will be necessary. It lies well within reason that the St. Maarten Government will have to accept supervision on how this public money is being spent, given (among other legal provisions) the Kingdom Act on Financial Supervision. If the supervision will be carried out by the Kingdom government, it might lead to more friction between the governments, and that will only make the rebuilding of St. Maarten more complicated.
However, given article 43 paragraph 2 of the Charter, and the Kingdom Act on Financial Supervision which stipulates that the Kingdom Government may give directives in certain events, it appears that the Kingdom Government will indeed play a role in the supervision. Hence, the countries will need to improve their relationship or come up with an adequate solution.
In sum: Having taken all of this in consideration: It is of the utmost importance that governments find a way to perform their tasks without conflict in the interest of those who need their help so much at the moment. This will be in the benefit of the St. Maarten people (access to resources), St. Maarten’s democratic system (accountable government/involvement parliament), and the Red Cross can focus on other tasks they specialize in and are so badly needed to be fulfilled, such as bringing families back together, or informing family members that their beloved is not (yet) found (they too have limited resources).
Irene Broekhuijse
Irene Broekhuijse LLM PhD obtained her Ph.D. in Utrecht in 2012, on the Constitutional Equality between the Countries of the Kingdom. Afterwards she has worked as a legislative lawyer at the Council of Advice in St. Maarten. She returned to academia in the Netherlands in 2013 as an Assistant Professor Constitutional Law at the Open University and now is an Assistant Professor Legal Theory at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (Free University in Amsterdam). Dr. Broekhuijse has continuously published on Kingdom Relationships and conflict resolution.
