Dear Editor,

  None of the governments of Philipsburg have learnt from their foolish mistakes of allowing deceitful investors to twist their arms, nor have they acquired the knowledge to govern the country from a position of managerial principles. Due to this irresponsible practice to satisfy each other’s greed and the unreliability of the court’s rulings, the population is left to suffer these grave consequences.

  From this premise, it is so disheartening to see how government is permitting Planet Hollywood Beach Resort to construct this monstrous building, when the country is deemed to gain very little. Assessing the pattern of investors who have invested in the country after the advent of Mullet Bay Resort, St. Maarten has not benefited much. In fact, the island has been destroyed, stripped of its natural beauty and environmental integrity.

  Case in point: Is it not a fact that the air circulation in the Fresh Pond has been drastically altered after the Great Bay Hotel was built, which in turn prohibits the natural flow of excess water to the sea? And, hasn’t this bad decision caused a lot of flooding in Zagersgut because of the amount of dirt that deposits at the bottom of the pond following every downpour?

  How was government forced to correct its silly oversight of this nagging problem? Government spent thousands of dollars to dredge piles of dirt from the bottom of pond and was further compelled to build a bridge to help dump extra water into Great Salt Pond. As a result, this created a situation where it’s up for debate if there is indeed a salt pond or two adjoining fresh-water ponds.

  How can the population forget the famous water fountains that cost thousands of dollars to install and maintain, in the hope to improve the air flow in the pond? As time passed, the water fountains disappeared. Was the investment justified or the problem corrected? No! This is why the population is suffering from these poor judgements of greedy politicians and unscrupulous investors.

  In relation to Planet Hollywood Resort, when has bigger become better? It is so depressing to see that only Steven Johnson is fighting against the injustices of government and the investor regarding this matter. How can the rest of Little Bay inhabitants sit back and allow government to okay such plans to erect this gigantic hotel that will block their view and reduce the value of their property significantly?

  Repeatedly, the people have heard that this investment will create jobs. Yes, it will, but for whom? Would locals have preference, paid according to their qualifications and be given the opportunity to grow within the organization, or lumped together into one scale? It is routine that unethical proprietors pay most of their employees minimum wage, because government does not have the balls to stand up for its people.

  On top of this gross failure of government to defend the workers’ rights, some unions have become almost completely useless. Gone are the days when the community felt the relentless pressures and negotiation skills of union leaders like Patricia Pantophlet, Willy Haize and Eldridge van Putten. The thought of their absence has often led me to wonder: What would the labour climate be like today, if these giants were sitting at the negotiating table?

  Apart from this investor’s promise to provide “jobs” for the people, what is government demanding or compromising, and at what cost to the country and its people? Just three years ago, an ex-Minister of Finance announced that a particular hotel uses three different credit card machines to document its sales; which puts government at a disadvantage to collect the correct amount of room tax.

  Was that hotelier reprimanded? Heaven knows how many others are practicing the identical thing. But, it is customary that investors do whatever they please because government is too cowardly to touch any one of them. Besides, nowadays rooms are being sold abroad and so that revenue goes directly to the parent company. Again, what are the demands of government to justify its decision?

  The fact that the population is restricted from entering Great Bay Beach from the cemetery side is already an indication that the people are not valued. And, the fact that the resort is all-inclusive signifies that the investors’ sole interest is about making money. The fact is that the previous building was already an impediment to the environment, the lot should remain vacant and be given back to the people.

  Everything starts subtly and then it escalates to the point where it’s difficult to control the problem, until it becomes the norm. If the negotiations started out shady, the end result is going to end up exactly that way.

Joslyn Morton

Dear Editor,

  Once again Anguilla has a new government. The people have spoken. Whether you voted for or against the new government, it’s time to put aside all petty differences, and, as the last leader from Island Harbor once implored us people to, “let us come together as one.”

  Congratulations to Dr. Lorenzo Webster and his team. Although, I’m afraid, I still disagree with the concept of party politics. The APM will have the chance to prove me wrong. Until that happens, I still maintain it’s a bad idea for an island as small as Anguilla.

   Let us thank the previous government headed by Mr. Banks. And while we are giving thanks to all, let us not forget the many contributions of Ms. Palmavon Webster, the Leader of the Opposition, who was unsuccessful in her attempt to retain her seat. And while we want to look to the future, let us not forget how or why we’re at this point.

  Premier Webster has his work cut out for him. He must have the freedom to prioritize those issues that are of the utmost importance to Anguilla. Among them, the hundred-million-dollar grant from the U.K. Though Premier Webster had no choice but to accept the MOU signed by the previous government, he was presented with a Hobson’s Choice, which is basically to say that there is no alternative. Take it or leave it.

   While that money is a godsend to Anguilla, the conditions under which it is given are like the Sword of Damocles hanging over our heads. We are damned if we do, damned if we don’t. Mr. Webster’s negotiating skills will have to come front and center if we are to survive this crisis not of our own making.

  It is no secret that Anguilla has been a place about which no one cared, least of all the Brits. We were left alone to fend for ourselves and by the grace of God, we survived. Forced to live without the amenities that others took for granted, we made do with what we had. When no one came to us, we built boats (schooners) and plied the waters from Trinidad to Macoris with our wares in search of a better life. In a sense, necessity became the mother of invention, and we invented. We sailed the seas with nothing more than a sexton and the stars. We survived drought, famine, pestilence, death and even an offer by the British Government to remove and transport us to Demerara, British Guyana. Against all the odds, we stayed on the rock.

  Once again, we face challenges on several fronts, economic as well social. Because of COVID-19, our economy such as it was, crashed and burned. Our social fabric is threadbare. COVID-19 has ripped off the bandage of a festering sore, one that has been festering for some time, and in so doing has exposed an underbelly that a lot of us didn’t know existed.

   Our people don’t seem to remember where we came from, it’s as though the Anguilla of today always existed since time immemorial. Civil Rights leader, the late Reverend Joseph Lowry, said, “If you don’t know where you came from, you won’t know when someone is taking you back.” Isabel Wilkerson writing in her Pulitzer Prize-winning book Caste, opined that “People who don’t know that they are captive will not resist their bondage.” For far too long we’ve been held captive by a system, that is not conducive to our wellbeing.

  We forget from whence we came, and consequently our young people don’t know from whence they came, simply because we have not taught them. The land for which our forefathers fought, is in danger of being lost. Frederick Douglas said, “If you don’t have Land, you don’t have freedom.” My fellow Anguillians, what is the price of freedom? Large swaths of prime Anguillian real estate are being gobbled up by certain speculative foreigners who contribute zero to our infrastructure.

  Going forward as a new nation, our hopes and dreams are with Premier Webster and his government. He must be allowed to lay out his vision for Anguilla, one which will require all hands on deck and hopefully, with an infusion of young people in government, we will see a marked change for the first time in decades.

  In his 1960 inaugural address John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35^th President of the United States, implored his people to, “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” My fellow Anguillians, what are you willing to do for your country?

  The British begrudgingly have given us a conditional lifeline, and that’s all it is. There is an old Chinese Proverb that says, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him to fish and you give him an occupation that will feed him for a lifetime.” The British has fed us for a day, when will we learn to fish?

  The world has changed. If we want to survive in that large pond that is the global community, then we had better learn how to swim with the big boys, for at this junction, they see blood in the water and that’s all they need. Because of COVID-19, we are very vulnerable right now and the sharks are circling. This is not the time to attack this government. Whether or not the previous government dealt the present one a bad hand is irrelevant, water under the bridge.

  The time has come for all of us to work together for the good of the motherland. Let us each ask ourselves; how badly do we want to hold on to that which is ours and to what extent are we willing to fight for it?

  “We must all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately,” to use the words of Ben Franklin during those dog days of 1776. May God bless you all and may He continue to bless Anguilla.

Tyrone Hodge

Dear Editor,

  How often have I not mentioned that the motto of the Dutch consists of the following. I will repeat them. Ik zal je nog eens krijgen; voor wat hoort wat and wat in het vat zit zuurt niet (long rope for meager dog). But the one I always blame them for and will continue to blame them for is that they know better and never do better. When he who knows better has the opportunity to do better and refuses to do better, then that saying “the only way for evil to be triumphant is for good people to do nothing” comes to mind.

  But the saying “Laat ze maar rotsooien” is the one I most despise.

  Because it has been proven too often that the Dutch who taught us everything we know, who see us doing the wrong thing, who are the ones mandated to stop us from doing the wrong thing, permit us to continue doing the wrong thing, in order to have a valid reason to indict us when it is convenient for them.

  If I am wrong, just go back to the timeline of all those popular cases in which people in government are/were involved and check when or how long into the cases arrests were made and who were arrested and when, etc. Again, I do not condone wrongdoing, but I believe in “it is not what you do, it’s the way that you do it”.

  I do not know whether we forget or we do not care but again somebody is arrested for forgetting that the longest rope has an end or even to reflect on what is written in Luke 12:2 and 3.

  Holland is willing to help us financially but under stringent conditions. I will not quote the bible on this one. The van Dale Dutch dictionary explains the saying “doe wel en zie niet om” clearly. It means “Men moet goed doen zonder een beloning daarvoor te verwachten” (one should do good without expecting a reward). But like I mentioned before, part of their motto is “Voor wat hoort wat”. So what is really going on?.

  Are they trying to confuse us or is it “do what I say but do not do what I do” or are we caught up in what nowadays has become a popular saying that “the child becomes what he sees and not what you tell him”? Who is going to help us out of this quagmire? Is lay-waiting us to lock us up really the solution? What happened to being forthcoming? Is that asking for too much?

  But you know what is striking? The same people who do not want us to punish our children by spanking them, are the same people who are threatening to tie against the tree and flog us with the whip.

  This does not mean that I am condoning wrongdoing, because two wrongs do not make it right, but I really believe that when one wants me to do better, one should show me better.

Russell A. Simmons

Dear Editor,

  I am an eternal optimist. The glass is always half full rather than half empty. My Letter to the Editor of April 9, 2020, entitled “Food for thought” in which I concluded this country status experiment has failed, for some may have been considered out of character for me. But, the forced business closure due to COVID-19 required by Government (a move I endorsed and applauded), while business owners still have to operate under the yoke of 50-year-old archaic Labor Laws, do that to a person! How is it possible or fair that owners and managing directors of private sector businesses remain totally responsible for 100 per cent of the full salaries of all their employees, while sales have mandatorily been reduced to zero by the very Government that enforces those archaic labor laws? Where is the social catch net that any responsible country’s government should have in place in case of disasters?

  Having to cut back salaries to stay afloat, while the government hemmed and hawed about a previously agreed-upon 10 per cent cut of their salaries, was the drop that caused my bucket of frustration to run over. Again it seemed that it was acceptable that the private sector had to fend for itself (with top-level Labor Department officials egging on employees to take their employers to court for 100 per cent pay before any payroll support program had started up), while in the public sector any demand for financial cutbacks was met with fierce opposition from practically everyone on the Government’s payroll.

  But here we are now more than six months further and St. Maarten just celebrated its 10^th anniversary as a country within the Kingdom. These days around 10/10/20 for me is a time to reflect, not only on the last 10 years but also on what I stated in that April 9, 2020, Letter to the Editor. Was my unusual, frustration-induced pessimism misplaced? I am not sure of the answer, but it sure seems I am not alone.

  It is with concern and sadness that I read the Teen Times article with the title “You have failed us”. Young people, the future of this nation, stated their views about 10-10-10, concluding that this experiment continues to fail the people of St. Maarten. To quote the article, “The political establishment, have [sic] successfully kept the masses uninformed, uneducated, under-developed and mired in poverty”. That is an indictment towards the governments of the last 10-years of their stewardship of this country (and yes, I was a minister in one of them).

  The feelings of the younger generation are supported by evidence. Just read the General Audit Chamber’s report “Retrospective: 10 years of the General Audit Chamber”. This institution (arguably one of the few successes of country St. Maarten), concludes that there has not been much positive change in 10 years. They compare the lack of improvement in the government’s management of the “people’s money” to watching the same movie over and over again. To quote them, there are “the same structural errors, a continued lack of reliable information, and the same passivity”.

  So, six months after my Letter to the Editor, I have to, unfortunately, repeat myself: after almost 10 years of trying, circumstances have proven that St. Maarten – on so many levels – seems unable to sustain itself as a “country”.

  We lack self-discipline.

  We lack cohesion.

  We cannot raise enough taxes to afford to run an efficient government organization under normal circumstances.

  We have a government apparatus that is too expensive for the quality and quantity of services available to the population.

  We have Government-owned companies that pay better than Fortune 500 companies.

  We lack enough qualified human resources to properly and efficiently serve our population.

  We lack mutual trust between consecutive governments and the private sector/the population.

  With 9 governments in 10 years, our elected and appointed officials (including me) have proven that they collectively lack enough maturity, knowledge, and often integrity to properly manage the affairs of the people.

  We have too many persons, election after election, that seek public office for the wrong reasons (often looking for a ride on any political bus that will take them to the “promised land of high salaries and hopefully lucrative opportunities for self-enrichment”).

  On top of all of that, Hurricane Irma and within 2½ years since, this COVID-19 pandemic, have proven without a shadow of a doubt that because of a myriad of reasons, we are financially, socially, and economically unable to sustain the elusive dream of being an autonomous “country” without some sort of a back-door life line. Given the size of our population and our total dependency on a single (now proven very fickle) economic pillar (tourism), we seem to be destined to be an integral part of a larger community, either constitutionally, or through structured financial contributions to an Emergency Fund in “good” times, so that we can blindly and unconditionally depend on it in “bad” times (read: disasters, both natural as well as man-made).

  As far as I am concerned it is time to admit:

  The first decade of experimenting with country status, has failed on St. Maarten for all the reasons mentioned here above and then some!

  I say it is:

  Time for a change of direction;

  Time for a new approach;

  Time for a new referendum!

Michael J. Ferrier