Dear Editor,
It is with much concern that I read a news article regarding questions posed by Members of Parliament to the current Minister of VROMI [Public Housing, Spatial Planning, Environment and Infrastructure – Ed.] concerning a potential development at Beacon Hill. My specific concern is related to the environmental and ethical impacts a development of that size will have on the sustainable development and public image of Sint Maarten.
Although I must provide a caveat to my subsequent statement by saying that these are but rumors, I have particular concerns of information reaching me that this area is again being considered for another dolphinarium or swim-with-dolphin facility. St. Maarten is yet again faced with a rumored development of a captive dolphin facility, despite countless efforts by community-based organizations to oppose such facilities.
Additionally, the negative international press attention such a facility can mean for the country cannot be understated, especially as it relates to St. Maarten needing to diversify and become more sustainable as she recovers from the impacts of [Hurricanes] Irma and Maria and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Aside from the ethical and moral reasons for not keeping dolphins in captivity there are also considerable negative socio-economic and environmental impacts that a development of that size will have, dolphins or no dolphins: the construction of such a large development will likely affect the longshore movement and deposit of sand along the critical tourism beaches of Maho, Mullet Bay and Cupecoy. The sand is at risk of being permanently washed away from these areas.
Additionally, the building of a significant structure can also kill native seagrass and coral, of which we have already lost so much since Irma. If a dolphinarium is being considered, dolphin fecal matter coming from holding pens will increase the nutrient load in nearshore environments and can result in harmful algal blooms, skin irritations and ear infections. I am sure that no visitor to the island will enjoy swimming in an area loaded with feces.
Captive Dolphin Parks and the communities that condone them are experiencing negative press through international pressure groups and movies such as Blackfish and the Cove; I would like to urge that consideration instead be given to a program where education and conservation of wild cetaceans, including whales and dolphins, is the focus, instead of captive programs which are inherently dangerous to the animals and the people that frequent them.
This is the fifth time that St. Maarten has had to respond to plans against a dolphinarium, whether rumored or not, and I would like Government and Parliament to seriously consider the enacting of the draft legislation which Dolphin Defenders submitted in 2011and every subsequent time a development of this type is being considered.
As St. Maarten emerges from the unprecedented effects of the lockdown further exacerbated by the lingering impacts of Irma and Maria, it is now time for the island to move towards high-end, sustainable and nature-based tourism. It is time for the island to reinforce the conservation of natural areas for the benefit of the economy, the population and for the maintaining of natural resources; the three pillars of sustainable development.
It is not the time to again place focus or emphasis on an unsustainable, unethical and irresponsible development for development’s sake which will negatively affect the image of our beloved St. Maarten, whether the rumors are true or not. I therefore look forward to the response from the VROMI Minister to the questions requested from the Members of Parliament.
Tadzio Bervoets
All the brothers and sisters who write on occasion on social media or as I do on a daily basis about the struggle for the liberation of people of Afrikan descent are knowledgeable that there has been an ongoing war from the 1490s. I am 76 years old and have been in the forefront of the struggle for some 43 years (since 1977).
I am aware that there have been many victories. However, I would be obliged if some of you would please answer the million dollar question. We know that the past 500-plus years of European history have been underpinned by untruths (blatant lies). With this being a fact our struggle has been made more difficult, hence my question: Why is it that our conscious fighters have not as yet joined forces and called on governments or advocated that the truth be told in a particular way by supporting the call for an International Day for Truth, Justice, Peace, Healing and Reconciliation?
Such a date was put to world leaders and to the people of the world from as far back as 1990 after I became aware of a plan to depopulate the world by some two billion people. The date that has been identified for such an important observance is October 12.
The present reality of public executions of black people are the continuous effects of the adventures started by Christopher Columbus’ expedition after his arrival in the Caribbean with three small ships on a reconnaissance mission on October 12, 1492. On arrival Columbus and crew were welcomed and assisted by the melininated (black people) of the Caribbean until December 1492 when they returned to Spain with two ships, as one was shipwrecked, and some of the crew left behind.
It was on Columbas’ second visit one year later in 1493 with 17 warships and 1,200 mercenaries that the carnage began. His mission with the blessing of the Pope was to Christianize, enslave or kill. The first impact was on the people of the Caribbean and the Americas and later on the wider black population of the world.
In our understanding of history why have we not distinguished between what happened from October 12 to December 1492 and what followed from 1493?
By not making the distinction between what happened in 1492 and what started one year later from 1493 we have colluded with the falsification of history by confusing events and by so doing have allowed Caucasians to cover up and not credit our ancestors with the humanitarian nature they displayed on October 12, 1492.
This must be corrected, and what is most remarkable is that the ancestors have given guidance and allow October 12 to be put forward as a day for truth, justice, peace, healing and reconciliation that would repair the damage due to the untruths that have been misunderstood by most. The date has been put on the world agenda and will remain there by the determination of one man through his efforts and support in the following process;
In 1990 October 12 was sent as a proposal to 178 world leaders and in that same year made public in a booklet to the people of the world.
In 1993 October 12 was proclaimed as African Holocaust Maafa Day by the Pan-Africanists in Guyana.
In 1995 October 12 was presented to the government of Barbados as a draft resolution for consideration and possible submission to the United Nations.
In 2001 October 12 was presented as a draft resolution to the UN World Conference against Racism in Durban.
In 2002 October 12 was endorsed as a resolution at the Afrikan and Afrikan Descendant World Conference against Racism held in Barbados.
In 2010 October 12 was submitted as a proposal for the International Day for People of Afrikan Descent at the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent in Geneva.
In 2012 October 12 was tabled as a proposal at the African and Diaspora leaders conference in South Africa.
On October 12, 2012, the Government of Barbados established a National Task Force on Reparations.
On October 12, 2013, the World Social Forum proclaimed the date as the International Day for Reparations.
In 2017 October 12 was proclaimed by the CARICOM Reparations Commission as Caribbean Holocaust Day.
We are reliably informed that the Black Lives Matter: We Can’t Breathe campaign now circling the globe has captured the attention of the African Union and that all leaders of the 54 nations have signed a letter to the United Nations requesting that an urgent meeting on racism be convened. We as a people have not been breathing properly from 1493 and have been choking on untruths.
The COVID-19 pandemic is ushering in a New Dispensation for the world. This new understanding is influenced by the public execution of George Floyd on May 25 by a Minneapolis police officer and has been compounded by another public execution, the fatal shooting of yet another unarmed black man Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta on June 12. The effect of this present reality of publicly killing black people is the continuous effect of the adventures started by Christopher Columbus’ expedition after his second visit in 1493.
That experience was a pandemic of white supremacy (racism), which was aided by the colonisation of the small island Barbados in 1627 that was prepared by God the Creator for laying the foundation and legal structures of “A Man’s World, Classism and Sexism” with the introduction of the Barbados Slave Code of 1661 that denigrated black people to the position of less than human, which was adopted by the USA in 1776.
Today in 2020 Barbados and other CARICOM member states are presently plagued with violence and crime as a direct result of that 1492 historic encounter between Columbus and the indigenous people of the Caribbean region. In 2019 Barbados had 49 murders, the highest such killings in any one year post-slavery. The current number of shootings indicates that this year’s murders if not brought to an end may even surpass the killing of last year.
This kind of carnage of black people is happening across the region and when added to the racist killings in the USA and in other metropolitan countries add to the depopulation plot which must be exposed and stopped. What are the solutions? The words of Sir Hilary Beckles in this link
https:www.youtube.com/watch?v=3L9qOwIXXog with reference to the killing of George Floyd demand that we review our action now.
One proposed solution is to call on the United Nations to designate October 12 as the International Day for Reparations for truth, justice, peace, healing and reconciliation and see what happens
We have nothing to lose and everything to gain. The timing is perfect.
Rev. Elder Buddy Larrier
Dear Editor,
I am writing about an article in the June 9 edition of The Daily Herald: “Towers employees left frustrated after meeting with management”.
My concern isn’t with the subject of the article, though I do sympathize with the “more than 60 employees” (according to your article) that are losing so much income that will no doubt result in hardships, and with the fact that they are receiving no concrete information from The Towers, their employer.
I wanted to note that The Towers is a timeshare property, and I am an owner of one week in one of the units there. However, throughout the article, the property is referred to as a “hotel”.
Many of us owners have tried numerous times to get information from the Towers management and what we do get is clearly inaccurate and misleading, and we are given the run-around, likely in the hopes that we will just be quiet and go away.
Part of the large maintenance fee we each pay annually is to cover insurance for the property. This means that there should have been a pay-out by the insurance company after Hurricane Irma, The Towers should have been repaired, the property should now be available to the owners that invested in vacation weeks there.
For a time, we were asked to pay our annual maintenance fees, but this was for a property that was essentially non-existent and not available to us. Certainly there was no maintenance and, again, insurance should have covered the damage. Most of us did pay the maintenance fee for 2018, the year immediately after Irma, but received nothing for it. We don’t know what that year’s fees were used for.
There is no communication to us from The Towers.
Instead, nothing has been done. We started hearing reports that, although The Towers was not available to the vacation owners, several staff – including Clarence Derby, General Manager – were living there. I have no problem with that in the immediate aftermath of the hurricane if housing was an issue during a crisis. However, the residency seems to have become permanent or long-term.
Then we started becoming aware of the property being used as a hotel. When we contacted The Towers for clarification, they denied it but, clearly the report was correct. The Towers timeshare owners are being kept from using their timeshare weeks, but anyone else could rent the units as hotel rooms.
We have contacted government officials, The Daily Herald, certainly The Towers and all to no avail. Mr. Ansari and his company have done as they please for their own benefit to the detriment of St. Maarteners that were employed at his property, timeshare owners that invested their vacation dollars there, and the country’s reputation. This goes all the way back to the destruction of Mullet Bay Resort by Hurricane Luis in 1995.
The government seems powerless to do anything to rectify the situation, neither for its own people that are impacted by losing jobs nor for The Towers timeshare owners that have enjoyed visiting St. Maarten year after year. I retired last year and, though I’ve only visited St. Maarten three times in the 27 years that we’ve owned – and paid maintenance fees – at The Towers (our friends also used our timeshare unit 3 times), was looking forward to now being able to spend more time there.
There is now the sense that Mr. Ansari et al are waiting us out, until we get tired of
this struggle, until we all leave.
As well, there has been a discussion (on a Towers Owners discussion board) that perhaps there is a loophole that if we don’t pay maintenance fees for a certain period, we will forfeit our ownerships. However, the paying of maintenance fees should go hand in hand with the ability to access and use the property in top condition … RCI’s Gold rating to be exact.
There has been a failure in this on so many levels. We feel mistreated and duped.
And now our timeshare property is officially being called a “hotel”.
Wishing you health and safety during these unprecedented times.
Rosemary Rudyk
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Monday, June 15, 2015, was a very historic moment for older persons around the world. For the first time in history, in a meeting of the General Assembly of the Organization of American States, member states adopted the Inter-American Convention on the Protection of the Rights for Older Persons . Even though it is a regional convention of one continent in the world, the mere fact that in this convention 26 protected rights of older persons in one region have been articulated serves as an example and a moral basis for the articulation of a global instrument for the protection of all human rights of older persons all over the world!
In the year 2015 there were 1.1 million older persons living in the Caribbean, which total is expected to increase to 2 million by 2035 . But today, 5 years after the adoption of this legally-binding instrument on the Protection of Human Rights of Older Persons, none of the older person in the 16 Caribbean OAS-states can claim these protected rights. This is because none of the Caribbean member states has ratified this convention! Only when a member state ratifies a treaty it becomes a legal binding instrument in that State. None of the 16 Caribbean member states of the OAS has shown the intention of their government to undertake the necessary steps in their respective countries to legally protect the rights of older persons by signing the Convention.
In the Caribbean there are also 16 non-independent territories with a limited degree of sovereignty. These territories are still under jurisdiction of a former colonial European state (England, France, the Netherlands) and some under jurisdiction of the United States of America. The European States with jurisdiction over non-Caribbean territories are not a member state of the Organization of American States, so the Inter-American Conventions cannot be claimed by persons in Anguilla, the British Virgin Islands, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Aruba, Curaçao and Saint Martin, to name a few of these territories in the American hemisphere!
The USA is a member state of the OAS, but because the USA has not ratified and not even signed the Inter-American Convention on the Protection of the Rights of Older Persons, older persons in Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands are still without legal protection of their human rights!
How to get protection for the rights of older persons in the 16 non-independent territories of the Caribbean region so that they also can claim at least these 26 protected rights in their territory? Only an International Convention when adopted by the European states can provide older persons in these territories with a legal binding instrument to protect their human rights. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights as well as the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights give older persons the same rights as others in the society, but insufficient protection against ageism, which is discrimination based on age.
In other words, older persons in the Caribbean will remain without adequate legal protection of their human rights as long as the 16 Caribbean member states of the Organization of American States do not ratify the Inter-American Convention on the Protection of the Rights of Older persons, and as long as the 16 non-independent Caribbean territories under jurisdiction of USA or former colonial European states do not accept, sign and ratify an International Covenant to Protect the Rights of Older Persons.
Older persons organizations should establish strategic alliances with human rights organizations, organizations of women, workers organizations, church organizations, all other organizations with younger persons to demand from the local authorities to support and accept a legal binding instrument to protect the rights of older persons. All the non-older persons organizations have to realize, that their members also will become senior citizens one day. If they do not stand up with the older persons organizations today, they will end up in the same situation of lack of protection of their human rights tomorrow as we experience today.
The CORV coordination of civil society organizations of Aging and Old Age of Latin America and the Caribbean will rally for these strategic alliances in all countries and territories of the region. For more information please contact our CORV Ambassador to International Organizations and coordinator for the Caribbean residing in Saint Martin: Raymond Jessurun.
Dear Editor,
Each time the prime minister of St. Maarten continues to acknowledge that St. Maarten needs a multi-pillar economy. What she is talking about is an economy that relies on more than one industry. This is called economic diversification. Member of Parliament Rolando Brison, Minister Ludmilla de Weever and Minister Ardwell Irion have stated that e-commerce is an industry that can be introduced on St. Maarten. On the Prime Minister’s weekly talk show Minister de Weever briefly spoke about Fintech. Fintech is an industry that De Weever also stated that the Minister of Finance has been advocating.
In the past several years the author of this article has lobbied for the establishment of Fintech on St. Maarten. Furthermore, the author has written about the fact that Bermuda has begun taking steps way before COVID-19 to foster the Fintech industry. The Bermuda Government passed legislation to regulate this industry several years ago. Moreover, Premier of Bermuda David Burt claimed last year that 31 jobs were created through Fintech activities on Bermuda.
What is Fintech? Fintech means financial technology. This industry involves any kind of technology in financial services. In other words, Fintech pertains to transactions that can be done on the Internet such as mobile payments, software development, Go Fund me pages and cryptocurrency are some of the terms associated with Fintech.
Fintech can be used to do a lot for many businesses and persons. To facilitate an industry based online such as Fintech, St. Maarten’s internet system will have to be upgraded to accommodate Fintech and other industries based online. Legislation will have to be passed as soon as possible to establish Fintech and other industries. However, it is the only industry I am constantly hearing that the political leadership of St. Maarten is promoting. The Government of St. Maarten needs to look at other industries as well. About 10 other industries can possibly be established on St. Maarten.
This island needs as much industries as possible. Having many industries will create jobs for thousands across different sectors. It will generate possibly billions of dollars in taxes for the Government of St. Maarten. Additionally, it could provide the Government of St. Maarten a chance to save hundreds of millions of guilders in a disaster or crisis fund.
In the past two decades I have mentioned to some members of parliament about the possibility of diversifying St. Maarten’s economy. Some of them responded by asking me what is in it for them? If this country is going to diversify this cannot be in the minds of any member of parliament. All members of Parliament and the ministers must work together to ensure that St. Maarten will have a multi-pillar economy. Efforts should take place right now to accomplish this.
Kenneth Cook
