Dear Editor,
Over the years two different people told me that they were embarrassed by Immigration officers of the country that they visited. When they were asked and answered that they lived on St. Maarten the response that they got from the attending Immigration officer was, “That corrupt country.”
Because I know that the only way for evil to win is for good people to keep quiet, I asked them what did they do about it when they got back home. The answer I got was, “Who you want me to complain to? You think they going to do anything about it when they know the people right?”
One might say, “Why after all these years is Russell only now writing about it?” I probably never pinpointed it, but I believe that almost all of us know how to gossip, so we should also know how to pick sense out of nonsense or even read between the lines. This is not a question of fine print. On several occasions I have mentioned that the Dutch, who are the masters in infrastructure development, have not taught us a thing in all those years. That is why I always use the term “laat ze maar rotsooien.”
No, I do not have to hint anymore, it has reached so far that even the Dutch defendant has used “corruption being rampant on Sint Maarten” as part of his defense in court. I believe that that is a general insult to the people of St. Maarten and part of his sentence should be, besides giving back the people their money, that he should write a letter in public stating that he has contributed towards defaming the name of St. Maarten internationally. If he knows that corruption is rampant in St. Maarten and he has been doing business with the corrupt ones, along with people in government, for so long, then at the least he is guilty by association and encouraging corruption.
When I Google the word “corrupt” it says, “Having or showing a willingness to act dishonestly in return for money or personal gain.” So, who paid who and whose fault is it? When actually did it start? Now this.
When I started to work, my father sat me down and told me that it would be a challenge for me because, just one year after leaving Aruba to go to the police academy, I was back working as a policeman in San Nicolas, Aruba, where I was born and raised. “People are going to try bribing you, but it is better to get 10 guilders every day, than for someone to give you 100 guilders today and you are not sure where you are going to get the rest tomorrow. It might not be much,” he said, “but it is a steady income and you can make a budget on that.”
I believe that MP-elect Grisha means well, but I cannot budget on handouts from supermarkets. Customs has to control and administrate the contents of those containers in the right way, then the prices in the supermarkets will be under control, and if the seniors’ pension is made livable, then we can budget on that also.
Another one from my father while teasing my mother who was in his skin for not reaching home on time: “The problem with silence being golden is that silence is also consent.”
Russell A. Simmons
By Alex Rosaria
Eight years ago, the statue of Peter Stuyvesant was removed from the secondary school in Curaçao that bore its name. The responsible Minister of Education removed the statue and immediately promised an alternative location for it. Today no one seems to know its whereabouts. The current minister gave local authorities two weeks to find the statue. It hasn’t been found and nobody seems to care anymore.
In the months preceding the removal of Peter Stuyvesant’s statue, activists contended that Stuyvesant was an extreme racist who targeted blacks, Catholics, Jews and energetically tried to deny them any basic rights. Counter-protesters felt that Stuyvesant, Director-General of Curaçao from 1645 to 1664, had become part of our heritage and that his statue should remain as a historical symbol.
History cannot be erased. That’s correct. But should we remember history or historical facts with statues that celebrate those who have perpetuated heinous acts? Or do we, while not denying history, honour those who fought against atrocities committed throughout history?
Protests and counter-protests on symbols of hate have been going on in the U.S. (Confederate symbols), South Africa (Apartheid symbols), Canada (symbols linked with the genocide of the Canadian original population) and elsewhere for some time now. Germany doesn’t have a single Hitler statue. Germany will never fail to remember its bloody history, but not via Nazi statues. The German example may be a bit extreme, but it makes the point.
Returning to Peter Stuyvesant, it is very interesting to go back in history, as I did in an article I wrote in February 2011 and establish that the statue of Stuyvesant has absolutely nothing to do with honouring his place in the history of Curaçao. The statue arrived in Curaçao in 1940 (almost three centuries after his death) simply because of a whim of a single man, Wybo Jan Goslinga.
According to the monthly Neerlandia, March 1944, Dutchman Wybo Goslinga, Education Inspector in Curaçao, held a speech in 1939 as member of a local service club in which he made a strong appeal to have a statue of Peter Stuyvesant, a “very brave man.” He was fascinated with a statue he had seen earlier in New York. He then convinced the KLM Director to go to New York to negotiate with Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, the designer of the Stuyvesant statue in New York and was able to convince her to make an identical copy at cost price. Mid-1940, the statue arrives in Curaçao. And then the problems started.
According to the abovementioned edition of Neerlandia, nobody knew what to do with the statue or where to place it. The statue spent the first year after its arrival in a dusty barrack of Curaçao’s International Airport, Hato.
Then a lucky break in 1941. In that year Curaçao’s first secondary school was founded and Goslinga, still passionate about Stuyvesant, named the school after his hero and automatically decided that the statue would be placed in front of the new school.
The statue was moved from Hato to a dusty gym facility where it would stay for two more years because the Department of Public Works did not consider this project to be a priority.
Finally, the statue was placed in front of the school, Peter Stuyvesant College, in 1943. It should be obvious that the presence of Stuyvesant’s statue on Curaçao is bereft of any kind of historical meaning whatsoever.
Interestingly, a Jewish activist group is now demanding New York City’s Mayor de Blasio to scrub all traces of the anti-Semitic Dutch ex-governor from city property – even Stuyvesant High School and the original Stuyvesant statue in Manhattan’s Stuyvesant Park – as part of his campaign to rid the city of “symbols or hate”.
Meanwhile, we wait and see where Stuyvesant’s statue in Curaçao is located. It should not come as a surprise if it turns up in a dusty barrack somewhere because “l’histoire se répète.”
~ Alex David Rosaria (53) is a freelance consultant active in Asia and the Pacific. He is a former Member of Parliament, Minister of Economic Affairs, State Secretary of Finance and UN Implementation Officer in Africa and Central America. He is from Curaçao and has an MBA from University of Iowa (USA). ~
Dear Editor,
The rights of older persons to social benefits and to an adequate standard of living to support their health and well-being, including medical care and necessary social services, are laid down in the major international human rights instruments, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), 1948, and (in more general terms) the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR),
Our dream is to see NA and UP form the next government and work in the interest of its people at all times.
From the east, west, north and south you can hear the cry of the people: UP should have more than two portfolios in our coalition government term for 2020-2024.
Cuthbert Bannis
By Alex Rosaria
Exactly 9 years ago (January 19, 2011), the financial director of the Central Bank of Curaçao and St. Maarten (CBCS) stated that the lack of a coordinated macroeconomic policy between Willemstad and Philipsburg poses a threat to the stability of monetary union between Curaçao and St. Maarten. In the meantime, this coordination is still lacking, with the result that the two countries are increasingly further apart. The current CBCS financial director, a former Minister of Finance, said as early as 2015 that this coordination of the monetary union is not a priority.
However, no coordination is not an option. A monetary union is the most advanced form of economic integration between members.
From 2008, as State Secretary for Finance, I have expressed my objections to a monetary union that was politically imposed by The Hague and accepted by the government of the Netherlands Antilles, the governments of Curaçao and St. Maarten and the Bank of the Netherlands Antilles (precursor of CBCS). This forced monetary marriage should never have taken place since it was not supported by any economic foundation.
The challenges that Curaçao experiences as an international financial centre should stimulate a sense of urgency. CBCS is an important link in this, but it has been in a negative light in recent years (pending a possible prosecution for breach of confidentiality, insolvency of the Girobank and probably also its questionable role regarding Ennia).
Hopefully our monetary union will receive the necessary attention as soon as possible. We cannot afford a monetary drama right now
~ Alex David Rosaria (53) is a freelance consultant active in Asia and the Pacific. He is a former Member of Parliament, Minister of Economic Affairs, State Secretary of Finance and UN Implementation Officer in Africa and Central America. He is from Curaçao and has an MBA from University of Iowa (USA).
