Dear Editor,
We the people of St. Maarten are kindly thanking the Dutch Government for their help and assistance they provided and offering to us before, during and after Hurricane Irma.
And even the youth of St. Maarten and the people of all ages from many nations from all over the world have given the Dutch Government many praises for their excellent assistance after Hurricane Irma.
The help came very timely from the Dutch Government especially when our parliamentarians are fighting for power and just a coalition government after government that cannot work together.
And St. Maarten never had a good opposition government in the past. That's why today many people feel a lot of the laws are outdated and need to be changed as soon as possible.
The style of the opposition and many parliamentarians is fights against Theo – they just cannot keep a good man down.
We are willing to work with the Dutch Government through the recovery plan but we the people of St. Maarten feel everything will go very good.
Because in case the Dutch go to provide the same assistance they are giving us here to any one of its colonies, St. Maarten can be always one of its examples – they can always talk about how well and good things went here.
Election is around the corner: Holland, Great Britain, France, America and the entire Caribbean are waiting to hear the result. My expectation is United Democrats party could get 11 seats if the voters turn up to the polls well in great numbers.
The new government should expect the people want their demands to be solved by government early 2018 such as:
(1 ) bring down parliamentarians’ and ministers’ salary as soon as possible.
(2) a small claims court.
(3) change the old-time laws our police, detectives, lawyers, and civil servant sick and tired of working with.
(4) increase the minimum wage.
(5) control the high house rents the poor people pay.
(6) build community centres island-wide.
(7) increase the pension, create jobs and pay the teachers better.
(8) focus on the youth, help them.
(9) recycling project.
(10) bring some public offices and utilities offices to Middle Region soon.
(11) organise a delegation to go to The Hague and get all the old-time laws off the table for the wishing of St. Maarten people.
(12) give Theo 11 seats, give United Democrats party a large majority,
(13) vote in a style and fashion like people from the Commonwealth of Dominica – one party rule for each term.
Theo only one can bring back the businesses back to Philipsburg. Theo and Sarah are great team.

Cuthbert Bannis

Your Excellency,

The Sint Maarten Pride foundation, a community environmental nonprofit foundation, has been noting frequent violent landfill fires that have been flaring up before and after hurricane Irma. Even more worrisome is the violent flare up of the second Irma dump on February 4th.
Our Group has noted that our local government has made no headway with a project of a modern waste to energy plant, or a plan of shipping waste off island.
Our concern is that it is well known that the landfill has reached its expiration date several years ago and instead of our government placing this issue as a high priority of finding a long-term solution, government instead created a second landfill dumping area.
This situation is exasperated by the mass waste of post hurricane Irma where not only regular household waste is discarded but also combustible containers and materials that should not be dumped on landfills due to their fire flammable dangers.
Your excellency, our group is appealing to you as we have lost faith and trust in our local government in ensuring that our citizens health is secured. In fact we are worried that our children and adults are exposed to this environmental hazard and the toxins every single day. The landfill is constantly smoking and too often flares up as raging out of control fires.
Not only are our firemen exposed trying to battle the constant fires but our residents far and wide are exposed to the foul burning odors.
We are hereby requesting you to place pressure on our local government to expediently find a long-term solution to this hazard affecting the people’s health.
Our people should not be expected to walk with face masks and close their windows and doors as a daily exercise. These procedures in fact do not even properly protect anyone from the toxic fumes.
With this letter we are also appealing to the King of the Netherlands, His Majesty King Willem-Alexander, to intervene on behalf of us the people in his Kingdom, as it appears finding a solution to the landfill is outside the scope of the local authorities.
With no headway being made by the local politicians and governing bodies, and the instability of our local governments not being able to govern properly due to government falling almost every 12 months, we are left no choice but to appeal to his Majesty, King Willem-Alexander, to intervene.
No longer should our people wait and hear political rhetoric while our people are dying of cancers and respiratory diseases.
People in the Dutch kingdom are guaranteed clean air in the constitution and so should it be for those living on Sint Maarten.
As a community environmental group our focus is not only the environmental hazard but the wellbeing, health and hygiene of our residents and visitors.
Our livelihood of tourism is at stake but more importantly our health and future livability as a people.
We trust you will take our appeal on the landfill issue and the raging fires seriously. Our group would like to see a final modern waste solution found immediately. One that we can be proud of, one where our quality of life and our future in health can be guaranteed.

Sincerely,

Barbara Cannegieter
Secretary of Sint Maarten Pride Foundation

Jadira Veen
President of Sint Maarten Pride Foundation

Dear Editor,
Today is a black page in the political history of St. Eustatius. Even in the old days, when the Statia government, without significant support from the National government in Willemstad, had to operate with a so-called wenselijkheids budget, which was not sufficient to cover the cost of good governance. But what happens now within our government did not take place. Lawlessness, dictatorial behavior, irresponsible expenditures, the practices to silence the opposition, and so on. At that time this did not happen!

Great Bay Town just
Started te come back
She still reeling
From Irma blows

Staggering like a
Drunken sailor
After sleepless nites
Of serious féting
Drunk from Irma blows
And dress up in Ragged clothes

We trying te come back
Forcing te smile
And doing we best te be
Friendly te we cruise ship guests

But just like them politicians
That volcano now must erupt
And spoil all we fun
Blowing off steam
Worse than ah old jet plane
Got we can’t breed
Like we smoking weed and we can't see

But them politicians
Telling we te vote fo he
If we want te stop the smoke
While they continue in we eyes
Te blow more smoke
Cauz fo sure they smoking something
Lying te we in we face
In ah shameless disgrace

The Marechausee open up
The border to let the
French Pompier in,
In order fo they te help we out this fire
While the MPs campaigning north of the border
Cauz they too like they on fire
For that hot seat
on Front Street

The future belong
To the voters
So vote
Vote black, vote white
Vote left, vote right, but vote
For only you can vote out this fire
And fire the politicians
Who started the fire!

Raymond Helligar aka “Big Ray”