Dear Editor,

  I, Hasani Ellis Deputy Minister Plenipotentiary, on Friday, December 22, had the privilege to attend the launch of the Nederland’s membership on the UN Security Council at the Peace Palace in The Hague. It was truly a humbling moment for me to return to the library where I sought insight on international dispute regulations as a student.

  The year 2017 has truly been a year that has tested the fortitude of St. Maarten and the Kingdom. By saying so, I would like to open 2018 by calling on local and European counterparts to cooperate and find solutions. For the lack of cooperation will only lead to long term risks for the people of St. Maarten.

  For example, there is a lot of Industrial waste accumulating on the dump, what happens when the resorts finalize demolition works and also need to dump waste? A simple solution can derive in the form of a barge that comes to St. Maarten and collects the waste that has been accumulated. Here I would look at the industrial nations to assist in sourcing such a barge. The same solution through cooperation lies at our medical center. People can sing high or low about a new hospital, but unless I see referral quotas from our kingdom, regional, and U.S partners I cannot assess whether or not we will be rebuilding a medical center or building a new hospital.

  Many studies have been done, and many experts both local and regional have advised and continue advise us. It is time for solutions and I can only hope that we as one people will choose to stop fighting each other and be transparent, as many opportunities have been lost in this process. To be totally honest, our airport which makes us a transportation sub-hub needs to be rebuilt, and not tomorrow but yesterday.

  Serving as Deputy Minister Plenipotentiary has been the highlight of my career in the good times and the bad. Sitting in this seat I have facilitated and witnessed a magnitude of aid and assistance come to the people of St. Maarten, and cannot close 2017 without thanking all organizations and volunteers who dedicated time and efforts to assist St. Maarten.

  My tenure comes at a time where there have been many changes in global politics.  Recently, the American president has changed followed by the Dutch Cabinet, and the French government in France and St. Martin. All three countries most definitely affect St. Maarten’s economy and political climate.

  The passing of Irma only further solidified our vulnerable position as a small island developing state in a hurricane belt. Yet as a young man growing up in St. Maarten I was told that it is adversity that makes me strong. While adversity may deprive us, it is in times of adversity that we test our fortitude. In closing, I would like to thank the people of St. Maarten for their support and insight while doing my job as deputy Minister Plenipotentiary. I wish you strength, and a bright and prosperous 2018. May God bless the people of St. Maarten, and the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

Deputy Minister Plenipotentiary Hasani Ellis

Sint Maarten. This past year we felt the breath of the Earth, heavy and haunting, moaning like ancestors long forgotten. Shaking our souls and our foundations. Heaving our lives. Collapsing our dreams. We were torn by wind warmed by our Earth’s building fever.

After Irma left us, crumbled and reeling, St. Maarten’s children dealt her the final blow, our humanity a memory, like a lover’s final embrace. We dealt the coup de grace. We ended the swan’s song.

Instead of standing united we stood divided, our humanity tested, or resiliency tried. We wavered like the lonely palm on Great Bay’s crying shore. And now the masts of sailboats and the barnacled hulls of yachts pierce our sighing lagoon like tombstones. The empty carcasses of our homes roofless and battered, with windowless eyes staring at us like a scorned love.

After buildings trembled and roofs departed, as supplies lay rotting in the West Indian heat, mothers tried feeding their frenzied children, her income now a memory as distant as that dead tamarind tree. Our cries for help disappearing with the wind.

This island, the jewel of the Caribbean, our Caribbean Capital, has been brought to her knees. Brought to her knees not by wind, but by our unwavering worship of the greed that divides all of humanity. For decades we have neglected our soil and the sea that sustains us, our wetlands that define us, the hills that watch over us.  Soualiga’s children have defiled her; our acrid smoke curling in the winter wind; the landfill still filling our souls with the ignorance that carelessness breeds.

Please, Children of Soualiga, define your own histories by rising from these ashes. Be like our symbol, enduring and steadfast. Be like our National Phoenix; arise rom the rubble, the flood, the roofless spaces. Arise from the broken timber and the broken dreams. Be like our Pelican who bleeds her own bosom to feed her hungry children.

Realize that our mother is not greed or profit or power but it is our very Nature that unifies us. It is our Nature that surrounds us with the strength we need to be resilient and strong. It is our Nature which we need in order to be reborn. To be the Phoenix. The turquoise beauty of our shores, the emerald vibrations of coral, the humming green of our hills, the morning songs of our birds all a hymn to the strength of our people, of our nation, of our home and of our Caribbean identity. Realize that our power lies in the divine beauty of our Nature; in our seas and in our forests. Our ability to recover, to rebuild, to rise from our ashes, lies with cherishing and protecting the beauty that surrounds us all. Be like the July Tree and bloom despite our storms.

Then and only then, inevitably, as our Earth struggles with her fever, will we stand defiant. We will stand steadfast against the whims of Nature and Man. We will bend but we will not break. We will have seen the abyss and will be comforted by the knowledge that we swam back into the light. We will know that we have rebuilt with that very light after our deepest, darkest moment. We will have evolved into our destiny as a beacon for sustainability in the Caribbean. And we will shine our light throughout this world ,having known the worst of Nature and Man and also knowing now that we persevered. We are St. Maarten. We are strong. We are defiant. We will shine our light across continents and seas into 2018, and into the annals of history. Have a Happy New Year Irma Survivors.

Tadzio Bervoets

Cole Bay,

Sint Maarten

Tadzio Bervoets is the Manager of the Sint Maarten Nature Foundation, a conservation NGO on Sint Maarten. He is also the Vice-chair of the Dutch Caribbean Nature Alliance and the winner of the 2016 McFarlane Award for Conservation Leadership in the Insular Caribbean

Dear Editor,
My brothers and sisters ... as this New Year dawns, many face it with slumped shoulders and downcast eyes because we are still feeling the shockwaves of disasters just past – both natural and manmade like physical blows.
How can we not when workers who have given their all for years are being asked by companies to either agree to a pay cut or go home permanently? Any way you slice it they are going home with less money than their agreed upon wages.
How is it that in the period preceding Hurricane Irma, when these companies enjoyed significant profits the powers that be never suggested raising the wages of the workers to directly reflect their profits? Yet today these workers, who have the same financial obligations they had before Hurricane Irma and in some cases more, are expected to show gratitude for being deprived of half their salary when they need it most. I can see how in a situation like that it may be difficult to find the strength to face the coming year with anything but slumped shoulders.
There are thousands of people and more who lost their roofs and are wondering when will they receive some type of assistance. We have learnt that the government has awarded the contract to a company to start the roof repair program and that the repairs should start very soon. But it behooves the government to contact those home owners who lost their roofs to let them know that help is on the way.
2018 is one of our defining moments here on St. Maarten. Yes, we have a right to be angry and you should be angry. Angry that our right to self-governance continues to be undermined by the Kingdom Government; that after working for years on so-called six-month contracts you are left with nothing when that company gets rid of you; angry that you seem to spend more time at the electoral polls than you do at the beach because it always seems that as soon as you learn the names of the new ministers they have been booted out and a new set coming.
This New Year 2018 is, as I have said, a defining moment for us. It is up to us what we choose to do with this justified anger we feel particularly when we look at the daunting task of rebuilding. We must take this anger and channel it into passion to keep on fighting to not roll over and play dead because the truth is that even if we have not made the progress we set out to in our respective areas, most of us can look ourselves in the mirror and admit “I made some headway.” The truth is that when things are at their worst is when you are called upon to be your best.
There has been much talk about the 550 million euros in Dutch aid. There is nobody against the aid. This aid is necessary to rebuild St. Maarten stronger and better than ever, it must move this country forward financially and economically. As we enter this New Year we must stay focused and use this opportunity to develop our country in a manner that reflects our culture. We must develop a plan as to how we really want our capital Philipsburg to look in the future.
Our people must play a pivotal role in this development and any other way is unacceptable – no longer will we sit by and have decisions made for us and be relegated to the status of observer. We expect that a part of that aid would be allocated to provide low interest rate loans; a program to convert cruise passengers to stay over guests; the establishment of a loan and mortgage guarantee program to help rebuild our economy including agriculture and to set up programs to eradicate poverty on the island.
Thirdly, the much needed hospital will be built thus allowing more specialists to be available to our people resulting in less people having to travel abroad for medical reasons. Huge financial savings and better health care will be derived making St. Maarten a medical tourism destination.
The allocation of funds for our educational infrastructure is of utmost importance especially that of the University of St. Maarten. The USM should never have to go through what it went through in 2017.
We had no input into whether we got battered by Hurricane Irma but we can all choose to let St. Maarten rise from the ashes. It will take all of us to pull this off so it’s time to square those shoulders and look 2018 – henceforth the year we rebuilt – in the eye. This is a golden opportunity for us to build better homes for our people and eliminate the construction of shacks forever. We must work with private land owners to establish the public and private partnership program assisting succession property owners to build affordable low income homes.
The writing is on the wall. This is our time to rebuild St. Maarten including its people once again to become the leaders in their country financially and economically. While it is understandable to feel overwhelmed by the magnitude of the task that lies before us, let’s ask ourselves “are we less noble than our sires?” We are St. Maarten and together we have always been strong so let’s be strong together again.
Today, I am making myself available on the list of the NA to you the people in the upcoming election on February 26, 2018, to serve you as a Member of Parliament of St. Maarten.
Citizens of St. Maarten please allow my family and I to wish you and your family a very prosperous New Year 2018. May God bless this Island Nation, St. Maarten and its’ people as we move it forward, stronger and better than ever.

Lenny Priest

Dear Editor,

  First let me wish every person in St. Maarten a happy and most joyous new year 2018. With all the events that is taking place on St. Maarten most people is missing the big picture.

  People believe that without a good functioning government St. Maarten cannot succeed. We do need a good government, but that is not possible if those in power have the wrong values.

  I see reality so much different, the reason why we are in this situation besides the challenges Hurricane Irma have brought us is that we trusted and put our confidence in politician who for most part deceive us.

  Every person or individual that make decision and choices pleasing or obedient to Christ is less in need of government. Presently in St. Maarten we have many broken homes where the family how God intended it to be is not functioning.

  If a man is married and living with one woman and vice versa their responsibility is to their children. What does government have to do with that? Our life style of not living God values is what brings poverty in St. Maarten, Hurricane Irma only makes the reality more clearer.

  If people was not stealing and looting and destroying other people’s property we could have been far ahead without the relief of the Netherlands.

  Divorce brings poverty. it also brings suffering to children. Which leads to children looking for leadership and love in the streets. Divorce also harvest pedophilia where many step-parents molest young boys and girls. Many instances the parent that is dependent on the other partner for help will deny it because the fear of losing the payments in kind (prostitution) monthly money.

  Life styles do matter when people is in hard times and especially if they never had a good upbringing and knows what is love or were never even taught about God they become the easiest target to be use and mislead.

  You can give a person 550 million euros but if he or she does not knows what to spend it on and the value of money he or she will become poor again. The love for pleasure is always expensive, because it takes money to support it. But where true love is there is not much need for money because the commitment and the individual responsibility and choice to be obedience to Jesus Christ first and to your partner saves you money and brings joy which is much better than pleasure for a time.

  Imagine if most families in St. Maarten were married and living as God say, the burden of Government will be a tiny fraction of what they have to spend presently helping people. The money being spent on young people in prison from broken homes the money being spent on Court of Guardianship, the more people that is not productive in a society is what breaks a country.

  The conclusion is we should teach people and children to live a correct life style and make choices to foster success. Giving people money who does not know how to use it and value it and be responsible with money is setting them up for a greater downfall.

  Choices have consequences. If you choose Jesus Christ values you choose life with prosperity. Any other choice is just destruction waiting to happen.

  Individual responsibility is the key to success.

The Patriot Miguel Arrindell