WILLEMSTAD -- “The Minister of Economic Development Steven Martina wants to tackle illegal trade over the Internet, especially on social media.”
Yes, Minister, it is unfair to all those who do apply for permits and pay taxes, but aren’t you a little late? You want to create a level playing field and equal opportunity in an economy that has long been hijacked by subversion.
The genie is out of the flask, or the lamp, how do you get him back in? Right, no way! Or with another cultural metaphor, aren’t you opening a can of worms? Once the creepy crawlers are out of the can, it is nearly impossible to get them back in.
Over a period of about 20 to 30 years, the economy searched and found a way around the corrupt, non-functional and expensive governmental authority structure of permits and taxes. Today, at least 30 per cent of the economy of the Caribbean islands functions in the shadow. Why does the Minister think he will be able to get them under regulation and control again?
The Minister may be the scion of a well-established family with great political influence, but is he showing realism?
I doubt it. A very large part of the shadow economy has no option to join the regular economy since it is financed by narco industry capital. Römer, former Minister of Infrastructure, reported that at least 10,000 buildings were constructed on Curaçao without a permit. The money laundered concerned with illegal construction can be estimated at 1-2 billion NA guilders.
The Minister does not have at his disposal the legal or administrative apparatus and a team of reliable executives to fight this economic bulwark of subversion. Navarro, the former Minister of Justice, put it so succinctly: “Every branch of government is infiltrated by organized crime.”
So, the Minister of Economic Development’s call is no more than a paper tiger. The only option he has for creating equal opportunity and a level playing field is by doing away with governmental permits and taxes altogether, for everyone.
A new VAT tax would be far more effective to guarantee the government sufficient income.

Jacob Gelt Dekker

Dear Chairman Broekers-Knol and members of the 1st Chamber and Ex-Minister Plasterk,
I hereby object to your senate proposal to request votes to finalize the second reading on October31, to definitively annex and anchor Bonaire (and St Eustatius) in your constitution.
As a result, your senate and your senate-members without their humanitarian feelings will deprive their kingdom-partners, the Bonerians who live on Bonaire (and the same counts for Saint Eustatius), of their right to their primary human rights for freedom and equality.
Your supposedly accepting the law proposal and then constitutionally anchoring our island in your state order without the consent of our people is undemocratic and unilateral against the democratic voice of our people in violation of our fundamental rights.
Your position and task as a co-legislator who is independent and taking into account legal aspects and in particular the soundness and consistency with other laws, and certainly not to violate higher legislation, it is your responsibility to definitively ensure the rule of law and democracy.
The arguments put forward by the ex-Minister Plasterk and all members during the last debate, as alibi to formalize the annexation, are characteristic and all can be grouped together under abuse of power and a typically persistent inexhaustible VOC mentality of Dutch political governance culture.
You are showing that you are misled and manipulated educationally and you do not realize or are not aware that your Kingdom-partners, Bonaire (and St. Eustatius) are not public bodies or special municipalities, but full-fledged nations.
The right as a people to international law in accordance with decolonization, co-signed by the Netherlands as a co-founder of United Nations, has the right to aspire our own emancipation and development and our own future while maintaining our own language, culture, traditions, norms and values, identity and self-governance.
That is the basis that definitely needs to be known to the Dutch politicians. Or do Dutch politicians know nothing about their colonial past, why they have obligations to their colonized peoples?
Do the Dutch politicians not know where all Dutch wealth comes from? That the Netherlands from an insignificant fishing village through piracy, smuggling and slave trade, all by law, legally, have become one of the world's richest countries, with the blood, sweat and tears of our ancestors, your colonized peoples? Or do your senate-members not know that the VOC is the world's largest company of the world’s history, about 10 times bigger than Apple and Microsoft together?
So, you'll be celebrating, just like Plasterk, a potential new Dutch hero, worded, the record-breaking, the first time in history. Celebrating that you humiliated all three Caribbean nations by giving them the right to vote, while all three nations together do not have a tenth seat and vote in your senate, which has 75 members is as a mockery of democracy.
Of course, taking into account that your kids, generations, will never know that their current politicians are no less than your historical heroes such as Piet Heijn and other criminals, robbers who on October 31, 2017, now without any remorse unleash and systematically eradicate their humble human kingdom-partners.
Finally, our human framework and emotional ability give us no other option than trying to understand that with all of you, you as Dutch politicians have missed humanitarian values being nurtured and educated, and this law is in the same category of racism where our common colonial history began.
Where you did not with your peers, your own companions, but to the different, dark-colored people declared them as "non-human" by law and then made them slaves and traded them, and never wanted to stop with that terrible human-trading. And it is almost impossible to add more that your racist indoctrination has finally rooted in the constitutional embedding of racism, your exclusive contribution to humanity, institutionalized apartheid, in the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

James Finies
Nos Kier Boneiru Bek

Another government fall

But thats not all

For another one shall rise

Though a thousand shall fall

At our right hand

And ten thousands

On our left hand

That will not stop us

From rising again

For St. Martin shall rise

Again, and again

So let us all rise up

And wise up

For the time of no return

Has now come

And no man goin’ follow

Uncle Willy to his grave

For if Uncle Willy fail to rise

To the occasion

Then let the dead bury

The dead

For we can always go

Back to the sister

We Nation Mother

None other than Sister Sarah

That can and will take we out

of this mierda

So let us all pray that this eight

Can stand up straight

For Saint Martin north and south

are standing behind them

So stand tall without any doubt

and more border closing

For Saint Martin must rise up

United as one again

Together forever

Raymond Helligar aka Big Ray

Dear Editor,
Last Thursday, while the honorable MP Tamara Leonard had the floor, the honorable Chairlady of Parliament interrupted, stating that it was brought to her attention that there was no longer a quorum in House. A public roll call revealed that, with the exception of MP Ardwell Irion, all the other NA and USP faction members who were present at the beginning of the meeting were now absent. Blatantly and deliberately missing in action!
Strange enough, some two years ago, Members of Parliament pulled a similar stunt. On March 31, 2015, The Daily Herald carried an article with the following headline “No quorum for meeting on Integrity Chamber Law.”
Let the last three paragraphs of that article refresh our minds as to what transpired: “NA MPs Marlin, Emmanuel and Silveria Jacobs along with Democratic Party (DP) MP Sarah Wescot-Williams were in their seats in the General Assembly Hall, but they did not sign the attendance list. The only signatures on the attendance list were those of coalition MPs Dr. Richardson, Theo Heyliger, Silvio Matser, Tamara Leonard and Johan Leonard of UP, Frans Richardson (United St. Maarten party) and Cornelius de Weever (independent). Absent with notice were MPs Franklin Meyers and Maurice Lake of UP, and Leona Marlin-Romeo (independent).”
In the private sector, when employees walk off the job without giving notice, they are summarily dismissed, fired on the spot and they also lose their employment benefits! Not so with our honorable members of Parliament, who seemingly are above the law. They can disrespect the House of Parliament and a fellow Member of Parliament by walking out of the room while she is speaking and without notifying the Chairlady. They then attend subsequent meetings without giving a reason or an apology and act as if nothing has happened.
Basic manners and ethics, learned at home, teach us that this type of behavior is rude, impolite, disrespectful and unethical. It is not only disrespectful to the House of Parliament but more so to the 3,778 NA voters, the 2,784 USP voters as well as to all the people of Sint Maarten whom these renegade parliamentarians swore to represent when they took the oath of office exactly one year ago. They now act as if they are accountable to no one and I am sure that at the end of the month these “walkout” parliamentarians still expect to receive their full month’s salary.
The walkout by the NA/USP factions is also a demonstration of lack of integrity, the very topic that was being discussed at the time. A lack of integrity does not only refer to big time crime, corruption, bribery, etc., but it also denotes being dishonest, failing to keep one’s promise, not trustworthy or accepting payment for work not performed.
These representatives in Parliament took an oath to represent the people. Walking out, after giving their reasons, was the ethical thing to do. But to walk out in a stealthy manner that the Chairlady did not even notice, is really not becoming of mature representatives of the people.
This behavior clearly demonstrates a lack of integrity on the part of our renegade parliamentarians. Consequently, this walkout action by USP/NA faction members (with the exception of MP Ardwell Irion) is even more evidence of the need for an Integrity Chamber.
I must commend the honorable MP Ardwell Irion, even though being the youngest and most junior Member of Parliament in the NA faction, demonstrated more maturity than his senior colleagues.
It is my opinion that once politicians have been elected to Parliament they should begin to act like statesmen and put the people’s business before politics. This type of political antics belongs to old-school politics and certainly does not contribute to raising the bar in Parliament.
If a parliamentarian does not agree with a colleague then the ethical thing to do is to hear the speaker out and voice your objections when you have the floor. Unfortunately, in the Central Committee meeting of October 26th 2017, the NA/USP parliamentarians forfeited the opportunity to represent the people of this country as stipulated in article 44 of the Constitution.
The walkout by the NA/USP factions also raises some questions. Are we to interpret this walkout to mean that these MPs do not feel that they are worthy to discuss matters of integrity? Does this walkout signify that they do not consider this topic worth their presence and their time? Does this walkout mean that they do not care about the people’s business and interests?
Our people just experienced the worst hurricane ever and many are roofless, homeless, and jobless and everybody is worried about the reconstruction of the country. For more than seven weeks people have been waiting for Government to offer direction and solutions to help the country get back on its feet. But instead, a standoff developed between our local Government and the Kingdom Government concerning the two conditions: the Integrity Chamber and border control.
In this Central Committee meeting people were expecting to hear what their representatives would have to say about these two conditions. People expected Parliament, as the highest supervisory body, to issue an instruction to the Prime Minister and Government as to what to do next to get the country out of this quagmire. Instead, the NA/USP factions walked away from their responsibility, which resulted in the closure of the meeting.
This walkout is blatantly impolite, disrespectful and does not demonstrate the maturity and integrity expected of a parliamentarian. On the contrary, this walkout demonstrates the need, more than ever, for the Integrity Chamber!

Wycliffe Smith
Leader of the Sint Maarten Christian Party