Dear Editor,
The paedophile regime has become more powerful and more dangerous than the tantalizing drug world. It is so influential that it presides over our Executive, Legislative and Judiciary branches of government. Even our community is crippled by the tentacles of this evil empire!
To reinforce the boldness, The Daily Herald of Friday, August 25, reported yet another heart-breaking story that involved a 47-year-old child molester and a blameless nine-year- old girl. At first, the sex offender denied committing the act, but was forced to confess when his own DNA became his prosecutor. What is extremely puzzling is that he said he has paedophilia tendencies because of the conduct displayed by some little girls. The questions that linger in my mind are: Exactly whose girls and how do they behave? Are they his girls, those in his immediate vicinity, the ones of his entire neighbourhood or little girls in general? More confusing is: Where was he precisely when these little girls behaved in a manner that stimulated his sexual appetite?
The perpetrator further stated that the victim in question came on to him. In the beginning, he did not want to molest her but finally gave in to the temptation. Again, where was he when this incident took place? Interestingly, the newspaper indicated that the perpetrator is the neighbour of the victim’s grandparents. With this information, there are many questions that come into play, but I am curious to know: What was the relationship like among the assailant, victim and grandparents, prior to this incident?
As the proceeding progressed, his lawyer admitted that his client has paedophilia tendencies and needs psychological help, instead of being placed in prison where he will be a target for other inmates. Strange! So, is it okay for an innocent little child to be subjected to sexual abuse but a grown man, who has inflicted the pain, be protected by the same justice system? Where is the equity in this situation?
Then amazingly, alcohol and drugs are being blamed for the victim’s behaviour. If this is the excuse that is used to down play the dirty behaviour of a child molester, what would happen to the children of this country, if they are hunted down by every adult that consume drugs and alcohol?
Here comes the part that makes absolutely no sense. Imagine both the prosecutor and judge doubted the molester’s claim that the child had initiated sexual advances towards him, yet he was sentenced to a measly year in prison. Where is the correlation between their conclusion and the verdict? This nonchalant attitude continues to be a thorn in the side. It is like these judges are forever hypnotized by paedophiles. Sometimes I wonder if they are part of this group why they are so sympathetic towards child molesters. If the evidence is there, why are they not using the full extent of the law?
What is the difference between someone who stabs his victim to death and a paedophile that deliberately cuts out the heart and soul of an innocent child? Isn’t there a glaring distinction, separated by their intention? For sure, the first scenario could be an act that was thought-out or one that is done in the heat of the moment; however, there is absolutely no doubt that the situation with the child was calculated and conveniently carried out to suit the attacker’s agenda. Plain and simple: the act was planned, intended, wilful, premeditated and deliberate! Can this little girl survive without her heart and soul? Absolutely not! Then this is murder in the first degree!
All over the world, premeditated murder carries a heavier penalty than one that is done spontaneously. Look at the situation in Curaçao with the child molester who pretended to be a pastor. He was sentenced to 12 years and the citizens there are challenging the justice system to extend the punishment.
Young people and parents of these victims, it is time to rise up and fight for your cause because it is evident that neither government nor the justice system will defend you. The nepotism, cronyism and the creation of unnecessary jobs at the expense of taxpayers have become their focus. Sexual abuse of minors is unimportant because there is no kickback in this undertaking.
The Mighty Chalkdust of Trinidad has touched the souls of many this year with his thought provoking rendition “78 cannot go into 14.” Here on St. Maarten, 47 cannot go into nine either. When I calculate the disparity in age, both perpetrators are five times older than their victims. Just recently, there was an article in the newspaper which indicated that the reporting of sexual abuse of minors has been reduced. The reporting may be less, but there was no follow-up survey to determine why this trend has shifted. So what is the real situation of sexual abuse of little girls and boys in this community?
Our children are crying and dying at the hands of paedophiles. How long will this slaughter continue before the Ministers of Youth Affairs, Social Affairs and Justice sit up and smell the coffee? The community also needs to stand up and demand that these three ministers do their job and start protecting the children of this country. If they cannot defend the children, then how could they talk about building a nation? If these three ministers continue to neglect the issues that are destroying the youth, then they need to step down and allow others to do the job.
Chairlady Sarah Wescot-Williams, you also have an obligation to protect the children of this nation; therefore, I implore you to summon these ministers to Parliament forthwith, to get a better understanding of their intention on this issue. During the deliberation, you need to stipulate a timeframe for them to devise a plan of action and execution that would benefit the children of this nation. If you cannot succeed in this endeavour, then you too need to step down and pass on the baton.
To ignore the enormous damages inflicted by paedophiles is like watching a child drown and do absolutely nothing to help. When the handful that are caught and released back into the community, then what exactly are we doing? I will borrow the famous saying from the mother of Chairlady Wescot-Williams to illustrate further: “It’s like carrying water to the sea.”

Joslyn Morton

Dear Editor,
For a long time I have wanted a cute, good-breed little puppy that would grow up to become a good watchdog. One I could keep in the house at night that would alert us of an intruder in the yard or worse, trying to get into the house. But two obstacles stood in the way of me getting my dream puppy; a strong-minded spouse, who under no circumstances would allow an animal, be it a cat, a dog, or anything else with four legs in the house.
“Cats are troublesome creatures; they drop their fur all over the place, damage curtains and scratch up expensive furniture with their claws. A dog is even more intolerable. It would poop on the porch, the deck and, God forbid, in the house.”
“But, Love, I will do most of the work; I will pay for its food, take him for a walk every day and bathe him every other week. All you will have to do is clean the soft stuff. Be careful not to get on your fingers and be sure to wash your hands often” (Okay, I like to tease!) The second reason being I couldn’t find a puppy I could afford. I was definitely not going to pay $800 or more for one.
So, imagine my excitement one morning about a week ago when I read an important notice (classified add) in a local paper about free male and female English bulldog puppies being offered to a “very good and caring home”. The words free and bulldog jumped out at me. No phone number was mentioned in the ad, just the e-mail address of a certain Eduardo Donald.
The first thought that came to my mind was: “Too good to be true,” but neither that gut feeling nor my strong-willed spouse stopped me from hastily sending an e-mail the moment I got back home. I told Donald I was very interested in two male puppies and I would certainly provide a very good and caring home for them, and... where and when can I pick them up?
I checked my incoming emails twice a day after that. Three days later I got a response from him. He turned out to be Rev. Donald, and he even sent pictures of his two beautiful bulldog puppies, named Adam and Eve – names only a reverend would come up with – and they were indeed very cute and huggable. However, the following sentence of his email bust my bubble. He, his wife and their two darlings Adam and Eve live in ....Africa.
He was still willing to ship the puppies to me, provided I pay half of the cost of shipping them to the nearest airport. I immediately knew I was dealing with a reverent scammer, and – seeing the happy smile on my wife’s face when I mentioned Africa, I also knew those darling puppies would never poop on her kitchen floor.
Nonetheless, I decided to play along with the pastor; I sent him my name and the name of our local airport and waited. I didn’t have to wait long; the following day I got another message from the reverend. The puppies and all the required documents were ready to be shipped. He would arrange for next-day delivery, and based on my location in the Dutch Caribbean, the transportation cost would be $800. He will ship them the same day he receives the $400 from me. Needless to say, he is still waiting for my money.
At the time I wrote this letter, the classified ad was still running in the local newspaper. I doubt I am the only one who reacted to it, as I am sure there are a lot of cute-puppy lovers out there. I wonder how many of us (almost) fell for it.
It’s a shame that seers, faith healers, mediums, spiritual problem solvers and the like can deceive people from thousands of miles away. How are they even able to place newspaper ads in far-away countries? I got the answer to that question. “They all have credit cards.”
The lesson here is: Don’t be naïve; don’t believe everything you read in newspaper or magazine ads or anywhere else for that matter. There’s no way an editor can verify whether the people placing ads in his newspaper are devious or not. It’s up to the readers to judge what they read.
By the way, I e-mailed a copy of this letter to the deceitful reverend in Africa, though I’m sure that won’t stop him from doing what he’s doing.

Clive Hodge

Dear Editor,
On many occasions I have written that we give the Dutch ammunition for them use on us. There are also others who are watching our way of doing things, and are probably lay waiting their opportunity to react. They dare flex their muscles and say things for which they later apologize, using “in the heat of the moment" as an excuse.
According to a report in The Daily Herald of Friday, August 25, Sky Beach’s owner is furious about the false claim... etc., and further in the article Goldman said, "There are a few good businesses on the island, and I would hope that Sky Beach is one of them"
And my reaction to that is, "Wow, what a generalization". I do not remember the exact date, but I can remember many years ago a businessman also publicly made a similar remark, and within short he closed his business and left the island.
I know that the spate of load shedding that we were obliged to go through in the past months was very frustrating and brought forth some revealing remarks, but any self-respecting government should not accept anyone or any establishment to publicly make such a generalization about the country, without retaliation from government.
There is a saying in Dutch: "Wie zwijgt stemt toe”. In English, "Silence is consent".
On page 4 of the same paper I read that Louis Brown will be released of the bulk of his responsibilities, and immediately I wondered if what Brown did to release him of those responsibilities is more damaging to the island than what Goldman said.

Russell A. Simmons

Dear Editor,
In last week’s Letter to the Editor, I wrote concerning the importance of evaluating our representatives in Parliament on a yearly basis and not waiting until election time. I also mentioned that SMCP is busy developing a Parliamentarian report card that will indicate how well or how poorly our MPs are doing in the following six areas: attendance, participation, representation, supervision, legislation and interaction.
Furthermore, I explained the reason for and nature of the report card and presented an extensive description of the first benchmark, namely attendance. Here, I will expound on the following benchmarks: participation, representation and supervision.
Participation is one of the benchmarks that is very obvious. We can see and hear when an MP is taking part in meetings in the standing committees as well as in the central committee and the plenary sessions of Parliament. An MP is expected to participate by questioning, commenting, offering suggestions and proposals, voicing his/her opinion, presenting and defending motions, critiquing presentations of colleague MPs and by voting and motivating his/her vote.
The public expects an MP to make valuable and meaningful contributions in all of these meetings. Yet we all know MPs who speak but say nothing, who do not address the topic at hand but beat around the bush. We also know MPs who do not read or study the documentation, which becomes obvious in their superficial and unsubstantiated contributions.
Representation: our constitution in article 44 states that Members of Parliament are elected to represent the entire population of St. Maarten. In other words, an MP does not only represent his/her voters, a particular social or economic group or even his/her party. For this reason, the constitution stipulates in article 61 that Members of Parliament are “not bound by a mandate or instructions” but are free to vote according to their conscience.
A good example of this is, when Dr. Lloyd Richardson, a member of the UPP fraction, remained in Parliament and voted in favour of the NA/DP/USP 2016 budget. Sadly, just before the voting the rest of the UPP fraction walked out of the meeting but Dr. Richardson had placed the people’s interest above party politics!
Representing the people also means defending the people’s cause and bringing their concerns to the floor of Parliament and presenting these to Government while demanding answers and solutions. For example, the people had and still have great concerns regarding the Pearl of China Project, the dump, the prison, GEBE, the new hospital, etc., yet Parliamentarians have not seen the need to bring these issues to the floor of Parliament.
Another area related to representation is attending meetings abroad and not reporting back to the people. When it comes to representing the people, MPs, if they are not sick, should attend all meetings of Parliament. Sadly, in the past, numerous meetings have had to be cancelled due to a lack of quorum. Parliamentarians who decide to stay away from meetings for political or unsubstantiated reasons are actually not doing the job that they are being paid to do.
In addition, it should never be that a Parliamentarian or a Parliamentary fraction blatantly refuses to represent the people, as the UPP fraction did when it refused to represent the people at the IPKO meetings in the Netherlands last June. If something like this happened in the private sector that representative would be fired on the spot but in Parliament and St. Maarten this type of behaviour is accepted and rewarded with yet another four years in Parliament.
To supervise means to control, oversee, monitor, inspect, be responsible for, and to have the oversight and direction of. Supervision is one of the key functions of Parliament and of each Parliamentarian, yet it is the one function that Parliament pays the least attention to. How much oversight of Government is being carried out by our Parliamentarians? One of the reasons the oversight function is compromised is because Parliamentarians who belong to the coalition, consider the Government “their Government” and often a Parliamentarian refers to a Minister as “my Minister.”
Unfortunately, this mind-set is a direct result of Parliamentary democracy where our Ministers are appointed by Parliament. The best way to guarantee a true separation of powers is to have the people elect the Ministers or at least the Prime Minister and then let him/her select the members of the cabinet. In this way, a Parliamentarian would be more objective in the execution of his/her supervisory function.
The constitution gives Parliament many instruments by which it can carry out its oversight functions. A Parliamentarian can question a Minister verbally as well as in written form. Parliament also has the right to give Ministers instructions via motions. Furthermore, the right of interpellation and inquiry or the right to approve or amend the budget are very serious instruments at Parliament’s disposal.
Besides, through the annual reports of the High Councils of State, Parliament obtains insight as to how Government is functioning as well as advice about how to mitigate and correct situations in Government. But what does Parliament do with these reports? Absolutely nothing! Our Parliamentarians need to take the supervisory aspect of their function much more seriously!

Wycliffe Smith
Leader of the St. Maarten Christian Party