(Curaçao Chronicle)
Dear Editor,
“We will not be free until we reach down to the depths of our souls and sign with the pen and ink of assertive manhood our own emancipation.” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s
Exploitation of victimhood is still a prevailing mentality in many Afro-American and -Caribbean communities.
It was Louis Farrakhan, the leader of Nation of Islam, who set the tone in the world by offsetting “the ridiculous six million deaths from the Holocaust against the six thousand years of black slavery.” Farrakhan’s anti-semitic, anti-white and homophobic populist rhetoric inspired the masses, and especially those who felt unjustifiably, socially and economically excluded from the new wealth after WW II.
A press conference, on April 18, 1994, after a 90-minute tour of the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC., left no doubt about Farrakhan’s strong anti-semitic convictions and his eagerness to compete Black with Jewish victimhood. “The black holocaust is a hundred times worse than any other holocaust in history… and worse, in any case, than that of the Jewish “bloodsuckers” who were put in place by Hitler.”
#BlackLivesMatter, the slogan in street riots in many US cities, last year, was another competition for a championship in martyrdom.
Black victimhood is a voluntary attitude many engage in, in search for authenticity. After the BlackLivesMatter riots, theatrical martyrdom played out, for 24 hours a day on cable networks around the nation. Dehumanizing white people – it always concerns a white police officer who shoots an innocent black youth committing a crime – as monsters, as the evil forces of discrimination, is the game. Black victimhood is an exclusive black privilege – black police officers shooting whites or blacks, does not count.
The glorification of victims is part of our culture and has been for thousands of years. Martyrology in the Catholic and Orthodox Churches often leads of sainthood. After all, a crucified Jesus was the ultimate victim and therefore glorified to the level of God. The divine status of Islamic Martyrology, sarcastically called Islamikaze, is one of the strongest motive powers for suicide bombers of Jihad.
Many Blacks insist to be blameless for the backwardness, for the educational and socioeconomic morass they are in; they rather acquire victimhood. But victim mentality is an acquired trait, which often develops over extensive periods of time when a person allows himself to be submerged in a culture that believes in being the victim of wrongdoing by others, actually or perceived. Even when one is the real victim of unjustified misfortune that does not imply that one automatically develops a pervasive and universal victim mentality. It is and remains a choice, a voluntary performance.
“We have not yet reached the Promised Land that Martin Luther King saw from the Mountaintop.” When will Blacks no longer be victims and stop competing for victimhood?
Jacob Gelt Dekker
Dear Mr. Emmanuel,
On behalf of Leonel Gaston Halley, d/b/a Lee’s Roadside Grill and Bar (hereafter: ‘Halley’), client, I hereby request your attention for the following.
In my letter addressed to the then Minister of Public Housing, Spatial Planning, Environment and Infrastructure, of April 18th 2016, a copy of which has been attached, I argued on behalf of Halley, that Halley shall suffer damages of a good US$ 5.352.768 if he is condemned to evacuate his business prior to March 31st 2017. I have not received a single reaction to this letter.
In this letter, I have also shown that Water’s Edge Development Corporation NV (hereafter: ‘WED’) has acted for more than thirty years in conflict with the long lease conditions and that the Minister, on the basis of this default can declare the long lease right defunct.
On the basis of art. 5:87 C.C., a long lease right may also be terminated if the long leaseholder has seriously defaulted in the compliance with his obligations.
As I already indicated in my letter to the Minister, WED has never built anything on the parcel and Country St. Maarten is not required to pay any compensation whatsoever to WED, upon giving notice, or as the case may be termination of the long lease right.
On behalf of Halley, I request or if necessary, I summon you, or as the case may be Country St. Maarten, based on the National Ordinance on the issuance of lands in long lease, belonging to St. Maarten (see also National Ordinance on the issuance of lands belonging to the Island territory the Windward Islands), to declare defunct, the parcel with certificate of admeasurement 223/1978, given in long lease to WED or based on art. 5:87 paragraph 2 C.C., to terminate the parcel given to WED in long lease, within 30 days after this date and to issue the middle part of the parcel, used by Halley, in long lease to Halley.
In the event that you, or as the case may be, Country St. Maarten neglects to comply with this summons, on behalf of Halley, I shall take you or as the case may be, Country St. Maarten to court and request that you, or as the case may be, Country St. Maarten, be condemned, or as the case may be ordered to withdraw, or as the case may be terminate the long lease to WED.
A Huizing, L.L.M.
Dear Editor,
Today, two months after the new Council of Ministers was sworn in, we still do not have a Minister of Tourism, Economic Affairs, Traffic and Telecommunication (TEATT). The blame for this has been placed on the vetting or screening process. However, in truth and in fact, the blame lies squarely on the shoulders of our Parliament.
Now, the USP (United St. Maarten Party) will have to present another candidate minister and the screening process will start all over again. We trust that it does not take another two months. Who is to tell, though, if this candidate will pass the screening, which is shrouded in a cloak of mystery!
With the exception of the Governor and the Prime Minister, no one else seems to know, for sure, what exactly the criteria are for the screening of candidate ministers.
We expect the Prime Minister to be transparent about this issue and to enlighten the candidate ministers, the political parties and the general public about the screening criteria, the procedures and how the final decision is made to pass or fail a candidate minister.
SMCP believes that the screening criteria should be clearly established up front and that political parties should be aware of these before submitting the name(s) of their candidate minister(s) to the Formateur.
The obscurity as well as the insecurity surrounding the whole screening process could have been avoided, if Parliament had taken the bull by the horns and dealt with the law pertaining to the screening some years ago.
Take Curaçao for example. Shortly after 10-10-10, the Parliament of Curaçao annulled their original screening ordinance and passed a revised one, in 2012. Nearly seven years after 10-10-10, St. Maarten is still using the original 10-10-10 screening ordinance which is apparently outdated and full of flaws.
St. Maarten has a very short history, as far as vetting or screening of candidate ministers is concerned. It is unfortunate that the first three Governments of Country St. Maarten never underwent any serious screening. In its Integrity Report of 2014, the Bob Wit Committee clearly pointed out that the screening was a mess and even stated that the then Prime Minister as well as the Ministers were in violation of the law and could be sentenced to a maximum of three years imprisonment.
Seeing that governments were forming and falling so frequently, the Kingdom Government felt that they should step in to ensure, the much needed integrity in the Government of St. Maarten. Consequently, prior to the formation of the fourth Government in 2014, the Kingdom Government issued a directive, instructing the Governor, to ensure that the screening of candidate ministers be done in a thorough manner. I believe that, if the St. Maarten Government and Parliament had taken the screening process seriously from the beginning, there would have been absolutely no reason for the Kingdom Government to step in.
Almost seven years after 10-10-10, St. Maarten’s Parliamentarians are still complaining about the screening, when all the while it was up to them to do something about it. Finally, after five years, a draft of the screening law, entitled “Ordinance Regulating the Integrity of (candidate) Ministers,” was officially submitted to Parliament, on January 20, 2016, by then Member of Parliament, Dr. Van Hugh Cornelius de Weever. If Parliamentarians were really concerned or dissatisfied with the screening, they would have been more zealous in seeing this law move from the Ad Hoc Committee of Integrity to the Central Committee and finally to the Public meeting where it would have been approved.
It is good to note that when this ordinance was submitted, the members of the Ad Hoc Integrity Committee were: Sarah Wescot-Williams, George Pantophlet, Cornelius de Weever, Leona Marlin-Romeo, Frans Richardson, Maurice Lake, Franklyn Myers and Silvio Matser, who did not attend any of the three meetings that the Committee held. Regrettably, neither the Committee members nor the other Parliamentarians did anything with the draft ordinance. They just sat on it and allowed it to accumulate dust.
SMCP calls on Parliament to handle this draft ordinance as soon as possible and ensure that it is transparent and fair to all concerned.
The next ordinance that Parliament should deal with immediately is the Ordinance Regulating the Integrity of Parliamentarians. The Bob Wit Integrity Committee also seriously questioned the integrity of our Parliamentarians and made very pointed recommendations such as: establishing a code of ethics, making public all paid and unpaid side jobs, setting up a public registry to record all gifts accepted by Parliamentarians, determining whether side jobs are permissible and if so reducing the salaries accordingly. The report also calls for Parliamentarians to declare their assets, before and after taking office, as well as for the establishment of an Integrity Committee.
If Parliament had followed up on the recommendations in Bob Wit’s Integrity Report, the screening of candidate Ministers would not be a big issue today and the integrity level within Parliament would have been higher. SMCP is expecting Parliament to work on these two ordinances as soon as possible.
Wycliffe Smith
Leader of the Sint Maarten Christian Party
(Curaçao Chronicle)
Because inspection by Dutch aviation authorities has established that the Civil Aviation Authority in Curaçao is not based on the law but on arbitrary decrees of Minister Suzanne Camelia-Römer and is therefore illegal, whereas parts of the local legislation on aviation is provable not in compliance with international aviation standards, the Dutch government has now placed the civil aviation in Curaçao under Dutch supervision. The lack of a sound and transparent structural organization of the Civil Aviation Authority and its supervision of the aviation business in Curaçao have led to this situation.
The only person responsible is Minister Suzanne Camelia-Römer who has held the tenure for civil aviation for a year now and, notwithstanding our warnings, has spent well over NAf. 2 million upholding Oscar Derby as the also illegal head of the Civil Aviation Authority. NAf. 2 million down the drain without even the most basic document in order for Curaçao to ever reach the FAA Category 1 status, i.e. an approved business plan for the Civil Aviation Authority, being in place. Now it has even resulted that the Civil Aviation Authority has neither inspectors nor a Director of Safety in its employment, but rather has consultants with limited experience in the field working as inspectors.
It has now also resulted that there are one or more inspectors engaged by the Civil Aviation Authority doing private, commercial business with the private company InselAir. This, in the meantime, has also led to the firing by InselAir of its Head of Maintenance Mr. Oduber, who together with his partner/spouse, is also employed by InselAir as its representative in Colombia and a former employee of InselAir, a certain DiAngelo Maduro, who was to be appointed to the position with InselAir presently held by Mr. Juny Sluis. Oduber, his partner/spouse Liz Castaño Tamayo and the said Maduro are engaged in the sale and other business deals with the inspectors of the Civil Aviation Authority in question via their company M & O Aviation Services N.V.
The same InselAir, which, in the past has instructed Minister Suzanne Camelia-Römer, in writing, not to grant an economic licence to AVA Airways; surprisingly, the Public Prosecutor in Curaçao has refused to investigate this matter of public servant corruption which leads us to the conclusion that also the Public Prosecutor in Curaçao is a corrupt organization, which same as Suzanne Camelia-Römer, the Civil Aviation Authority, Oscar Derby and InselAir, need urgent political attention and criminal investigation of itself.
Another reason found to impose the Dutch supervision was found in the fact that out of the total of 80 pilots employed by InselAir no less than 45 have left the airline. The remaining pilots, at a certain point, due to the lack of safety with the aircraft of InselAir, refused to fly the hazardous InselAir aircraft and grounded these.
In the meantime, this situation continues to exist while all of the US $33million which the Curaçao government, represented by again the same corrupt Suzanne Camelia-Römer and her cronies Minister Rhuggenaath and Minister Gijsbertha, has gifted to InselAir will evaporate in payments for the wet-lease of aircraft for InselAir, while InselAir has refused to grant the Dutch supervisors each and all insight into the wet-lease agreements with Dominican Wings, Surinam Fly Allways, Venezuela Estelar Latino America and Swift Air.
It is, therefore, justified to conclude that this $33 million will disappear in the pockets of the gangsters headed by Suzanne Camelia-Romer, where after InselAir will most likely be declared bankrupt with the loss of jobs for the InselAir employees…again, $33 million down the drain.
The Dutch supervisory authorities have established that Minister Camelia-Römer has not undertaken any or any recognizable action to turn the negative tide within InselAir or the Civil Aviation Authority. Mrs. Camelia-Römer has not only tolerated this “gangsterism”, but has stimulated it and also participated actively in it.
By Olivier Arrindell
AVA Airways
Dear Editor,
When a minister consistently focuses on new initiatives, rather than restoring the broken relationship with those whom she is mandated to guide, then the minister has lost her focus and the process is like applying paint to a dirty wall. It is logical, that the success of any ministry depends heavily on the value that a minister places on the team players within that institution. If the members are feeling deserted, it is a sure sign that the ministry is in jeopardy.
This view reflects the course of direction within the Ministry of Education. At present, Minister Silveria Jacobs seems to have lost all authority regarding education. The Minister repeatedly and proudly announces that the buck stops with her, yet there is no evidence to support this claim. The person, who appears to be in total control of education, is the Department Head, while Minister Jacobs looks as if she is the subordinate. Why is this?
Personally, the gravest mistake that the Minister has made was when she chose to be quiet on the disappearance of documents that were sent to the governor regarding the dissatisfaction of the Department Head of Education. Here is where the Minister lost her authority. The Minister had to test the integrity of the governor to the limit; whether the matter involved a family member or not. To talk about it now has no significance because her failure to be assertive and decisive back then has led to the fortification of the status quo.
To illustrate further, a few months ago, some teachers reached their breaking point with the inefficiencies of the Department Head. As the last resort, they tried to seek the Minister’s intervention directly, in order to solve the conflict. Instead of Minister Jacobs enforcing her authority, she sent them flying to the same individual to resolve the problem – the very one, who teachers are complaining about. How sensible was such a decision, Minister Jacobs? Prior to that, some teachers took their grievances to the MP who stood up in Parliament during the budget debate and announced that you are doing a good job.
Minister, this was just a teaser, because UP’s little poodle is the one who feeds her with information about the many deficiencies within the Ministry of Education. And, have you noticed that the other MP (now minister), who stood up in Parliament and commented that it (children from abroad who are flooding the classrooms) is an immigration problem, also attended the meeting in support of teachers? How is it that he chose that route instead of standing with you? Again, his comment was just a leg-puller. Minister, I dare you to tell him how to run his ministry, now that the shoe is on the other foot.
How do you think teachers feel about this spinning-in-mud situation? As it stands, whatever is decided upon by the Department Head is sent to you as a done deal. Minister, are you paying attention to the consistent flow of teachers from these two countries that are swimming in child molestation? Why is this situation so prevalent and how do you plan on stemming this current state of affairs?
Minister Jacobs, I’ve heard your comments with reference to last week’s article and so I know that you are annoyed. Here is something to consider: Oftentimes, the catalyst that drives a new course of direction is when someone points out our defects. But, the success of change depends on how the individual takes the critique. The most appreciative comment I have ever received pertaining to my articles was when Gerard Bijnsdorp told me in this newspaper that I cannot write. His comment stemmed from my reaction to an article that his friend wrote.
Next to Gerard Bijnsdorp is my friend Jacintha Brice, who contacted me shortly after his post and said, “I do not agree with him, but, if you can find something within his article that you can use to your advantage, take it.” I ignored the rest of his comments and focused on the one line that related to me not writing well.
Minister Jacobs, inter-ministerial collaboration is plausible, but the core of your ministry is embedded within the sector of Education. If that is off-track, your entire ministry is lopsided. Teachers and administrators are fed up with issues that you failed to handle, because you have allowed prestige to cloud your judgment. How sad it is to see a Minister that came out of the classroom, one who was so vocal about the challenges that she and her colleagues faced, has now turned her back on the very ones who were and still are part of the same struggle.
Minister Jacobs, this is your last chance to take charge of your ministry. Therefore, you need to go back to the place where you first started, because your lack of decision is hampering not only your effectiveness as the Minister of Education, but the proper functioning of the entire ministry!
Joslyn Morton
