Dear Editor,
The other day I decided that I had to discover my island further, because it is worth to be discovered. So, I went on an expedition and planned to take a walkabout at the trail passing Back Bay from Pointe Blanche.
The area was a total surprise for three reasons. First, it was wild! It was nature! The atmosphere was great, relaxed, truly removed from the fumes of cars in traffic jams and crowded life on the island. I immediately fell in love with the area. An area to protect for generations to come. It also should be great for tourists on cruise ships, who after a week might be fed up with buffets and the crowdedness, and need some space, some beautiful views and maybe a little swim in one of the natural pools.
It took me a while to find the trail though, so that was also a tiny surprise. Especially because one had to pass a dirt road, and I mean dirt in the sense of dirty. One constantly thinks: am I going the right way?
At one point in St. Maarten’s recent history there seems to have been a garbage dump here. In the bushes there are still lots of car parts, concrete pieces, broken tiles, scattered glass and rusted up stuff all over. It is good most of the garbage has been taken away, but the mess on the edges is still there and it seems that people still use it as a dumping ground.
My surprise increased like a big bubble gum, when I walked on and saw large amounts of car parts on a seaside cliff. Rubber tyres, motor blocks, metal, wires, plastics, a big part of a truck and that is just what was visible. What is there beneath the surface of the water? A bit of iron is not that bad maybe, but tyres, that slowly break down in little pieces that via fish find its way into our food, is just plain bad. Let alone all of the other parts with chemical plasticisers.
On the first rocky beach of Back Bay, the area is also covered with washed-up car parts and washed-up tyres. Bushes are covered in plastic bottles and other plastic, and look like a bad, fake Christmas trees.
No sea cucumber, but black rubber hoses. No conches, we try so very hard to protect from export, but plastic car mirrors. No sharks in this part of the shark reservation, but big grey plastic bumpers. No sand dollars, but plastic pieces of all sorts. So apparently stuff slides down the cliff and ends up on the beach.
One wonders what is still beneath the surface of the water, but having a look is risky, while during a swim a truck seat might fall on your head! I don’t even want to go into the question, which dirt bag dumped the stuff there. Pin him on a Pope’s Head Cactus and let him sit for a while. I do wonder why this has not been cleaned as of yet. On the cliff, on the beach and on the bottom of our beautiful Caribbean waters.
Maybe it is already being arranged and this letter is unnecessary, but Government, EPIC (Environmental Protection of the Caribbean), community, scuba divers come together. You want to do a clean-up! Here is one for you. It is a biggie!
Turn in the iron and maybe there is even money to be made! Of course it is going to take some heavy equipment, a lot of hands and also remnants of two small structures have to be broken away, but this island can do it.
The walk itself has to be cleaned too, and some small safety fencing has to be put in place. Then you will have without a doubt one of the most beautiful hikes on this island.
Simpson Soualiga
Dear Editor,
I am a business man; I have been travelling for years. Nowhere in the world have I seen people screaming out for jobs like at the St. Maarten International Airport.
A gentleman comes down to the airport everyday stating that he’s hired by Great Bay Express to pick up tourists from the airport to transport them to the Harbour to catch the ferry to St. Barth’s.
I am a local business man on the island and I have been harassed by him quite a few times, and I also know quite a few friends that pick up people, but this gentleman stands outside the airport with their names on a paperboard.
This guy with an orange shirt yelling, “Great Bay Express, Great Bay Express!” For me, I find it very disrespectful and inappropriate at the airport. On many occasions I saw a few ladies walk over to the guests and ask, do you need a taxi? And, then there jumps the guy with the orange shirt saying “Great Bay Express, Great Bay Express!”
On Saturday, July 9, I drove with a male taxi driver and we had a discussion, I also saw signs saying “Shuttles for Oyster Bay Hotel.” I turned around and I ask the taxi driver how do you all earn an income? The taxi driver turned and says all we have to do is work hard!
I think is time to put a stop to it because I find that the local taxi drivers aren’t making enough of income.
Name withheld at author's request.
Dear Editor,
Today, July 14, 2016, I'm writing the last article I will write on the politics of St. Martin.
I have decided to concentrate the balance of my time from now on, on cultivating my home garden and writing my autobiography and auto-eulogy.
Before taking this life retreat from the politics of my homeland this, my ultimate article, you will find hereafter is simply the expression of my will to share with you – my patriots, my thoughts on the St. Martin you likely will be voting for a few months from today.
The newly created Collectivité of St. Martin was handed over on January 1, 2008 to our elected leaders with a budget evaluated at 74.6 million euros, in running expenditures. This is significantly below the budget of Anguilla (6, 500 inhabitants) and quite three times below the running expenditures budget of Dutch St. Maarten, 40,000 inhabitants compared to French St. Martin 37,000 inhabitants
The 74.6 million euros running expenditures was compensated by: 32.6 million (44 per cent), in taxation transferred at potential value of which 16.4 million was officially recognised as potentially non-collectable; 36.9 million in allowances including compensations (allotment); 5.1 budget deficit after all compensations.
In spite of this budgetary precariousness between 2008 and 2012, the State recuperated seven million euros off of the transfer of competences budget, by operating cuts on the 2009 to 2012 allowances due to St. Martin this said to be recuperation of over-plus allowances wrongly paid to St. Martin from 2008 to 2010.
On the back of the above, in April 2011, the State decided to inflict St. Martin with a perpetual yearly re-evaluated debt burden evaluated at 63,412,600 euros for the year 2008.
Debt resulting from the readjustment of the charges of the sole Fire Department transferred from the Department/Guadeloupe to the Collectivité in 2008.
For this year 2016, the running expenditures budget of the Collectivité is fixed at 137 million euros, an increase of over 185 per cent compared to the 2008 transfer of competences budget (74.6 millions)
A fiscal receipt budgeted of the sum of 81.01 million euros, an increase of 249 per cent compared to the 32.6 million of the 2008 transfer of competences budget. Increase consisted essentially on the implementation upon the unprivileged social strata residents of unprecedented taxation, abusive and fraudulent impositions, fraudulent calculations,
All which will be illegal if referred to the French national fiscal legislation, but permissible upon the power of the said granted Fiscal Autonomy to SXM.
Useless to plead our fate before the Conseil d'Etat or the Conseil Constitutionnel, they both refer not to the laws and fundamental principles of the French Republic, but squarely dismiss any case of abuse of fiscal power of the COM St. Martin placed before them by slyly assimilating the fiscal autonomy of COM St. Martin to the 1830’s regime of the colonies, when the French constitution declared that the regime of colonies is determined by special laws called the colonial charter (La Charte Coloniale).
The January 1st, 1798 constitution of France (La Convention) also did declared the autonomy of the colonies within the sovereignty of the Republic, represented by an agent of the Republic, the first appointed to Guadeloupe including St. Martin, was Victor Hugues, no need to recall the despotism and bloody terror that the natives suffered under his reign.
Paris declarations of autonomy within the Republic to French Overseas Territories had always meant and will always mean more power in the hands of the State’s appointed representatives.
Considering all the above, and looking to unfold such a shameful rat race between natives contemplating the president seat of the Collectivité in the upcoming March 2017 COM elections,
A rat race in which none is less incompetent than the other, and all to blame directly and indirectly for the immature unfolding of the new status of St. Martin and the catastrophic situation the country natives are now confronted with.
It, therefore, becomes very clear to me that voicing my opinion in such an irrational, self-centred, egocentric environment is like a lonely man crying out in a vast no man’s land.
So, I have decided after the publication of this ultimate article to retreat in my home garden, write out my autobiography and auto-eulogy, and simply wait and see.
What will be, will be; que sera sera.
Leopold Baly aka The Elder
Dear Editor,
The current issues being experienced with GEBE’s much criticized load-shedding are because the company is now a rudderless ship. Government needs to step in and tackle these issues head on in the interest of the populace.
Electricity consumers on Dutch St. Maarten have been blighted with power outages over the past few days, which are reportedly part of scheduled load-shedding to accommodate repair of equipment. Persons have experienced as much as three outages in a given day and the local population has been very outspoken in their criticism of GEBE as a result.
There is still no appointed head of GEBE so it’s not surprising that no one has come forward with an explanation or a solution from that company regarding the outages that are inconveniencing the island. Government needs to stop playing politics with something so vital to the day to day business of the island and appoint a captain to steer this ship on the correct path. GEBE has been without a chief executive officer for months because none has been appointed to this date. How do you expect a ship without a captain to navigate smoothly, especially if the seas are not always calm?
The employees of GEBE must be commended for keeping the company afloat and operational by carrying out their day to day duties despite government’s delay in appointing a CEO.
Government must step in and solve these issues affecting GEBE because they negatively impact the productivity of businesses and people’s personal lives. They are the only body authorized to make these changes and they need to start taking this job seriously. We give credit to GEBE for their program that provides some sort of relief to our seniors, but there have been too many complaints through the years about company policies – e.g., their continued refusal to compensate persons and businesses for equipment which becomes damaged from constant power outages – and they need to be resolved.
I call on the current administration to stop playing politics with the issue. GEBE needs a new CEO in place to deal with the issues plaguing them. That CEO must be the person who is best for the job based on their experience and merit and not someone appointed as a political reward or personal favour.
Leonard Priest,
Leader One St. Maarten People Party (OSPP)
Dear Editor,
Imagine two local St. Martin grandmothers sitting at the St Martin’s home for the elderly. They have worked hard and are enjoying the last days of their lives. They bore many children, who in turn bore grandchildren, who are also today bearing their great-grandchildren. So much has changed since they were thrown into life in the 1920s; one in Simpson Bay and the other in Middle Region. Today, they are called local St. Martiners, to distinguish them from the many other ethnic groups that reside on the island. Back then they were just St. Martiners. Others were from St. Kitts, Statia, Saba, Dominica, Anguilla, etc. In their youth there were no hotels; no cars; no telephone; no electricity. In our terms, their St. Martin was simple.
The stuff romantics write about. They are, however, not nostalgic. For the most part they are content with all the modern conveniences. Their children can reach them at a dial of a button; no matter where they are located on God’s earth. What’s more, they are happy because the “Wrong” that characterized sweet St. Martin is no more. They never speak about the “Wrong”. It is better for the getting along that they “forget” how to speak about the “Wrong”, knowing that they cannot really ever fully forget it in heart or mind. It seems to be working, as all locals including their grandchildren get along regardless of their ancestral stock. The inequalities, in terms of who has more “pocket change” and buildings and land, are still there but there is communion that shines through the differences of complexions. The Prime Minister is a black man; the head of the opposition is beige, but he has children and his wife who are brown. The former Prime Minister has the colour of his children. This is St. Martin today; not perfect, but getting better.
These days, however, with all this TV, CNN, NBC and BET, and what have you – that they all watch and hear about on the radio – the “Wrong” seems to be growing stronger in the USA. They understand that Black Lives Matter, because justice matters for all, but It terrifies them (and they lament that one thing that has not changed is that it is primarily those with an overdose of testosterone who also imbibe the idea of racial superiority and inferiority that continue to spoil the world). They are afraid for their children and grandchildren.
You see, whilst growing up in what is referred to as Sweet St. Martin, the racial “thang” was considered normal – you could derogatively call dark brown St. Martiners “nigga” without twitching; but, things weren’t always black and white. When the blood of men journeyed to the middle section of their bodies, which happened regularly, the colour barrier was breached when no one was looking and the moon and the bushes kept secrets. Those who had a chocolate grandmother, but carried the pinkish complexion of their fathers’ people, did their utmost to distance themselves from the brown working poor. It is this, which has created today, the situation that when you scratch a little deeper than the surface you find out that all local St. Martiners are related in one way or the other.
So too are the two old grandmothers. They stare at the photos of their grandsons; one the colour of straw with hair that resembles National Geographic renditions of the Sahara desert; the other Mahogany with a head full of tiny corkscrew curls that judges of the Guinness Book of Records will find impossible to count. What will become of them? Will they fight like Cain and Abel, like the White and Black Americans, or will they create a language of critical understanding to right the “Wrong”?
Time will tell, but they are hopefully reading in the newspapers that the University of St. Martin is organizing a town hall meeting on July19, where their children and grandchildren are invited to speak about Alton Sterling and connect this to Mitchell Henriquez, Terrance Briscoe, Norbert Mestenapeo, or the many unnamed slain men and women in India, Palestine, Kenya and other parts of the world without hate. Without undoing the fragile peace and getting along that they have been able to build up. They hope you will accept the invitation to discuss Black Lives Matter, St. Martin style.
Dr. Francio Guadeloupe, President of the University of St. Martin (USM)
Dr. Natasha Gittens, Director of SCELL-USM
Ms. Wendie Brown, Division Head of the Business Management Programs, USM
Mr. Josue Ferrol, Coordinator of the pre-USM program, USM
Mr. Pedro de Weever, Editor of the Commentaries Journal, USM
