Dear Editor,
The call to serve is not one easily or readily answered. Deciding to be the one who runs toward a disaster while helping others to escape it, or understanding that your time is no longer your own is not a choice many make. When you decide to enter this service, to wear the badge and to live the pledge, you do so knowing that it means that you will put other families above your own. You do it knowing that you will put the community above yourself.
The call to serve comes with a mandate to protect. It is not just a motto etched on our cars and badges. It is indelibly etched in our consciousness. It is woven into our basic foundation.
The spirit of a police officer is much like that of a warrior because of our deep love for everything within these shorelines; we fight fiercely to protect the land and more so, our people. We are all pieces of the whole that make up this nation we love. Each of us is like a single thread in a tapestry. One role or placement is not more important than another, but with each of us giving our contribution, the beauty of the image is visible. The tapestry cannot admire itself, but that does not diminish its beauty.
I wouldn't say that Benjamin was perfect and none of us are, but on Wednesday, August 5, he exposed the fibre of his true character. He ran towards the disaster when others were trying to escape it. He put the safety of the community above his family and above himself.
On that day, his action began a domino effect; as a people, for the first time in a very long time we stood shoulder to shoulder, hands to hearts and flooded the atmosphere with prayers for his healing and recovery. It was devastating to have to say goodbye, but look around, our prayers have been answered. Benjamin gave us one last gift before he left – you see we are the ones receiving much needed healing. Our hearts though crushed are not destroyed and will recover. This event could have easily divided us, but instead we are more of one community, one people, than ever before. That is a tribute to Benjamin.
We can understand better the concept that the stone on top of the mountain is not more important than those that form its base. We need each other for support, to rely on, to cover us and to stand in the gap for us. Regrettably the price of admission was steep.
We all have our favourite memories or stories about Benjamin; that is where he lives now. I implore you to keep them alive and keep sharing them. One day his legacy, his heartbeat, his son Keenan, may need to be immersed in our memories of his father.
As we witnessed St. Maarten come out in support of Benjamin, it was evident that we, the people, saw him not as he was, we saw him as we desired. We saw him through Heaven's eyes. We had hoped that he would get to see how much we loved him, but we weren't deterred from standing in support of him. Whether you knew him as a friend, colleague, from his bike route or his neighbourhood, we can agree that he changed our world. It can never be business as usual again.
We are now responsible for paying this debt forward. Whether it is a kind word or a good deed the opportunities are endless. We can no longer pass someone in need without caring or showing compassion.
Most of us did not get to say goodbye to Benjamin before he took his leave of us on Saturday. We did not get to wish him well on his new journey or to thank him for his years of tireless service. We did not get the opportunity to let him know that we appreciated his sacrifice or to remind him that we would never forget him or to ask him if he would remember us.
The Police Department has lost an officer and a comrade, but St. Maarten has lost a son, father, friend, brother, mentor, and a hero.
Gamali Benjamin, you lived well and you died honourably. You have the gratitude and respect of a grateful nation.
BRAVO 1, We salute you. Go well.
Inspector S.P. Carty
Bike Team
Dear Editor,
Please allow me an opportunity to express my disgust with the tremendous waste of taxpayers’ money on “Kimsha” beach in concrete for a so-called parking lot.
For as long as I can remember parking in that area has never been a problem, yet MP Lake, Minister Meyers and the current Government thought it was an urgent project that just had to be completed, coincidentally before elections. Perhaps it is their proverbial notch on the headboard of what the Government has accomplished.
The only one benefitting from this slab of concrete seems to be the roadside food hut which is now prominently situated on the parking lot.
For arguments sake, let’s say this wasteful project is costing, we the people, NAf. 500,000. Yes, I know, I am being conservative after all this is a Government project, but to keep matters simple let’s call it half a million guilders. Where else could this money have been spent?
How about the school fees for 1,000 students of parents struggling to make ends meet this month?
Or 100,000 warm meals for our students who sometimes go to school hungry.
Or perhaps 55 30-second ads on CNN to promote the island.
Or maybe 700 laptops for less fortunate kids to have access to a computer.
Or even six months free electricity for all our senior citizens.
We need to keep things in perspective and hold our elected officials accountable for their decisions and actions. We do not need or deserve this level of misuse of our tax money.
Our people are struggling, so I have to ask or rather demand that MP Lake and Minister Meyers and the current Government forget “Back to Basics” and Get Back to Reality.
Name withheld at author's request.
Dear Editor,
When on Monday July 25, 2016, the Prosecutor’s Office withdrew its appeal filed against the alleged “straw man” in the so-called Buncamper forgery case, and its appeal against the second suspect in this case, a smell of injustice started to cloud the clear blue sky. Something is seemingly rotten in the rule of law of Country St. Maarten.
On April 7, 2016, the Court of First Instance had acquitted Mr. T. O. W. of all charges, and sentenced Mr. I. A. H. to a suspended prison sentence of 3 months, on 2 years’ probation, with 120 hours of community service. Mr. Claudius A. Buncamper and Mrs. Maria J. Buncamper-Molanus were both sentenced to suspended prison sentences of 12 months, on 3 years’ probation with 240 hours of community service, and Notary Mr. F. E. G. was sentenced to 240 hours of community service.
In April 2016, the Prosecutor’s Office filed for appeal against all verdicts of the Court in First Instance. After consultation within the Prosecutor’s Office, it was decided to withdraw the appeals filed against Mr. T. O. W. and subsequently Mr. I. A. H., thereby making their verdicts to become irrevocable. However, the appeal cases against the Buncamper’s and Notary Mr. F. E. G. will continue.
The law that states that people pay taxes on the sale of a parcel of land with or without a constructed building, be it judicial or economical, doesn’t exist in St. Maarten. It does in the Netherlands but not here, so it’s going to be strange to see them convicted on such according to the various legal scholars and tax experts I spoke to.
What is clearly remarkable in these cases is the fact that the Judge does not see any so-called outside legal debt exclusion ground: No punishment without blame. After all, an official Notary recommended the Buncampers, to act according to his so-called ‘Belehrungspflicht’: the function of a Notary within the legal transactions brings with it, that he is professionally kept to prevent, to the best of his abilities, the abuse of legal ignorance and factual prevalence.
The Judge is apparently absolutely not interested in the ‘Belehrungspflicht’ of the Notary Mr. F. E. G. and persists in the Buncampers’ participation in an illegal construction. I would dare say that because he could not find the burden of proof against the notary that he falsified a deed, he decided to go with the alleged illegal construction and hold the notary legally accountable for such and thus punish him for that behaviour.
Furthermore, in accordance with Article 6, paragraph 2 of the National ordinance on the notaries: “a Notary must refuse his services, in the event that to his reasonable belief, the activity that is expected from him, leads to breaches of the law, the public order or the moral order, or his participation is required by acts which seemingly have an illegal purpose or consequence.” No reference is made whatsoever to this stipulation.
The appeal of the Buncampers, against the recent criminal sentences, therefore surely has a huge chance of succeeding, one would think and hope.
Imposing a sentence of 240 hours of community service, to two renowned members of community service organizations, seems farfetched and out of order. It is not said that these people are immune to criminal conviction, but after the acquittal of Mr. T. O. W. of all charges, the acquittal of the charges of money-laundering and participating in a criminal organization, the continuation of a criminal case against the Buncampers smacks of legal hypocrisy.
The principles of due process should have urged the Public Prosecutor to drop all criminal charges against the involved suspects, after they admitted their serious mistake (the then case Prosecutor took pictures with a personal cell phone of various documents that were between the lawyer and his clients and lots of other papers they knew full well they could not confiscate due to their secretive/confidential nature as process documents; these pictures were then sent via email throughout the Prosecutor’s Office), and withdrew the first case Prosecutor.
Continuing the criminal process with another case Prosecutor, at least shows a somehow unprofessional attitude, or even a personal grudge on the side of the Public Prosecutor against the Buncampers. Portraying that the Prosecutor’s Office came clean is the furthest from the truth as they only came forward when the Buncampers’ lawyer filed a formal complaint against the prosecutor at the judge of instruction. It is only then that she states that she realized what she did, but yet it reportedly took her 6 days to, so call, destroy the pictures she took from her computer and I-Cloud and write a report to her superiors.
In the meantime, she reportedly opted to email the pictures to the present prosecutor and the chief prosecutor. It’s like asking a new rat to mind the cheese and hope it doesn’t eat it.
The Prosecutor’s Office wants the Buncampers and the lawyers to believe that the present prosecutor didn’t peek at the illegally taken pictures and documents; something I unfortunately cannot believe nor trust as integrity at the Prosecutor’s Office has in St. Maarten shown to have a different meaning than what we should expect. Now that the verdict of the other suspect in this case Mr. I.A. H. is irrevocable, it means that nobody destroyed any evidence and using that excuse to raid the home of the Buncampers clearly shows the manner in which the Prosecutor’s Office operates.
Perhaps the harshness of the conviction towards the Buncampers was because they dared to challenge the Prosecutor’s Office and the entire justice system, showing that they were not afraid of a fair legal battle. The fact that the Judge blames Maria that as a politician she should have given the right example, turns her criminal process into a political process, whether the Judge had intended it or not: a Judge cannot be that naive, a sentence stigmatizes the culprits, if not directly then indirectly.
So, the term judicial persecution has now been established beyond a reasonable doubt. You would think that the courts would have stuck to judicial prosecution.
It should be clear enough, that the Judges are still lacking a certain sensitivity of how the St. Maarten society functions, they are unfamiliar with the norms of our society and seemingly also not fully adapted to the understanding of the St. Maarten Law as embedded in the Civil Code of St. Maarten.
I would like to suggest allowing these fine jurists first to familiarize themselves with the laws of the country St. Maarten, because although many laws of the country St. Maarten are derived from the laws of the Netherlands, the Dutch laws cannot blindly be applied in country St. Maarten. In particular the law on taxation which played a major role in this case is not the same as the one in the Netherlands. St. Maarten as a country has its own laws and these laws must not only be adhered to by society but, these are the laws that the judges must apply. In St. Maarten we don’t have capital gains laws (no personal taxes on the sale of land).
How this saga will end is surely a good test case for how the society of St. Maarten resolves its impediments. The society of The Netherlands honestly cannot be compared with the society of St. Maarten; although there is a lot of common history, at the same time there are too many demographic differences. Let’s not lose our belief in justice, and let us work together to realize that at the end, justice always will prevail no matter who the persons are. There’s no room in St. Maarten for class justice.
Lastly, if the Prosecutor investigates public notaries for the type of so-called “criminal constructions” that the Buncampers have been accused of, they would find they would have to drag half the population before the judge as arrangements involving economic rights are signed, sealed and delivered every day at these notaries. Come on now!
A Buncamper Supporter
Dear Editor,
I would like to correct Mr. Simeon James on his claim that Jesus is not God. Jesus is God manifested in the flesh – never records Jesus saying the precise words, “I am God.” That does not mean, however, that He did not proclaim that He is God. Take for example Jesus’ words in John 10:30, “I and the Father are one.”
We need only to look at the Jews’ reaction to His statement to know He was claiming to be God. They tried to stone Him for this very reason: “You, a mere man, claim to be God.” (John 10:33). The Jews understood exactly what Jesus was claiming – deity.
When Jesus declared, “I and the Father are one,” He was saying that He and the Father are of one nature and essence. John 8:58 is another example. Jesus declared, “I tell you the truth … before Abraham was born, I am!” Jews who heard this statement responded by taking up stones to kill Him for blasphemy, as the Mosaic Law commanded (Leviticus 24:16).
John reiterates the concept of Jesus’ deity: “The Word [Jesus] was God” and “the Word became flesh” (John 1:1, 14). These verses clearly indicate that Jesus is God in the flesh.
Acts 20:28 tells us, “Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood.” Who bought the church with His own blood? Jesus Christ. And this same verse declares that God purchased His church with His own blood. Therefore, Jesus is God!
Thomas the disciple declared concerning Jesus, “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28). Jesus does not correct him. Titus 2:13 encourages us to wait for the coming of our God and Saviour, Jesus Christ (see also 2 Peter 1:1). In Hebrews 1:8, the Father declares of Jesus, “But about the Son he says, ‘Your throne, O God, will last forever and ever, and righteousness will be the sceptre of your kingdom.’” The Father refers to Jesus as “O God,” indicating that Jesus is indeed God.
In Revelation, an angel instructed the apostle John to only worship God (Revelation 19:10). Several times in Scripture Jesus receives worship (Matthew 2:11; 14:33; 28:9, 17; Luke 24:52; John 9:38). He never rebukes people for worshiping Him. If Jesus were not God, He would have told people to not worship Him, just as the angel in Revelation did. There are many other passages of Scripture that argue for Jesus’ deity.
The most important reason that Jesus has to be God is that, if He is not God, His death would not have been sufficient to pay the penalty for the sins of the world (1 John 2:2). A created being, which Jesus would be if He were not God, could not pay the infinite penalty required for sin against an infinite God. Only God could pay such an infinite penalty. Only God could take on the sins of the world (2 Corinthians 5:21), die, and be resurrected, proving His victory over sin and death.
Levar Carter
Dear Editor,
Did Jesus ever claim to be the Almighty God? At John 3:16, Jesus referred to himself as God’s “only begotten son.” Other scriptures where Jesus referred to himself as God’s son include John 5:19, 20, 25, and John 10:36. Jesus’ apostles and disciples knew Jesus as God’s Son, not as God. Jesus even blessed Peter for accurately recognizing who he really is – God’s Son.
Matthew 16:16, 17; John 1:49; 2 Corinthians 1:19; Galatians 2:20; 4:4 etc. Consistently, the Bible refers to Jesus as “Son of God” or God’s son – never as “God the son.” Why? Because Jesus is not God, but God’s son. No wonder that Jesus said at John 20:17 that the Almighty is his Father and his God. Why would Jesus have a God if he himself is God?
At Mark 13:32, why did Jesus say that he did not know the day nor hour when the world will end but only his Father knows? If Jesus is God, would he not have known when the world will end? If Jesus is God, why did he say at John 14:28 that his Father is greater than him? The fact is Jesus is the son of God. This is a very important fact to know according to John 17:3.
Let us not be fooled by any twisting of the scriptures to believe in a mysterious three-in-one God, an idea that came from Pagan nations such as Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon, whose people worshiped three-in-one false gods.
Simeon James
