Dear Editor,

Following recent statements made by the government during a Central Committee meeting of the Curaçao Parliament – where the Audit Chamber of Curaçao’s report on the 2023 national accounts was discussed – many have raised an important question: Can the government “send the Audit Chamber home”?

The short answer is clear: No. The government cannot dismiss the Audit Chamber. Below is a brief explanation of the constitutional principles behind this.

1. Institutional position of the Audit Chamber

The Audit Chamber is an independent High Council of State (or equivalent constitutional body) established by law or constitutional regulation tasked with overseeing and auditing the government itself. This means the Audit Chamber does not fall under the authority of the government – it exists specifically to monitor and hold the government accountable.

2. Why the government cannot do this

If the government had the power to dismiss or abolish the Audit Chamber its oversight function would disappear; whenever it became inconvenient it would undermine key constitutional principles such as separation of powers, checks and balances. For this reason, such powers are deliberately excluded by law.

3. What the government can do

The government does have several limited options: Respond substantively, challenge findings, provide alternative interpretations, engage in parliamentary debate, pursue legal avenues, file a complaint with the Accountants Chamber (only regarding professional conduct, not mere disagreement with conclusions), apply political pressure through Parliament, seek support for its position, initiate further debate. However, none of these options give the government control over the Audit Chamber.

4. What Parliament can do

Stronger measures can only be taken through Parliament – not the government directly: amend legislation, changing the Audit Chamber’s powers or structure requires a formal legislative process, often with strict procedures. Appointments: members are typically appointed with parliamentary involvement; once appointed, they enjoy strong legal protection against dismissal.

5. Dismissal of individual members (very limited)

Members of the Audit Chamber can only be dismissed under exceptional circumstances, such as serious misconduct, incapacity or through judicial or formal legal procedures. They cannot be removed simply because the government disagrees with their findings.

6. What this means for Curaçao

In the context of the 2023 audit report the government can criticise the report, escalate matters to the Accountants Chamber. But, it cannot abolish the Audit Chamber, force the withdrawal of a report, “send the Audit Chamber home”.

7. Summary

Can the government dismiss the Audit Chamber? No.

Can the government block a report? No.

Can the government object or respond? Yes.

Can Parliament change the rules? Yes (through legislation).

Conclusion

The independence of the Audit Chamber is specifically designed to prevent political interference. If a government could simply dismiss the institution responsible for overseeing public finances, effective financial accountability would cease to exist.

Drs. Luigi A. Faneyte MSc, CFE, CICA, CCS

Dear Editor,

In the paper of March 26th on the front page, I read the article PM submits advisory on governor's constitutional role, and my first reaction was "Even up there?" But later I said to myself what can one expect when the Constitution does not exact that leaders of government should have an education.

I have repeated several times that Civics of the country should be taught from the fifth grade in order that the youth of the land could grow up with a sense of belonging and would be well versed in the Constitution of the land and eventually become a well polished politician and or statement.

This would also avoid the embarrassment of who having to tell who to pull up whose sock. Now this. Over the years that I have written to you I have not written anything discriminatory against homosexuals, but if I understand the autonomy of man and woman I believe that promoting homosexuality is also promoting and contributing to the extinction of human beings. You cannot get turnip out of spinach.

I will be the last person to promote prostitution but if I have to choose out of two evils I will choose the lesser evil. I remember in a conversation with a group of people who literally were against homosexuality, the question of reproduction came up. The consensus was "not reproduction, you mean extinction".

"Because they take the Bible out the schools, they think they going bring in homosexuality. They lie! If two men or two women can't make children where will the homosexuals be coming from?

They going import them? Or maybe they going clone them? Or maybe they going pay normal couples to make children for them. Being on the job I know that jealousy among homosexual couples is much more prevalent and intense than among heterosexual couples. Animal yes, but peaceful I don't know.

Russell A SIMMONS

Dear Editor,

If given a choice between capitalism and communism, the answer is clear. Capitalism offers freedom – freedom to choose what to eat, where to live, what to wear, where to study, and how to earn a living. That freedom matters.

But supporting capitalism does not mean ignoring its excesses. There is a version of capitalism that goes too far. A version that no longer creates opportunity, but instead concentrates wealth, pushes people aside, and strips away dignity. That is what can only be described as unchecked or “wild” capitalism – and its effects are increasingly visible in Curaçao.

Our island carries a heavy historical burden. Centuries of slavery, colonialism, discrimination, and social inequality have left deep structural scars. These conditions create fertile ground for a system where economic power can easily become unbalanced, where those with resources gain more, and those without are left behind.

Today, many Curaçaoans feel that reality. Wages remain low, while the cost of living continues to rise sharply. Basic goods in supermarkets have become expensive to the point where many families struggle to keep up. At the same time, prime land and beaches are increasingly oriented toward tourism development, often leaving locals feeling like outsiders in their own country.

Tourism is important. Investment is necessary. But when economic growth primarily benefits a select few, while the majority faces growing financial pressure, something is out of balance. This imbalance is not just economic – it is social.

When people feel excluded from opportunity, when they see their cost of living rise while their income stagnates, frustration grows. When public resources and national assets appear to serve external interests more than local communities, trust erodes. And where oversight is weak, corruption finds space to grow.

Even well-intentioned citizens – those who volunteer, who contribute, who try to build something for their country – can find themselves exploited in such an environment.

The situation becomes even more concerning when external pressures are added. Global instability, such as ongoing conflict in the Middle East, continues to drive up energy and transport cost. For a small, import-dependent island like Curaçao, these shocks are not abstract – they translate directly into higher prices at the pump, at the supermarket, and on monthly utility bills. And it is the average citizen who feels it the most.

This is not a call to abandon capitalism. It is a call to correct it. Curaçao does not need less economic activity – it needs better balance. A system where growth is matched with protection. Where investment is accompanied by safeguards for local communities. Where wages reflect the real cost of living. Where essential goods remain accessible. Where development includes – not excludes – the people of this island.

Capitalism should create opportunity, not inequality. If left unchecked, however, it risks becoming exactly what many now fear: a system that benefits a few, while the majority pays the price.

Curaçao still has a choice. The question is whether it will act in time.

Edrin Raphaela

Dear Editor,

There are moments in human history when a region stops reacting to the world and begins defining it. The Caribbean may be approaching such a moment.

For centuries, these islands were laboratories of empire – sites of extraction, rivalry, forced migration, and contest. Our sea carried sugar, slaves, soldiers, and warships long before it carried cruise liners and container ships. The Caribbean did not choose its early history. It endured it.

But history does not end with endurance. It evolves. What if the Caribbean is not merely a geography – but an emerging anthropology? Call it Homo Caribbeanus.

Not a new species in the biological sense, but a new orientation of the human animal. A peaceful animal. An adaptive one. A being shaped not by domination of space, but by navigation through it.

The Caribbean condition is unique. Small territories. Vast waters. Multiple languages. Interwoven cultures. High exposure to climate volatility. Deep memory of colonization. Continuous migration. In such an environment, aggression is inefficient. Isolation is impossible. Arrogance is punished by hurricanes.

Survival here requires something different. It requires cooperation across differences. Negotiation is necessary before any escalation. It requires resilience without rigidity. In evolutionary terms, Homo Caribbeanus is not the conqueror. He is the navigator of the future.

While civilisations on continents constructed walls, those on islands developed boats. Where empires were centralised, were archipelagos networked. Where others accumulated territory, the Caribbean accumulated relationships. And in the 21st century, those traits begin to look less like adaptations to constraint and more like blueprints for the future.

The global human system is under stress. Climate volatility intensifies. Technology accelerates beyond ethical consensus. Geopolitical rivalry returns with sharper edges. The dominant model of the past – growth through competition, security through superiority, order through hierarchy – shows visible strain.

A different model for human evolution is needed. The Caribbean offers one. Not because it is powerful in the traditional sense. But because Homo Caribbeanus has had to learn to balance. Between cultures. Between economies. Between languages. Between land and sea. Between vulnerability and dignity.

The Zone of Peace doctrine is one expression of this orientation. The Sea of Tranquility idea is another. The proposal for a Republic of the Caribbean reflects structural maturation. But beneath policy lies something more profound: a shift in how the human animal defines strength.

For most of recorded history, strength meant expansion. Homo Caribbeanus suggests that strength may instead mean equilibrium. The peaceful animal is not passive. It is disciplined. It understands that escalation is easy; sustainability is difficult. It recognises that in a closed planetary system, domination destabilises the very environment it seeks to control.

Small island states understand planetary limits instinctively. There is no “away” to send waste. No inland to retreat to. No buffer between storm and society. The feedback loops are immediate. That immediacy fosters mindful awareness.

In evolutionary biology, species survive not because they are strongest, but because they are adaptable. The Caribbean has been adapting for five hundred years – politically, culturally, ecologically. It has absorbed trauma and produced creativity. It has faced storms and built music. It has endured fragmentation and generated a community. That is not accidental. That is evolutionary pressure producing social intelligence.

Homo Caribbeanus may represent an early prototype of what humanity must become: cooperative without uniformity, sovereign without aggression, resilient without militarisation, plural without fragmentation.

In this model, peace is not a slogan. It is infrastructure. Neutrality is not avoidance. It is calibration. Unity is not erasure. It is amplification.

The Caribbean Sea itself teaches this lesson daily. This is not stagnant water. It moves constantly. Currents cross. Ecosystems interlock. Yet balance is maintained through dynamic adjustment. Disturb the equilibrium too severely, and the system degrades.

Human civilisation is now operating at a planetary scale. It, too, requires dynamic equilibrium. The Caribbean, long underestimated, may be quietly modelling it.

The ascent of Homo Caribbeanus does not imply superiority. It implies maturation. It suggests that after centuries defined by extraction and rivalry, a region once exploited may offer the template for renewal. Peaceful does not mean weakness. It means evolved.

The Caribbean has known conflict. It has known colonisation. It has a known vulnerability. If from that experience Homo Caribbeanus chooses law over force, cooperation over confrontation, and neutrality over entanglement, it is not retreating from history.

It is advancing beyond it. The peaceful animal is not naive about danger. It simply understands that survival on a shared planet depends less on dominance and more on design.

The Sea of Tranquility was once a place where humanity stepped onto the Moon when it first left Earth. The Caribbean Sea is where Homo Caribbeanus will learn how humanity remains, survives, and thrives here on Earth in harmony with nature and all mankind. The ascent has already begun. Quietly. Like the tide.

PJ Fameli,

Beacon Hill