Dear Editor,

Following weeks of media spectacle regarding his improperly issued developmental permits, MP Egbert J. Doran broke his silence during Wednesday's VROMI Parliament session in a desperate attempt to regain control over a public narrative quickly spiraling out of his favor.

While facing public scrutiny for multiple high-profile projects he controversially approved during his tenure as Minister of VROMI, Doran aggressively questioned current Minister Patrice T. Gumbs on his handling of Doran’s messy leftovers, conveniently skipping over inconvenient truths, and shifting the blame back onto his unlucky successor. The result was a session that portrayed a world where it was solely newcomer Gumbs’ fault that St. Maarten still finds itself with strained infrastructure, environmental devastation, and community frustration in 2025.

So far, Doran’s attempt appears to be a gross failure, with many residents rejecting what they view as obvious public manipulation by a politician who has been widely criticized as one of the least transparent and most damaging leaders of the long-mismanaged Ministry.

Many observers were shocked to see Doran in a session about “permit transparency,” especially given that his party faction called it into session. The MP’s actions as VROMI Minister before he left office in mid-2024 have been the focus of investigations by the Ombudsman, reports by the General Audit Chamber, and dozens of newspaper articles, opinion pieces, and social media spectacle.

At the moment, Doran is under fire for issuing building permits to pending developments West Vue in Cupecoy (18-story hotel in an area zoned for 3-story high residences), Vie L’Ven in Cay Bay (destruction of coastline, marine infrastructure along a coral reef), and Villa Sasha and the Phoenician in Beacon Hill (both multi-story buildings in an area designated for single-family homes), not to mention Babacool in Simpson Bay (a pool and beach bar built on the shoreline without community consultation), Tepui 104 in Pelican Key (constructed atop an ecologically unique hill plateau), and The Hills in Simpson Bay (another ecologically valuable area).

Countless other developments that have not yet broken ground were also approved during the Doran administration, including Lagune Bay in Little Bay (destruction of wetland Little Bay Pond).

Several of these were absent from the National Gazette or published under misclassifications or incorrect pretenses, depriving residents of their rights to object. The advisory organization Nature Foundation has publicly stated they were not consulted on the environmentally sensitive sites. And almost every single one is a self-described luxury development, catering to wealthy expats and vacationers, while St. Maarten’s infrastructure and affordability continue to crumble under the burden and inaccessibility of these developments.

These decisions were not made for “the local man or woman” in any sense, contrary to Doran’s claims.

Though newcomer Minister Gumbs appears to have made some mistakes of his own and some learning to do, Doran seems to clearly forget the butter smeared on his own head. No one likes a hypocrite. So who would have expected Doran to show up and lecture Gumbs on his lack of transparency when it comes to developmental permits? How could anyone have thought Doran would have the audacity to imply Gumbs was corrupt, and impressionable for providing the public with apologies, clarifications, and solutions while he attempts to transparently clean up the disaster that everyone knows is the Ministry of VROMI? The opportunity for Gumbs and the coalition government to humiliate and dissect Doran seemed too risky.

But Doran took the gamble and seized the chance to scrutinize Gumbs for mistakes and irregularities that he himself created or carried responsibility for during his years as Minister. Perhaps predicting Gumbs’ tendency to list (unfortunately dull) facts and figures in response, Doran armed himself with the only thing he could against the harsh reality: false rhetoric, finger-pointing, theatrical acting, and fact-skipping. He skirted around his culpability in gutting VROMI, dismissing insufficient government capacity as a reason for Gumbs’ permitting oversights despite the fact that Doran had not replaced the technical administration responsible for publishing permits during his tenure, and former deputy Minister Veronica Jansen-Webster observed a “lack of a secretary general and multiple department heads, a virtually empty staff bureau with employee satisfaction being at an all-time low” after Doran’s four years (The Daily Herald, 23 May 2024).

The most laughable moment may have been when Doran proudly asserted that he had never overturned any advice of his policy team to issue a building permit, while in the same few minutes holding a copy of the Herald from that very morning, which asserted he had ignored negative advice against issuing a residential permit for West Vue. Doran confidently revealed he functions on legal technicalities, not any sort of ethics or guidelines.

In yet another moment he outed himself as embarrassingly unaware of public accountability tools when he essentially accused Gumbs of feeding the Herald details about the West Vue, when in reality they were accessed through a court case and could have been achieved through filing a “LOB verzoek,” a transparency tool for residents to access government documents about developments … something Doran appears to know nothing about.

In many ways, Doran’s remarkable performance at Parliament was not surprising, considering his use of it in the past. “Ignore, deny, blame” was a tactic he utilized when it came to publicity surrounding Villa Sasha, first ignoring the claims, then denying his wrongdoing, and finally blaming the involved parties of making up problems (The Daily Herald, 22 January 2025). This contrasted starkly with Gumbs’ approach, which, while painfully dry and hapless, is at least consistently honest and open.

To be sure, mistakes have been made under Gumb’s tenure, and he will likely disappoint again in the future. If St. Maarten politics has promised us anything, it is that. But for now, he has something that Doran proved he lacks during this Parliament meeting: integrity and accountability. Gumbs apologized and took responsibility for the mistakes he has made, while respectfully contextualizing the difficult circumstances his predecessors have put him in. While the opposition clearly saw this as weak, it was honest. Meanwhile, all Doran could do was attack Gumbs with the very same questions the public had for him during his years as minister, which he never bothered to answer.

Based on the overwhelming rejection of his political play on social media, it is clear St. Maarteners were not fooled by MP Doran’s obvious “politricks” any longer. As the Bob Marley quote goes, “You can fool some people sometimes, but you can’t fool all the people all the time.” St. Maarteners are seeing through these childish theatrics, and we will not allow them to stand in the way of our rights any longer.

Another resident paying attention

Name withheld at author’s request.

Dear Editor,

As a former teacher I always speak up about both global and local issues with differing responses. In some cases, people will support my messages, in others, people are indifferent. Such indifference oftentimes comes from a position of privilege – “I am not affected by the injustice, so why should I put effort into changing it?” And the status quo remains.

I would want to raise an issue that should, however, concern all of us. And luckily, many are already raising the issue. Our children have been and continue to be subjected to daily discrimination and racism. Not necessarily by people but by institutions. The focus of this letter is to shed more light on hair discrimination rules in schools on St. Maarten.

A few days ago, a friend of mine shared her experience when she took her son to the barber; her son was clearly upset and was crying when he had his beautiful curls cut off. It is a reoccurring event that many parents and their young children have to go through every few weeks. Yet, the school rules are clear. Boys need to adhere to the pre-set school rules that as a boy, your hair cannot exceed the length of 2 inch.

One could argue that this is just a kid that cries and there are many things kids cry for like cleaning their room or doing their homework. However, I believe the hair policies touch on something much more fundamental. They touch on children’s sense of self. They tell our children they are not good enough as they are or how they identify themselves by imposing a breach on their physical integrity. Thus, criminalizing young children’s hair. It is very different from cleaning your room, which focusses on hygiene and creating order or doing your homework that ensures that skills such as reading and writing stick.

Schoolboards – and from personal experience I know the Catholic school board in particular – pride themselves that these rules (hair discrimination) are for discipline and to not create distraction within the classroom. These arguments hold no value because these claims are not backed up with evidence-based research. Something that should be important for a schoolboard if you profile yourself as a knowledge institute. In fact, scientific research into hair policies has shown that such policies are often more damaging than doing any good to the student population subjected to them. Eventually it leads to low self-esteem which then negatively impacts the child’s learning abilities.

The origin of these hair rules come directly from our colonial past where enslaved people from African descent “had to be tamed” by their white owners. Forcing hair into submission was a symbolic reinforcement of the master-slave relationship, where total submission was expected. To this day, hair policies also affect boys and girls from African descent more than their Caucasian or (South) Asian classmates and neatness is racialized in the execution of the hair policies.

Discussing about what is perceived as ‘neat’ can be argued in great lengths because there is no objective definition of what can be viewed as neat; it’s like beauty: it all depends on the eye of the beholder. Yet, schoolboards seem to be steadfast in their stubbornness and teachers have to send humiliating letters to parents and argue with young schoolchildren that their hair cannot be too long. Not a teacher’s task, I would say.

What will it take for these schoolboards to enter the 21^st century?

While many surrounding islands and countries in the Caribbean have come to the realization that this mental slavery needs to be dealt with, St. Maarten is somehow lagging behind. We need to fight for change harder and need to be willing to enter into uncomfortable confrontations. Something that seems foreign to a small “friendly” island like St. Maarten. I would like to appeal to the morality of the people of St. Maarten; if we are not willing to show social discontent, nothing will change. We have to make it everyone’s business to speak up against injustice.

Maybe the unjust, racist history behind the hair policies is not reason enough for you to stand against the continued injustice. Then, let’s see what hair policies do to our children. As I said earlier, our children are being told that they are not good enough and that their personal sense of identity is not important. The fact that hair policies are almost always racialized also results in separation within the classroom. It is in school where the foundations of our children’s future life are laid. Do we want these foundations to be racist and discriminatory? Or do we want to develop strong individuals, who care for each other as persons, rather than focus on assimilating to fit in the box? Should we not create safe spaces where (cultural) diversity can be celebrated and where there is also a foundation to feel united in a collective?

Moreover, hair policies do not stop at the school gate. Unlike a uniform, you cannot simply grow your hair for the rest of the day, and have it short the next morning for school. The rules are therefore also a violation of the bodily integrity of our young! How did we allow this to happen? Have we become so disconnected from the way things work on the island that we stop resisting even the straightest form of racism? Even if it’s for our own kids? And no, “black faces in high places are not going to save us.” Meaning that sometimes racist rules might be reinforced by the same people that should know better.

Schoolboards unfortunately do not listen to any of these arguments. DEI recently became a dirty term in the USA – for these schoolboards it was seemingly already the case. Complaints have fallen on deaf ears, for decades now. One school even lost a court case in 2016 for expelling a child for wearing his hair in locks. The ruling unfortunately also showed the limitations of the local legislation as it did not, in principle, condemn the hair policy practices by the Catholic school board. Special Education (such as the religious schools) have the freedom to organize their own school policies according to their wishes. But to what extent? And is it worth degrading young children for? Instead of deconstructing these discriminatory hair rules, parents are forced to sign a document during enrolment of their child that they agree with school rules, reminding them once more not to dare speak up about these controversial hair rules. Who is the master and who is the slave?

It is time for change and the schools should learn rules are not written in stone. Rules change all the time! Luckily, the issue is brought forward more and more, and not by just a small group of people. Recently, a brave mother started a petition to ban discriminatory hair rules in all St. Maarten schools. The petition received more than 1,000 signatures. Parents joined forces and organized themselves with an eponymous Facebook page called “Abolish Hairstyle Rules in Sint Maarten’s Schools”.

The youth is mobilizing as well and last year, Teen Times shared a draft legislation to MP Roseburg. Parliament discussed the issue and unanimously supported the cause. Also last year, a hair festival was organized to celebrate diversity in hair culture and to address the discriminatory hair practices in schools and the workplace called “Hair Stories” at University of St. Maarten. Minister of Education Melissa Gumbs has also committed to address the issue and to work on changes in the law and policies.

Seeing all these initiatives, why are schoolboards not developing along? Do we really need to take them to court to get justice? Is this something we want? Ideally not, as you would want change to come from an intrinsic motivation. Though many people want to stop these hair restrictions, we need more people to join forces and speak publicly about how this idea of taming children’s hair should be reduced to a harmful practice from the past. Make it your business to speak up about injustice!

Humera Alam

In February this year, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi quoted an ancient Chinese poem at the 61^st Munich Security Conference when talking about China-U.S. relations, “Powerful as they may be, we remain unshaken like a mountain touched by a gentle breeze. Ferocious as they may be, we stay calm like a river beneath a bright moon,” generating a lot of interpretations of China’s policy towards the U.S. In fact, a more comprehensive and objective apprehension of China’s foreign policy in recent years will help us to find that the poem not only explains China-U.S. relations, but also reflects the four distinctive characteristics of China’s diplomacy in the new era.

First, adhering to peaceful development. The thought of peaceful development is an innate gene in the Chinese culture while honoring promises and living in harmony with all others far and near are fundamental connotations of Chinese diplomacy towards neighboring countries. The Chinese people, having suffered so much from foreign aggression and internal turmoil in modern times, cherish peace. We will never waver in our determination to uphold peace, and we will never want to see others suffer what happened to us.

The boom and prosperity of China is an irresistible trend, but the idea that the strong will bully is not in accordance with the law of history. Since the ancient times China has long been advocating the thoughts like “the strong should not tyrannize the weak while the rich should not bully the poor” and known well the ideas such as “however powerful a country is, it is sure to fall for being too bellicose”. China's adherence to the path of peaceful development is not an expediency, nor diplomatic rhetoric, but a strategic choice and solemn promise.

Adhering to the path of peaceful development cannot be fulfilled at the sacrifice of national interests. China is firmly committed to peaceful development and hopes that all countries in the world will do likewise. Only when all countries take peaceful development paths can we develop and live peacefully together.

Chinese people have a mind that is broader than the ocean and sky, but we can’t tolerate any sand in our eyes. All countries must shoulder their common responsibility for peace, and the Chinese people want, more than anything else, to live in peace and harmony with the people of other countries, and work with them to promote, defend and share peace together.

Second, adhering to openness and inclusiveness. We believe that, without peace, China and the world as a whole cannot achieve smooth development whereas failure in development cannot sustain peace in China and in the world. China’s adherence to peaceful development will naturally lead to open and inclusive diplomacy.

Chinese people have kept a broad mind throughout the history and have been maintaining friendly communications with various nations on the basis of mutual respect. China advocates equality among all countries regardless of size, and calls for mutual tolerance of different social systems and development paths.

We have always believed that what kind of path a country takes should only be decided by its own people in accordance with its own history, cultural traditions, and level of economic and social development. There is no such thing as one single path or model that is universally applicable.

The relations between China and the world are in the midst of profound and complex changes. We believe that every country should have their voice heard. Every country should be able to find their place and play their role in a multipolar paradigm.

China is willing to strengthen dialogue and communication with the outside world with an open and inclusive attitude, to enhance the international community’s understanding and recognition of China’s history, culture, development path and governance philosophy, and to carry out more exchanges among civilizations to understand the world.

Third, adhering to mutual benefit. Development holds the key to addressing various problems. The multipolar world should be one where all countries develop together. Protectionism offers no way out, and arbitrary tariffs produce no winners.

Decoupling deprives one of opportunities, and a “small yard with high fences” only ends up constraining oneself. It is important to pursue open cooperation, and support an equal and orderly multipolar world with a universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalization.

It is for this goal that China stays committed to sharing development opportunities with all countries. With a 5% GDP growth last year, China contributed to nearly 30% of the world economic growth. It has served as an important engine for global economic growth, and shared with the world the benefit of its supersized market. China is willing to synergize high-quality Belt and Road cooperation with all sides, and jointly build a community with a shared future for mankind so as to empower each other and empower the entire world.

China attaches great importance to carrying out friendly communication and cooperation with Latin America and Caribbean countries, putting forward the goal of establishing the comprehensive cooperative partnership featuring equality, mutual benefit, and common development. Take Venezuela as an example, since establishing diplomatic ties, China and Venezuela are united by a common desire to promote peace, cooperation and development, engaging actively in multi-level exchanges in politics, economy, trade and culture. Both countries have consistently stood by each other in independently exploring development paths suited to their national conditions, have supported one another on issues concerning each other’s core interests, and have become trusted friends and committed partners in the face of adversity.

Fourth, adhering to fairness and justice. As Chinese president Xi Jinping pointed out, development is the right of all, rather than an exclusive privilege of the few. Prosperity and stability cannot be possible in a world where the rich become richer while the poor are made poorer. In the face of emerging global challenges, no country can stay unaffected.

All countries want to prevent the world from returning to the law of the jungle. To this end, China insists on sovereign equality. Those with stronger arms and bigger fists should not be allowed to call the shots.

International affairs must not be monopolized by a small number of countries. The legitimate rights and interests of all countries should be fully protected.

Multilateralism must be observed. Countries should stay committed to the principles of extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefit.

The authority of the international rule of law must be strengthened. Double standard and selective application should be opposed. Still less should any country resort to bullying, monopoly, trickery or extortion.

It is from this understanding that China firmly upholds the authority and stature of the U.N., contributes to more than 20 percent of the U.N. regular budget, and actively fulfills its international responsibilities and obligations. China is a member of almost all universal intergovernmental organizations and a party to over 600 international conventions. We have acted earnestly on the Paris Agreement on climate change, and built the world’s largest clean power generation system.

We have also proposed and delivered on the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative and the Global Civilization Initiative, providing public goods for improving global governance as well as the greatest certainty in this uncertain world.

Li Yigang, Consul General of the People’s Republic of China in Willemstad

By Jeff Sybesma

Recently, the media reported that Cpost incorrectly delivered ballot cards, with the worst incident being in a neighbourhood where the cards were even found on the street. In an attempt to limit the damage, Cpost responded with a press release. In this release, the company announced an internal investigation to determine whether there had been any failure to follow procedures.

Cpost then stated that its responsibility is to deliver the ballot cards to the address listed on the card. As a possible explanation for the mishandling, the postal company pointed to a lack of mailboxes: not every house may have a mailbox.

Cpost refers to the Postlandsverordening 1998 (Postal Ordinance 1998), which stipulates that every home must have a mailbox and that it is the resident’s responsibility to ensure it is easily accessible. Additionally, the house number must be clearly visible.

This argument by Cpost is noteworthy. In rhetorical terms, this way of reasoning would be categorized as an argumentum ad hominem. Instead of addressing the core issue – was the mail delivered correctly or not? – Cpost shifts the focus to the recipients by questioning their credibility and responsibility. In other words, rather than acknowledging its own mistakes, Cpost points to the lack of mailboxes and unclear addresses as the cause of the problem.

This raises a larger question: why are ballot cards delivered to homes, while other official mail, such as tax forms, bills and letters from the Netherlands, are deposited in a Community Box (Cbox) in many neighbourhoods? This raises doubts. If the Cbox is sufficient for other important mail, why not for ballot cards? If my mail is delivered to a Cbox, why would I still need a mailbox?

Cpost might defend itself by referring to a ministerial decision from 2016 that allows the use of Cboxes. However, this argument does not hold up. The Ombudsman concluded in 2016 that the Cboxes violate the Postlandsverordening 1998, which provides no legal basis for delivering mail other than in a regular mailbox.

The Ministerial Regulation of September 20, 2016 (PB 2016, No. 63), which permits the use of Cboxes, contradicts the law. Therefore, all mail must still be delivered to the mailbox at home. And Cpost is not doing that.

It is high time for the Ombudsman to revisit this issue. The Regulatory Authority Curaçao (RAC), which oversees Cpost, should also take a more active role in this matter.

~ Jeff Sybesma is a retired lawyer and biologist. He is a member of the Advisory Council, a judge at the Joint Court of Justice, and a board member of Carmabi. This opinion is written entirely in his personal capacity. ~