Dear Editor,

  Let me begin by stating that this open letter is not to throw dirt on the hard-working medical personnel on St. Maarten. They have shown to go above and beyond to save the lives of their patients daily and in times of crises they will go the extra mile.

  However, on occasions I have had negative experiences at the SMMC and so have many with me. From long waiting lines (even with appointments) without any information to being treated rudely, even yelled at, when asking a question; I’ve experienced and heard many examples.

  I’m sure there are also positive experiences and many would disagree with what I am sharing here. At the same time, I have heard enough negatives to feel the need to express this in the hope for positive change and continuous improvement to the health sector on St. Maarten.

  Generally, when one visits the hospital, they are in a vulnerable situation where they need support. This goes beyond the physical treatments that are expected. Care lies also in how a patient is treated from the moment of entry until discharge. My personal experience, however, is that such care is often lacking. And I know I am not the only one. I have heard people stating they would try to be as nice as possible to the nursing staff or support personnel, just to not agitate anybody in fear of having to wait even longer for the care they need.

  It is astonishing to me that patients in their vulnerable situation feel the need to please hospital personnel because they will otherwise be approached rudely or are scared that they will be denied timely care because of retaliation. Moreover, patients tend to accept being treated rudely out of this fear. I don’t think that is beneficial to the care product that a medical centre should want to deliver. Some people don’t even want to risk getting into this rude behaviour and choose to go to another medical facility instead. Moreover, the way people are treated does not really inspire trust that the physical treatments will be up to standard.

  Take the child delivery and maternity ward as an example; my experience on St. Maarten is that pregnant women and mothers with new-born babies are treated with utmost care and consideration in society. People are friendly and total strangers will help wherever they can. I truly love this welcoming culture towards babies and small children on St. Maarten! All the more striking then, is to hear multiple examples where, during childbirth, these mothers are not taken seriously. I have heard multiple times where a mother felt she was ready to give birth, was told this could not be the case and was left behind – in the end sometimes having to deliver outside of the delivery room and sometimes with the assistance of the father instead of the right medical personnel.

  The concept of listening to the patient and taking seriously what they say is less important than following protocol? And at what risk?

  During my own pregnancy, I’ve experienced a few rude behaviours from supporting personnel as well. One day, early in the morning, I needed to pick up a letter and without having said “good morning” received a door in my face with the statement, “We’re not open yet.” Basic decency seems to be lacking. On another occasion, when inquiring about fees, I received rolling eyes, yelling and my reasons were being questioned. It begs the question whether you are seen as a patient or a nuisance to persons that don’t seem interested in truly doing their job.

  For me this was one of the main reasons to not have my baby here on St. Maarten, because I don’t want to be in an intimidating environment when I need care and attention instead. While this choice comes at a high cost, it shows to what length people can go to avoid being treated at the medical centre. I often hear friends talk about not going to the SMMC despite the fact that they need medical care because they feel unsafe or that they choose to go to the French side instead.

  While I can mention many more examples of bad experiences that I have heard over the years, or experienced myself, it is not the purpose of this letter. The purpose is to stress that as much as the building of a new general hospital is welcome, the investment will be worthless if SMMC does not also invest in its people. The ill-treatment of patients by some is, in my opinion, indicative of a bad work environment that has to be addressed to improve the care experience of SMMC’s patients.

  I refuse to believe that people decide to work in the medical field to treat patients rudely and I would call SMMC therefore to look at what can be done to improve the service delivery through investing in the people that are to deliver those services. To put it softly: bad interaction skills don’t leave room for a safe environment and people will question other abilities as well. It’s hard to trust medical personnel in a vulnerable position if they are not even able to do small things right. Because a situation where patients in vulnerable situations feel the need to “kill hospital staff with kindness” is the world upside down.

Name withheld

Excellencies,

  With reference to the upcoming 44^th Regular Meeting on the agenda point “Dutch Apology” we would like your Honorable Barnett cooperation for the possibility to submit this urgent important letter/communication with the CARICOM Heads of States at your earliest convenience.

  In this respect, we would like to add the following arguments for further considerations and discussions and actions based on the CARICOM Integration and Reparations vision and trajectory based on the recent New Year’s statement of the incoming chairman of CARICOM, Hon. Philip Davis: “We all share common histories – trials, traumas, and triumphs. As regional neighbors, we have, through the years, encountered many of the same hurdles, beat down the same walls, and conquered the same challenges. And indeed, we owe it to ourselves and each other to recognize that we are and always have been in this together.”

  The recent December 19, 2022, “Dutch Apology” is a voluntary confession and admission of the Dutch government’s crimes against humanity, our enslaved and colonized ancestors, and is an international legal and diplomatic mechanism for correction and reparation of the past crimes and the continuous Dutch colonization of Bonaire and Caribbean peoples in this present time.

  1 - Bonerian ancestors as well as all other Caribbean islands were forced/made slaves by these colonizers. As with the sweat, blood and tears of our ancestors on Bonaire, whole enslaved families, men, women, children, and also convicted enslaved ancestors from other sister islands were sentenced to labor on the saltpans as punishment and were worked to death in these pans of Bonaire. With a very short life span, they cultivated, harvested and shipped thousands and thousands of tons of this “white gold” to Holland to grow their main economic fishing pillar, building their economy and enriching themselves to one of world richest nations. All by our ancestors’ free labor and short-lived lives in these horror salt-plantations

  2 - After the Dutch abolition law of 1863, our ancestors could not work for free for them anymore, the Dutch government spitefully decided to divide our island in five big parts sold our ancestors’ lands to Europeans in an auction in 1868 and abandoned our ancestors to fend for themselves.

  3 - Our peoples, on all levels, were systematically and premeditated denied of all historical information on our slavery past and history as it was never mentioned nor was put in our school curriculum that is up today controlled and imposed by the Dutch Education Ministry.

  Upon the dissolution of the Netherlands Antilles in 2010 Bonaire was illegally annexed by the Dutch which resulted et al in the following:

  - Opened borders for European Dutch exodus that doubled the Bonaire population in a decade, reducing the native Bonerians to less than 40%, minority on their own island.

  - Reversing education policies and laws, denying our children human rights to education in our own native language, Papiamento, that is one of only two Caribbean native official languages that survived colonization.

  - Replacing, changing our demography, lifting all small-market protections to open market, open pricing, wiping out all our local businesses replacing them with Dutch Europeans and others.

  - Demoting and replacing all our local heads of departments with Dutch immigrants taking over all local institutions and leadership positions.

  - Raising and imposing taxes to the level of Holland in Europe while our income is less than half of the income in Holland, Europe – land and property taxes increased by over 800%, destitute locals from their inherited lands and food resources.

  - Creating and maintaining social inequality, pushing over 60% of the Bonerian population under the poverty line.

  - After the 2010 illegal annexation of Bonaire, Holland forcefully expanded their Exclusive Economic Zone with an extra 200 nautical sea miles Exclusive Economic Zone of the Southern Caribbean Sea Basin, an expansion of seven times more EEZ than what they possessed before 2010 in the North Sea in Europe, in which they have absolute power by complete colonial rule from The Hague, Netherlands.

  - The threat to the Caribbean as a peaceful region is real; recalling the 2018 and 2019 Dutch war-provocation re the Venezuela-embargo/sanctions as previous letters to CARICOM; with Bonaire 50 miles off the coast of Venezuela and possessing a deep-water harbor and the Dutch continuous efforts in expanding the international airport beyond commercial requirements to military standards and continuous efforts in buying properties around the airport .

  - By instruction of Dutch government a group of the most decorated Dutch constitutional and legal experts researched and reported in June 2022 (see attached fact-check report), that the UN never confirmed decolonization of the Netherlands Antilles and the Dutch gave their own interpretation to article 73, a distorted process, as we never reached the UN-mandated full measure of self-governance or mandated equality and freedom.

  We the People of Bonaire are willing to accept the Dutch government apology with the demand for reparations in the form of the people’s right to self-determination based on the following terms:

  1: To re-enact our Bonaire people’s right to a just self-determination and decolonization process and trajectory by restoring our inalienable fundamental human rights by legal/political positioning, re-listing of Bonaire as United Nations non-self-governing-territory according to articles 1, 55, 73 and 103 of the Charter of the United Nations and resolutions 742, 747, 945, 1514 and 1541 that affirm the inalienable rights of the people of Bonaire to self-determination and in compliance with the Bonaire people’s international legal instruments: United Nations Charter, United Nations Decolonization Declaration, The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, International Covenant on All Forms of Racial Discrimination, United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

  2: To start an international and CARICOM/UN guided process towards re-acquiring of the rights of the Bonaire people to their inherited auctioned lands.

  3: Immediate stop of the current/ongoing de-population and eradication of Bonaire people’s demography and their culture, language and identity.

  We are calling on the CARICOM for solidarity and support for reparations for the Bonerian people.

Yours sincerely,

James Finies, President Nos Kier Boneiru Bek

Davika Bissessar, President Bonaire Human Rights

Dear Editor,

  As frequent visitors to St. Maarten we are appalled by the animals in captivity at the Morgan Bay Resort.

  Animals are in the heat in small cages, an employee was observed hitting an animal on the head, no water was provided one day and a turtle died, parrots have had their wings clipped.

  This is 2023 and this should not be allowed.

  It is truly disturbing and tourists are reporting online about this behaviour.

  These animals need to be released and this zoo shut down.

  Initially they had loud music blaring constantly near the animal cages.

  This is inhumane.

  Thank you for reading this and please shut this down.

  I will never stay at this resort on St. Maarten.

Diane White

Dear Editor,

  What is a smart way for Sint Maarten to manage its relations with the Dutch Kingdom in such a manner that it best serves the next generations and leads to optimal living standard and minimized vulnerability in the future?

  Your answer will be influenced by your view of the vulnerability of St. Maarten. If you consider that our country suffers from doubtful administration and is at risk by having only a one-pillar economy you may consider us to be vulnerable.

  If on the other hand you believe that the present challenges are all caused by the Dutch association and that a break of this association would lead to a sudden spiritual regeneration of the populace which would soon after lead to an increase in efficiency, education, productivity and new economic opportunities you are likely to see it differently.

  If your ancestors were enslaved you may find that the association with the country responsible for that action is so odious that you wish to sever ties as soon as possible regardless of the consequences.

  On the other hand, even if your ancestors were enslaved you may consider that the same country has condemned slavery and that the present population of the country cannot be held responsible for what happened numerous generations back. You may also consider that much is being done in the “mother” country to combat many other forms of slavery and repression.

  You may be looking more to the future than to the past and you may have recognized that all nations, particularly very small ones, need to maintain associations that will in various forms make their governance more viable and financially manageable and that limited research has been presented in this respect to date.

  If you are a financial investor you are likely to lean towards maintaining the status quo as much as possible because changes in governance lead to economic insecurity, something not unique to St. Maarten.

  On the other hand, if you are a young St. Maartener who has been exposed to the consequences of poor governance and administration and you have witnessed more effective scenarios, you may wish to change the present situation at all costs on the basis that anything should be better than the present.

  No matter which view you hold, you may well be interested in understanding the costs of change of association and restructuring and noting the disruption and deficits that occurred in the first decade of country St. Maarten and the debt trap that so many similar jurisdictions suffer from.

  The St. Maarten population are approaching this important subject from a large variety of angles. The political leaders seem to have mixed and sometimes contradictory positions. Many positions on the subject of kingdom relations appear to be based on convenient politics.

   Future decision-making on the subject would be far superior if the public were to have a greater understanding of all the opportunities and risks and a greater awareness of alternatives. This would be aided by political parties holding more consistent positions that were substantiated by in-depth research into future scenarios. The making of these future scenarios is a difficult subject indeed.

Robbie Ferron