Dear Editor,

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I got me some popcorn and a case of TING, ready to watch the last year and a couple of months of this St. Maarten Parliament:

A) Will Omar scoop-up Toontje’s Marijuana plan(ts) and run with it (them)?

B) Will Rolando thief Theo’s party? (I know that old habits die hard).

C) In St. Maarten’s version of Game of Thrones, also known as “Who controlling Who”, will Oneil outsmart the Casino Boss?

D) Will Jurendy really live up to his pledge to be on better behavior now that William is back, and Elections are coming?

E) Will Sarah continue to be the ‘stateswoman’ and remain “the calming voice in the wilderness”?

F) Will Melissa and Raeyhon keep on trucking calling out the lazy bums amongst their peers?

G) What will be the “Ludmillas” next moves?

H) Will it be reruns of “How Christophe beats up on his former NA colleagues after using THEIR White Line bus driven by Silveria to take him to the big salary Parliament Promised Land? Then turn-round and spit in she face???!!!!”

I) Cliffhanger: will Cookie find his lost bearings and scruples?

J) How does Chanel prevent Toontje from getting back his seat?

K) What will Akeem’s reward be?  A few of Oneil’s gold pieces?

L) Who will throw Grisha a lifeline?

M) How hard is Leona Romeo laughing right about now?!?

SXM Parliament has it all. Comedy, drama, suspense, mystery, thrillers and chillers. Grab a seat, settle in and enjoy the show!

Michael J. Ferrier

Dear Chairman and members of the Committee on Kingdom Relations (TK and EK),
To get straight to the point, I present to you the following case study. Suppose, per the next opportunity (let’s say: next month or from January 2023, or something like that) we do it as follows. The inhabitants of the province of Drenthe are no longer entitled to unemployment benefits where they were until now, and the inhabitants of the province of Limburg who are on welfare will receive only half of their benefits. It is, of course, only a thought experiment, but still. You would probably think of me that I have gone beyond reality and am just babbling nonsense.
Nevertheless, this course of action is similar to what our government is doing with the Dutch Caribbean. For your understanding I will dwell on the concepts of CAS and BES. CAS stands for the countries of Curaçao, Aruba and St. Maarten.
These countries have a far-reaching duty of care for their own residents. Only Defense, Foreign Affairs and the issuance of Dutch passports are areas where these CAS countries are not responsible but where the (European) Dutch government has primacy. But for the policy fields of Education and Social Affairs, for example, the governments of these countries have their own responsibility. If more money is spent than is brought in, then it is primarily their own (national) responsibility to cut their coat according to their cloth. The European Netherlands, or rather: the Kingdom of the Netherlands (with a Kingdom government) sees to it that this “playing with own responsibility” does not get out of hand. A “game” in which boundaries are sometimes touched or even crossed.
It is different with the BES islands (Bonaire, St. Eustatius and Saba). These islands have the status of a “public body”, just as the Noordoostpolder and Rijnmond were “organized” at the time. The public body is a construct that is defined in the Constitution and, based on national (Dutch) legislation, additional rules can be set for public bodies. There is a slight problem here, because when do circumstances on the islands, which are sometimes essentially different from those in the European Netherlands, give rise to their own laws and regulations?
It is my firm belief that great restraint should be exercised in determining that certain circumstances are “different”. I am also convinced that the Dutch government currently easily embraces the “other” circumstances in order to introduce its own independent (but especially lower quality) legislation for the BES islands. However, and this is not at all the case in the European Netherlands, the Bonairean, the Statian and the Saban are just as much Dutch as the inhabitant of Drenthe or Limburg.
And so my case from the first paragraph is not so much out of the blue after all: the social safety net on the last three islands mentioned (so for the record: not the CAS countries, but the BES islands) is of a different (lesser) order than in the European Netherlands.
I have touched on this point more often in my letters, but when I walk around in the European Netherlands and read the newspaper, all kinds of things come to mind, but the fact that there are also Caribbean Dutchmen who are just as much Dutchmen as the European Dutchmen seems to be completely unknown here. I think that almost no inhabitant of the European Netherlands (and with that I am also referring to you, our parliamentarians, so also those of the Caribbean Dutch) is aware of the fact that our government does little else than institutionally discriminate against the Bonairean, Statian and Saban.
And so the poverty on these three islands is easily “reasoned away” by the European Netherlands (sometimes referring to an almost criminal discussion around a fictitious subsistence minimum that is supposed to be a benchmark for the distant future). And so, you can wipe your own European Dutch street clean with a completely misplaced sense of justice.
I would like to make one remark in this regard and that concerns the legislation. I do not exclude – but simply do not know exactly – that precisely the legislation that gives content to the functioning of the three public entities Bonaire, St. Eustatius and Saba (such as WOLBES and FINBES) “stands in the way” of the full equality of these “municipalities” with municipalities in the European Netherlands. But if that is so, it is a matter of eliminating precisely those obstacles. Moreover, when this is the case, the government should be clear and transparent about this and not send a new set of officials and/or researchers to the islands to “further study” an already known “problem”.
I would like to mention some more substantive points in this letter, but on second thought I will save them for a later letter. The realization that the Caribbean Dutchman and the European Dutchman together populate the (Caribbean and European) Netherlands and would actually like to derive the same rights from this status, seems to me too important a notion not to dwell on.
Hence this letter. An important notion that could, or even should, lead to consequences within each of the policy areas.
I wish you much wisdom to allow this notion to have an effect on you in your ongoing political actions.

Kind regards,
J.H.T. (Jan) Meijer

Dear Editor,
Pro Soualiga would like to extend congratulations to the Parliament of St. Maarten on the commencement of its new parliamentary year. This new parliamentary year will be very important in that we are now at a crossroads with the Dutch State regarding our peremptory right to self-determination from which there is no deviation.
We would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to the Chair and Vice Chair of the Permanent Committee for Constitutional Affairs and Decolonization, MP Ludmila Duncan and MP Grisha Heyliger, for their tremendous work during the last parliamentary year to further the realization of our decolonization process. Additionally, we extend gratitude to the entire Permanent Committee for Constitutional Affairs and Decolonization for taking the time to listen to our various presentations brought before Parliament in June and August of this year.
In closing, Pro Soualiga wishes the Parliament of St. Maarten a successful new parliamentary year and we look forward to working with the entire parliamentary body in order to realize our jus cogens right to self-determination.

Pro Soualiga Foundation

Dear Editor,
Which Minister of Government does not need the cooperation of the Minister of Justice? I am asking this because it is a while now that I am constantly hearing that the police are not working. People might say that because I was one, I am coming out in their defense. No such a thing. There is a lot more that they can do, but whose fault is it?
I blame the police brass for just sitting back and folding their arms waiting for things to happen. I also blame the Prosecutor’s Office for not getting together with the police brass and asking them what is wrong? Why are there no parking tickets, etc.?
The police cannot work if every Minister of Government, instead of governing according to the law, is governing according to their policy.
As a young boy I did not quite understand what my father meant when he would let my mother know that he did not always agree with her policies of correcting the children but because he was not at home all the time and things were not so bad, she could go ahead.
As I grew older my father, who at one time or the other would always explain to us the use of certain words, among the other things that he explained was the use of the word “policy”. He said policy can lead to corruption because policy is too often adopted by politicians based on one’s selfish desires and not necessarily in the interest of the public.
Two questions. 1) Why are residents of St. Maarten being harassed by their own immigration on their return to St. Maarten? And why are the Governor and the prime Minister accepting this policy? There is a word in workforce called “Arbeid contractant” and for the longest of while now that six-months contract has been used to the detriment of thousands of people. Never anything personal, but government has to stop this malpractice, because one cannot stop a resident with a Dutch passport from coming back home. One should not have to be literally harassed to get back to their own country. When we deport foreigners we send them back home. We don’t put conditions.
2) The former Afoo supermarket has a parking lot which spans between E.C. Richardson Street and Cannegieter Street. This parking lot is manned by a security guard who makes sure that the parking lot is only used by shoppers of the supermarket. Next to the supermarket on Cannegieter Street there is an area destined for stopping and eventually parking for everyone. It has become common practice that at the end of the day the proprietor of that supermarket has the employees stack up a whole lot of pallets in that special place for stopping or parking so that during the evening and night no one else could stop or park in that area.
Formerly people going to Anglican church could find a space to park. Of late the whole area is cordoned off so that people going to church have to park in the parking lot next to Nisbeth Road. I am aware of the fact that several people have questioned the police on this behavior. The last information that I got is that the police told some people that the owners of that supermarket got permission from government to cordon off that area, whereas the supermarket has its own parking lot and its own land warehouse space near the supermarket.
This is very difficult for me to swallow because police do not work that way. VROMI [Ministry of Public Housing, Spatial Planning, Environment and Infrastructure – Ed.] is in charge of that. I am inclined to believe that the supermarket owners feel themselves empowered to do as they like because they are constantly getting away with murder here in St. Maarten.
This is why I mentioned “policy” in my letter to you, because this is not the only place where such a practice is carried out. When one drives from Bernhard Bridge via A.Th. Illidge Road to Madame Estate, on that stretch there are along with other businesses 13 supermarkets of which only one has adequate parking while by all the others the traffic is constantly stagnated because of motor vehicles reversing from the front of those supermarkets or delivery trucks unloading freight.
Equally as there is a time frame stipulated for heavy equipment to be on the road, so also we used to have those delivery trucks deliver early in the morning or after six o’clock in the evening.
It is time for every Minister of government to start working according to what is stipulated by law and forget those policies. It is no secret that people in government are continually investigated and we have seen videos on WhatsApp where names of politicians who were locked up and are on their way to jail were mentioned.
Since I’m busy let me mention this. It is time for I believe it is the TEATT [Tourism, Economic Affairs, Transport and Telecommunication] Minister to oblige especially those supermarket cashiers to give the shoppers a receipt.
That is the law. Prices in supermarkets vary constantly and every week there is an increase in price even though the products are taken from the same container. Without a receipt the shopper cannot verify anything that was bought. And there are also products which do not have the price on them. Is this the way we say we are taking care of the citizens of the country? Really? Are we?
I would suggest giving those employees at the airport who are checking EHAS [Electronic Health Authorization System] a course in price control. I believe that when that system is righted the correct taxes would be paid, and the people would have a little more spending power because the money would be distributed in the right way. What should I think when I’m standing in the row to be checked in and I hear someone saying in Papiamento, “I wonder if St. Maarten and Aruba are sharing that money that we have to pay for these tests?” Honesty is still the best policy. I know it, I was there. There are a lot of those who got caught, who would admit that crime does not pay.
By the way, I believe that measures should be taken to have those GEBE bills rectified without threatening people to cut the light and water.
Already the consumers are not protected by the price-gouging of the supermarkets and hardware stores. Now we have to contend with GEBE’s guessing game because of cat-and-mouse behaviour with the people’s property among the employees, who, by the way, got paid because that portion of the grid could be retrieved.

Russell A. Simmons