Dear Editor,
St. Maarten just took a giant step in economic development by signing off on the cannabis legislation. However, we must be careful that this new economic development does not benefit only a few. When I first campaigned for the legalization of cannabis and its sale to the market in 2014, no other politician wanted to touch the subject for fear of unpopularity. I was the only one willing to propose this form of economic development. The fact that it is beneficial for the country was irrelevant. I was ridiculed by the same politicians who permitted me to run with this campaign.
Behind my back was talk of, Engel must be a smoker or a seller. That is why he is campaigning for legalization of cannabis. Thus, the potential for economic development died a natural death. I believe, however, that my motivation behind legalization of the use, and sale of cannabis was not what others may want out of it. It is still my firm conviction that the government must own and operate the business. Licences must not be issued to private investors. There is a perfect model from the government of Canada that we can use to benefit the entire population of St. Maarten with.
By having exclusive rights for sale of cannabis to the market, government has direct and total benefit of the huge income derived from this market. This provides generous income for the coffers of the government, which in turn permits the government to use this income in development of the infrastructure of the island. Be it housing, schooling, law enforcement, road improvements, or any other requirements of government functioning. Repayment of loans to the Netherlands can also be serviced from this income.
Another use for the income could be the reduction of wage, or income tax. If the business is placed in the hands of private investors, they will make a fortune and pay only the share of what is required. The government will lose out on the opportunity to develop the country. I am not against the businessman. I am one myself. However, my philosophy is that if I enrich the population, I empower their spending capacity. By empowering their spending capacity, all merchants’ benefit.
Also, let the retail of cannabis be permitted by the illegal vendors. Give them the opportunity to become legal vendors. If one cannot afford to establish on their own, a joint venture can be established so that none are left out. Sales points must be established according to the carrying capacity of the neighbourhoods to avoid saturation. I request of the work group, to please endeavour for the study to place emphasis on benefits for all.
Louis Engel
Dear Editor,
On behalf of the board and members of URSM, I would like to wish our students, their parents, and our teachers all the best for this new year. As the leader of URSM, I am happy that our students can once again follow in-person classes without the challenges they faced over the past two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Not only is this sense of normalcy critical for our students, but it also alleviates the stress the online and in some cases dual learning system caused on our teachers.
While seeing all the happy faces back in school, I cannot help but reflect on the current state of education in St. Maarten. Questions that come to mind are: what has been the effect of the pandemic on the individual results of our students over the past two years? Do the schoolboards have an idea as to this impact on our students? Has the Ministry of Education assessed this? How do the “Irma and COVID-19” students measure to the previous cohort? Not to mention the mental health of students and staff. Lastly, a more important question I ask myself is how much attention have we given the education sector since 10/10/10?
As the leader of URSM, I am of the opinion that we have neglected this critical sector. As a party, we have thought long and hard about the education system our children deserve. While it is easy to criticize, we recognize the importance of actually proposing solutions.
For one, we believe it is high time to review and amend the current methods used to calculate and approve subsidies for schools. While we have a law on compulsory education, the government does not guarantee education for all. Furthermore, the current subsidy method used by the Ministry of Education places its focus predominantly on the number of students per school. In other words, the more students registered at a school the higher the number of funds received by the school. Little emphasis is placed on ensuring the actual quality standards of education applied by the respective schools are met. A specific budget for periodic evaluation of curriculum is not part of this lump sum. Imagine, our children are currently taught based on a curriculum that was formulated more than 30 years ago.
The recognition of children with learning disabilities is nowhere to be found in this system. If it were, we would have a public school catering to special needs children up to age 16 or 18, and/or we would subsidize those private institutions that do cater to such. The current methods also fail to highlight the importance of regular training for teachers.
The URSM is finalizing its overall vision for education which will outline solutions to address the ongoing challenges facing our country’s educational system.
Once again I wish all students parents and teachers a successful academic year!
Dr. Luc Mercelina
Leader of the URSM
On 2 August, in disregard of China’s strong opposition and serious representations, Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi visited China’s Taiwan region, which attracting great attention of the international community, including the people of Dutch Caribbean.
1. There is but one China in the world, Taiwan is an inalienable part of China’s territory, and the Government of the People’s Republic of China is the sole legal government representing the whole of China. This has been clearly recognized by United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2758 of 1971. Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, 181 countries have established diplomatic relations with China on the basis of the one-China principle. The one-China principle is a universal consensus of the international community and a basic norm in international relations.
2. In 1979, the United States made a clear commitment in the China-US Joint Communiqué on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations – “The United States of America recognizes the Government of the People’s Republic of China as the sole legal Government of China. Within this context, the people of the United States will maintain cultural, commercial, and other unofficial relations with the people of Taiwan.” Congress, as a part of the US Government, is inherently obliged to strictly observe the one-China policy of the US Government and refrain from having any official exchanges with China’s Taiwan region.
China is all along opposed to the visit to Taiwan by US congressional members, and the US executive branch has the responsibility to stop such visit. Since Speaker Pelosi is the incumbent leader of the US Congress, her visit to and activities in Taiwan, in whatever form and for whatever reason, is a major political provocation to upgrade US official exchanges with Taiwan. This is a serious violation of the one-China principle and the provisions of the three China-US joint communiqués. It has a severe impact on the political foundation of China-US relations, and seriously infringes upon China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. It gravely undermines peace and stability across the Taiwan Straits, and sends a seriously wrong signal to the separatist forces for “Taiwan independence”.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The Ministry of National Defense, The National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) National Committee, The Taiwan work Office of the CPC Central Committee have all firmly opposes and sternly condemns this through statements and remarks, and has made serious démarche and strong protest to the United States.
3. The position of the Chinese Government and people on the Taiwan question has been consistent. It is the firm commitment of the more than 1.4 billion Chinese people to resolutely safeguard state sovereignty and territorial integrity. It is the common aspiration and sacred responsibility of all Chinese sons and daughters to realize the complete reunification of the motherland. The trend of the times cannot be reversed, and the will of the people is not to be defied. China must and will be reunified, this is an unstoppable trend of history. No country, no forces and no individual should ever misestimate the firm resolve, strong will and great capability of the Chinese Government and people to defend state sovereignty and territorial integrity and to achieve national reunification and rejuvenation.
4. Following the visit by Speaker Pelosi to the Taiwan region, within less than a day, people of different ranks and backgrounds from more than 100 countries and international organizations, including the United Nations, have spoken up in various ways to condemn her wrong, foolish and insane decision and express their support for the one-China principle and for China’s legitimate efforts to uphold its sovereignty and territorial integrity. The fact that so many have spoken up for justice is a clear indication that people in the international community are clear-eyed about the nature and intention of the visit. The visit is an ugly political stunt. It will not change the historical and legal reality that Taiwan belongs to China. It will not stop the reunification course of China and will not change the fact that 181 countries in the world recognize and support the one-China principle.
5. China and the United States are two major countries. The right way for them to deal with each other lies only in mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, no-confrontation and win-win cooperation. The Taiwan question is purely an internal affair of China, and no other country is entitled to act as a judge on the Taiwan question. We urge the U.S. side to honor its words, cease any kind of official exchanges with China’s Taiwan region, stop interfering in China’s internal affairs, stop sending any wrong signal to “Taiwan independence” separatist forces, and not to go further down the dangerous path. Any erroneous act that goes against the historical trend, aims to make an issue out of the Taiwan question and undermines China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity is doomed to fail, and will boomerang in the end.
Li Yigang
Consul General of the People’s Republic of China in Willemstad
By Alex Rosaria
I often wonder why it’s so difficult to persuade people to care about our island and planet upon which we completely depend. Why aren’t we making progress with Kòrsou Limpi i Bunita (a Clean and Lovely Curaçao) in all these years? The answer may be simpler than we think.
Recently I read a true Second World War story that disclosed how the U.S. carefully compiled a list of Japanese cities it wanted to bomb with the atom bomb. Kyoto was on that list. To the indignation of military advisers, Kyoto was however removed by the U.S. Secretary of War Henry Stimson. Instead, Nagasaki was added. Why did he remove Kyoto? Because Stimson and his wife had spent their honeymoon in Kyoto. It was difficult to destroy the city that represented love and beauty to him.
Be that as it may, the opposite is equally true. We easily destroy what we don’t feel connected to, what we don’t know, and don’t love. Nowhere is this more apparent than how we’re littering our environment. It seems that with or without law and fines (remember when relevant legislation was put on the negative list in 2010), littering has not been curbed. There are more cleaning actions now, and more ugly trash cans crammed in our capital city, but these don’t seem to have made a dent.
According to the Environmental Performance Index, Denmark is the world’s cleanest country. Wait, you’ll say, it’s because of their stiff fines. An offender is fined about US $100 in Denmark, not a whopping amount. Interestingly, only 36 offenders have been penalized for littering in an 8-year period. And, anyone who has walked around Singapore and Korea, the cleanest Asian countries, must have noticed the lack of public trash cans. Not surprisingly, people in the cleanest countries say they feel closely connected to nature and take their own responsibility for a clean environment.
If people don’t experience nature or don’t understand the essence of nature, it’s unlikely they’ll care. And this is what’s missing. A campaign to stimulate humans to reconnect with nature and understand its importance. This may trigger a mentality change that puts an end to the poisoning of our life support system. The fact is that we lost touch with nature and have become an indoor generation. When was the last time we went for a walk in one of our parks, did some bird watching, or did nature photography? Without a human reconnection to nature, its destructing is certain.
~ Alex David Rosaria (53) is a freelance consultant active in Asia and the Pacific. He is a former Member of Parliament, Minister of Economic Affairs, State Secretary of Finance and UN Implementation Officer in Africa and Central America. He is from Curaçao and has an MBA from University of Iowa (USA). ~
Dear Editor,
The Caribbean Region has been described as the most reliant on tourism and travel when compared to other global regions. The Caribbean relies on international visitors more than any other region in the world.
According to the latest UNWTO World Tourism Barometer, international tourism saw a strong rebound in the first five months of 2022, with almost 250 million international arrivals recorded. This compares to 77 million arrivals from January to May 2021 and means that the sector has recovered almost half (46%) of pre-pandemic 2019 levels.
The UNWTO says in the Americas, arrivals more than doubled (+112%). However, the strong rebound is measured against weak results in 2021 and arrivals remain overall 36% and 40% below 2019 levels in both regions (Americas and Europe), respectively.
“Looking at subregions, several have recovered between 70% and 80% of their pre-pandemic levels, led by the Caribbean and Central America, followed by Southern Mediterranean, Western and Northern Europe. It is noteworthy that some destinations surpassed 2019 levels, including US Virgin Islands, St. Maarten, the Republic of Moldova, Albania, Honduras, and Puerto Rico,” the UNWTO reports.
Rising tourism spending out of the major source markets is consistent with the observed recovery.
According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the overall reduction in international air capacity in 2022 will be limited to 20% to 25% of seats offered by airlines as compared to 2019. Such resilience is also reflected in hotel occupancy rates. Based on data from the industry benchmarking firm STR, global occupancy rates climbed to 66% in June 2022, from 43% in January.
The following global challenges are impacting and/or pose a risk to tourism recovery: stronger than expected demand has created significant operational and workforce challenges, while the war in Ukraine, rising inflation, and interest rates, as well as fears of an economic slowdown; developments related to the pandemic and emerging public health emergencies.
UNWTO’s forward-looking scenarios published in May 2022 point to international arrivals reaching 55% to 70% of pre-pandemic levels in 2022.
The UNWTO adds that scenarios by region show Europe and Americas recording the best tourism results in 2022, while Asia and the Pacific is expected to lag behind due to more restrictive travel policies. International tourist arrivals in Europe could climb to 65% or 80% of 2019 levels in 2022, depending on various conditions, while in the Americas they could reach 63% to 76% of those levels.
Tourism recovery in many regions of the world is on the up, but it will take time while economies and nations manage the challenges that they are currently facing.
Roddy Heyliger
