Greetings and happy Sint Maarten Day to all those who call Sint Maarten home and to our brothers and sisters in the diaspora. My fellow citizens, Sint Maarten Day is an opportunity for us to promote unity, social harmony, and empowerment of our people.

As we celebrate this momentous day, it should not just be a day to eat and drink and make merry, but should also be a day to reflect and remember those who are no longer here but who have made significant contributions to our island and to us. Today we must reflect on where we are as an island,  where we were, and where we want to be.

  This is the first Sint Maarten Day we have officially adopted “the St. Martin Unity Flag” on both sides of the island in a show of unity and I believe this unity must continue in many other areas. We are one people, two nations but one island. Many of us have families on both sides of the island, and when one side of the island is affected, the other feels it. As I have said before, hurricanes do not stop at the border, and they do not discriminate between French and Dutch, so why should we?

  Sint Maarten is easily one of the most beautiful and blessed islands in the world, and we as a people must think about how we make this jewel better. To quote John F. Kennedy, “ask not what my country can do for me but what can I do for my country.” Let us reflect on the kind of country we want to build and what part we can each play in making it better. Unity of both sides must never become just an idea or a one-day event. We need to extend unity to all aspects, including sports and education, and this is something into which we are currently looking. We have great sports people on both sides of the island, and working together, we can produce great sports teams to represent the entire island on the world stage.

  With regard to education, there must also be more unity. On an island where we have both French and Dutch spoken and taught in schools, we should have educational exchanges where students on each side can attend Dutch and French lessons, respectively, making them more formidable when they enter the world of work. There are many benefits to both sides working closely as one, and this can only prove good for the people of this Island. Over the years, we have made significant strides in this direction, but we recognize that we can and must do much more. I acknowledge that we are facing challenging times brought on by the Covid 19 pandemic and now the war in Ukraine. These are challenges we must face together as an island in unity. Unity equals proper growth and true development for all and will provide motivation and make for greater accomplishments.

  While we focus on these things, we should not lose sight of the accomplishments we have made over the years in digital infrastructure and technology, in establishing ourselves on the world stage as a player in the tourism industry, and so much more. Today above all, we should all feel a sense of pride to belong to this island and to be celebrating another Sint Maarten Day. I urge you to reflect on what kind of future you want for yourselves and your island and how we can all work together to achieve it. Happy Sint Maarten Day to all.

Rodolphe E. Samuel

Minister of Education, Culture, Youth, and Sport

Dear Dr. Barnett:

  We are writing you in relation to the armed international intervention in Haiti that has been requested by Dr. Ariel Henry, the de facto Prime Minister of Haiti, and supported by the United States and Canada, to explain that any support for the intervention by the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) would violate CARICOM’s democratic principles, betray Haitians’ centuries-long struggle for democracy and sovereignty, and implicate CARICOM in attacks against civilians exercising their basic human rights.

  Ever since the intervention was proposed, Haitians have taken to the streets by the tens of thousands to oppose it. We have issued statements, spoken out in the media, and done anything else we could to let the world know that the intervention is designed to prop up the unconstitutional, corrupt and repressive de facto government and stifle legitimate dissent.

  De facto Prime Minister Henry ascended to his post not through any Haitian procedure, but through an announcement by the US-led Core Group. He had been nominated by President Jovenel Moïse of the Parti Haitienne Tet Kale party (PHTK), whose mandate had expired five months previously. The PHTK has not run an election that was either fair or timely in the decade it has maintained power. Haiti’s Parliament became inoperative in January 2020, and the terms of all local elected officials ended in July of that year. Haiti’s Supreme Court has lacked enough members to constitute a quorum since March. This situation constitutes a sharp departure from the right to a fair and open democratic system guaranteed by Article VI of the CARICOM Charter of Civil Society.

  PHTK governance has been demonstrably brutal. In April, 2021, the Haitian Observatory for Crimes Against Humanity and Harvard Law School issued a report establishing that gangs and government officials collaborated on deadly attacks against neighborhoods suspected of harboring political dissidents and voters opposed to PHTK. During the current wave of protests, the police have arrested dozens of dissidents engaged in legal protest activities and shot at legal demonstrations. Journalists have been shot, and killed. This repression constitutes severe violations of rights guaranteed by Articles IV (Right to Life, Liberty and Security of the Person), VII (Meetings Demonstrations and Petitions) and VIII (Freedom of Information and Access of Information) of the Charter of Civil Society.

  Throughout the PHTK’s rule, the powerful members of the international community have refrained from criticizing the government’s human rights record. In an exception that proves the rule, in early 2018, the UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General in Haiti, Susan Page, issued a press release diplomatically urging the PHTK government to pursue notorious cases involving police massacres and public corruption. When President Moïse complained, Ambassador Page was removed from her position, with no public support from the UN or other member of the international community. At the same time, the same powerful members of the international community have provided substantial diplomatic and financial support to the PHTK government. Haitians are confident that the proposed intervention is an extension of this support, designed to protect the government against the massive protests calling for the departure of the PHTK and a return to democratic order.

  Haitians are well aware that the most recent international armed intervention tasked with addressing gang violence in Haiti, MINUSTAH, was a deadly, expensive failure. MINUSTAH spent $9 billion US over 13 years, and left Haiti less democratic than when it arrived. MINUSTAH soldiers, under pressure from the United States, hunted down suspected gang members – young men in poor neighborhoods – and shot them, sometimes killing women and children nearby. The executions did temporarily reduce crime, but undermined the rule of law and set the stage for today’s spectacular rebound of gang violence. MINUSTAH further eroded the rule of law by illegally arresting dissidents and providing backup for lethal police raids against political opponents.

  The United Nations also insulted Haitian people, caused enormous suffering and death and trampled on the rule of law by dumping cholera-laden sewage in our rivers and refusing to comply with its legal obligations to repair the damage caused. Six years ago the UN Human Rights expert Philip Alston declared that the UN response “goes directly against the principles of accountability, transparency and the rule of law that the UN itself promotes globally.” The organization’s continued flouting of its legal obligations today deprives it of any moral standing to promote the rule of law in Haiti.

  The documented unacceptable practices of the Haitian police under PHTK leadership and of UN troops under MINUSTAH lead us to conclude that the proposed armed intervention will be involved in suppression of legal public advocacy activities and the summary execution of young men and boys in poor neighborhoods.

  We would be deeply saddened to see our brothers and sisters in CARICOM come here to shoot, massacre and arbitrarily arrest protestors and prop up a repressive government at the behest of powerful countries that obtained their status through the Atlantic slave trade. But Haitians have been fighting for liberty ever since we launched our revolution that generated the first Black Republic. We will continue to fight with every means we have. Our sadness at a betrayal by our CARICOM brothers and sisters, who benefitted so much from our struggle, would not reduce our determination to defend our liberty against all who threaten it.

  Haitians are grateful to CARICOM for providing the world an example of principled support for Haiti’s democracy in 2004. As you know, following the February 29 coup d’état, CARICOM refused to allow the unconstitutional government imposed by the United States to participate in the community’s major meetings. Despite substantial pressure from the powerful countries that are now leading the initiative for an armed intervention, CARICOM stood by its principles and with the Haitian people, and eventually helped force the return of democratic order in 2006.

  The Haitian people are today looking to CARICOM to extend the example the community set in 2004, not betray it. We do not want our CARICOM sisters and brothers to come with guns to help powerful countries impose a repressive regime on us. We want our sisters and brothers to come in solidarity, with respect and democratic principles. We want CARICOM to once again insist that the international community stop supporting an unconstitutional, imposed regime, and allow Haitians to find a democratic, sustainable solution to our political crisis.

  In solidarity,

Mario Joseph,

Managing Attorney,

Bureau des Avocats Internationaux

Two symbols represent the people of the nation and those born here and born to be here. Symbolism is important, and two symbols personally mean a lot to me. These symbols are the brown pelican and salt. These two symbols tie into who we are as a people.

  The first symbol, which is the pelican, symbolizes resourcefulness, courage, and humility. It also represents, generosity, loyalty, and sacrifice. In times of hardship, this noble and courageous bird will tear open its breast with its beak and feed its young with its own blood. This means that the pelican will sacrifice its life by any means necessary so that its young, the future, will be provided with an opportunity to live.

  The second symbol representing St. Maarten is salt. Salt symbolizes permanence, loyalty, durability, fidelity, usefulness, purification, and preservation. Matthew 5:13 includes the phrase “You are the salt of the earth.” However, if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? Saltless salt is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under one’s feet.

  Have you ever found yourself making sacrifices for a bigger cause? Are you building a foundation for your next of kin or for others in your community to benefit from? Anybody living on St. Maarten who instils the courage and humility to help or even fight for one another, and anybody who instils the willingness to shape something that will be valuable and would have an everlasting positive effect for future of others is a Soualigan and belongs here.

  I wish one and all a blessed and wonderful St. Martin Day, and may God continue to bless this island and its people!

MP Grisha Heyliger-Marten

Editor,

  Please permit me some space to address the general public. You see, there’s bound to be the usual political rhetoric about what the opposition did on Monday, November 7, 2022, in not granting quorum for the CC meeting about the unity flag, so let me be ahead of the circus.

  The coalition showed up in full force to remove a President of Parliament who was actually acting in an unbiased manner: scheduling meetings requested by both coalition and opposition members of Parliament. Note that there are meetings on the docket since 2021 that have not been called, as outlined by the dismissed President of Parliament, MP Grisha Marten.

  Some members of this new coalition, of which we have yet to see formal proof, only show up when called by one person to do so, and they vote as they are told to vote, too. One is consistently out of office or off island for personal reasons not related to medical leave. We have another MP who will soon be off island again, for medical leave. This consistently leaves Parliament at a deficit, in terms of members available to grant a quorum.

  If the coalition is strong and the numbers are there, why do you need any opposition members to sign in to grant you a quorum? Never mind the fact that it has been opposition members holding quorum for many meetings since 2020, especially since the two latest members have joined the coalition. So, I cannot and will not stand by as the lie of “opposition is working against the country” is crafted by a coalition that lacks the strength and conviction to hold its own ministers accountable.

  In a previous meeting, the first Vice President, MP Marlin, stated that when he is gone for medical purposes, it will be for all remaining MPs to do “what is right” and support meetings, etc., of Parliament. I stated afterwards that it is not for any MP to compromise/sacrifice their right to vote or act according to their conscience due to one MP’s refusal to relinquish their seat, leaving Parliament at a 7-7 split for months. For example, if I, as an individual MP, do not agree with the 2023 budget, must I then set aside my valid concerns and vote “Yes” just because the coalition has decided to leave Parliament at a 7-7 split? No. “Going along to get along” is not the way I intend to represent the people.

  I, personally, do not recognize nor support the flag, but I support the idea behind it. The narrative being spun is that because the PFP faction does not support the unity flag we do not support unity, since that’s all they can say as they lack substantial arguments. Disliking the flag, the process for how the flag came about and the colonial symbol on the flag doesn’t make me, or PFP, villains in this fantasy that coalition will try to create.

  Fact: no faction in Parliament, pre- or post-10-10-10, has spoken, pushed and argued for more cooperation/collaboration with our Northern neighbors than the PFP faction, at all times. From my time in the Netherlands, organizing St. Martin’s Day forums with USC and Pelicarus, geared towards bringing our students and young professionals closer together in collaborative spirit, this has been a cause I have championed.

  During COVID, when my fellow MPs were calling for us to stop containers of food from going to the French side due to their border restrictions, it was this MP who stated that it cannot be our intention to starve out our brothers and sisters to the North.

  It is the PFP faction that has submitted a proposal to Parliament to end our Parlatino membership and channel those funds into developing closer ties with the French side, as well as our immediate neighbors. Because it’s one thing to talk a big game about unity and have a “symbol” of unity, but quite another to do the work. Performative actions have been the norm and that must stop.

  In September 2020, due to the Prefet maintaining border restrictions for COVID, there was a large demonstration where the unity flag was carried as a symbol of unity. It is important to mark that distinction; that the Prefet closed the border. Because in 2021, when the people of Saint Martin blocked their own border to protest their own valid issues with their state of affairs, the same folks who cried unity were crying foul. Unity is recognizing that our brothers and sisters to the North have usually blocked the frontier when they are protesting, so I was unsure why so many were surprised and upset at this. Support must be universal and consistent, not performative, and conditional, and only when we like it.

  Another fact: in 2016, when the then-President of the Collectivite, the late President Aline Hanson, signed off on a stop-order for illegal works happening at Captain Oliver’s in Oyster Pond, it was the National Alliance, UP and USP factions that boycotted the St. Martin’s Day celebrations of 2016, held on the French side. And now they are the vanguards, the heralds, of unity on this island? I think not.

  The silencing of MP Wescot after the informal meeting was streamed on Facebook serves as a spotlight on this kind of behavior. They have shown us who they are, time and time again; nothing has changed.

  I understand that previous opposition members have measured their success by how swiftly they were able to throw down government and call elections, so it’s difficult to process an opposition who is working with government while working against the cognitive dissonance the coalition seems to share, with these lofty ideas while ignoring the very real ones facing the people they claim to represent.

  Ultimately, my sentiments about the flag are not unique. I have been inundated with messages and phone calls from especially young persons on both sides asking why these decisions were made without community input or consultation. Many do not feel represented by the unity flag and do not see themselves in it. This is a valid thing to feel, especially when you are a member of the public that was not consulted regarding what is being used to represent you. But when they voice this, they are criticized as being against unity.

  And that is the dangerous rhetoric of … nationalism, I guess? That if you don’t align yourself with any and everything brought by private individuals or a government as definitions of our culture and identity, you are clearly against the ideals they claim to promote. That’s not how it works. If persons do not see themselves in a flag that, surprisingly, still boasts symbols of colonialism on it, then that is their right to feel and say so.

  Public consultation. And actual actions behind words. That’s what I would have preferred to see regarding this matter. But don’t try to say that I do not support unity. I won’t tolerate that disrespect, especially not from any Johnny-come-lately who is doing what he does best: using emotional pressure points that he just discovered and actually does not care about to further his narcissistic manipulation of our democracy.

  I wish everyone a pleasant, safe and enjoyable St. Martin’s Day and may we work collectively, in the spirit of collaboration and cooperation, to effect real unity and change for our little paradise in the Caribbean Sea.

Melissa D. Gumbs

Member of Parliament

PFP Faction Leader