Unbiased look at the Sint Maarten Elections
THE HAGUE--Members of the Second Chamber of the Dutch Parliament of Democratic Party D66 Wassila Hachchi and Magda Berndsen-Jansen want clarity on the reports that 55 Dutch police officers and detectives will be sent to St. Maarten early next year to tackle crime and corruption.
Hachchi and Berndsen-Jansen sent a set of written questions to Dutch Minister of Home Affairs and Kingdom Relations Ronald Plasterk and his colleague of Security and Justice Ard van der Steur earlier this week following reports in the Dutch media that Dutch National Police Chief Gerard Bouman did not want to work together with the St. Maarten Police Force which he considered too corrupt and that he did not need St. Maarten's assistance to fight heavy organised, border crossing and undermining crime.
Hachchi said in an invited comment on Friday that it is important for the Netherlands and St. Maarten to work together on the issue of crime. "On both sides of the ocean we want to tackle corruption and fraud. We are all for integrity of government. The problems in St. Maarten can only be tackled if we do it together, with the St. Maarten people," she said.
"The conflict that has evolved needs to be solved as soon as possible so we can invest our energy in tackling the problems together. That is why I am looking at our Minister of Kingdom Relations. He deals with the relations and needs to take the lead to solve this conflict," said Hachchi.
Hachchi and Berndsen-Jansen asked Plasterk and Van der Steur whether it was correct that the Dutch police had indicated that it did not wish to cooperate with the St. Maarten Government because "there were too many indications of corruption" as was stated in the Dutch press.
"Are there indications that the work of Dutch police in St. Maarten is being obstructed by members of the local government? To what extent can Dutch detectives carry out their work adequately if there are cooperation issues between Dutch police and the local government?"
The D66 Members of Parliament asked the ministers to share their view on the indications that the Dutch police consider St. Maarten too corrupt for cooperation. They also wanted to know which tasks and objectives the Dutch police would have in St. Maarten and within which timeframe these objectives would have to be achieved. "Which instruments and authorities will the Dutch police get to execute its tasks and achieve the objectives?"
The Dutch media reported extensively this week on the news that 55 Dutch police officers and detectives would be dispatched to St. Maarten early 2016 to fight organised and undermining crime. The Dutch police will start the recruiting in September. The intention to have a rotating system whereby the officers will be stationed in St. Maarten for a limited time.
The Hague has reserved 22 million euros for a period of 24 months to strengthen the law enforcement sector, which includes the Public Prosecutor's Office and the Court of Justice.
The Ministers of Justice of the Netherlands, Aruba, Curaçao and St. Maarten agreed earlier this year to structurally reinforce the law enforcement in the Dutch Caribbean. A master plan to maintain law and order with the active input of the Netherlands was drafted in July this year.
According to the Dutch Government, St. Maarten is too small to sustain a solid system to maintain law and order. Aside from that, the island is faced with integrity issues, a shortage of capacity and inefficiency. In the opinion of The Hague, intervention is merited because the underworld and upper world are profoundly intertwined.
The clash between St. Maarten Justice Minister and Dutch National Police Chief Bouman also made the Dutch news. The Trouw newspaper reported on Thursday that the relations between the Netherlands and St. Maarten were reaching a "boiling point" and that the meeting Wednesday in The Hague with Richardson, Plasterk and Van der Steur "showed all signs of a crisis deliberation."
The newspaper stated that Dutch civil servants were no longer welcome in St. Maarten unless they were part of the delegation of a minister, as did several other media outlets earlier this week. St. Maarten Prime Minister Marcel Gumbs announced this in a letter to Plasterk and Van der Steur dated August 6, 2015. The direct reason for this decision was the meeting between Bouman and Richardson in St. Maarten last month.
In that letter, Gumbs asked the Dutch ministers to clarify whether Bouman's statements reflected the official point of view of the Dutch Government. "For now we assume that Bouman's totally inappropriate opinion was merely his own and that the displayed lack of recognition of the constitutional relations and respect for the position of the St. Maarten minister are a result of personal characteristics," Gumbs stated.
