Unbiased look at the Sint Maarten Elections
PHILIPSBURG--"We didn't vote for Bosman or Van Raak" and "Enough is enough. This is our country" were some of the messages on the placards carried by an estimated 200 marchers who took to the street Sunday afternoon to express their discontent with the Kingdom Council of Ministers' instruction to Governor Eugene Holiday to carry out what has been deemed an invasive, boundless screening into the lives of minister candidates.
The march started off from the ring road with the sizable group heading down W.J.A. Nisbeth Road to Clem Labega Square in front the Government Administration Building. Marchers answered the call of "What do we want?" with "Respect!" and an end to Dutch insults.
United People's (UP) party deputy leader Member of Parliament Franklin Meyers deemed the instruction by the Dutch Government as "wrong."
Called on by march organisers People United for Democracy to speak to the marchers, Meyers said, "We are not taking the insult from [Dutch MPs – Ed.] Bosman and Van Raak no more." He called on the two Dutch MPs, who are very vocal about St. Maarten affairs, to "pass legislation to help feed my people and to alleviate my people from poverty."
The instruction only serves to have the government in "a stalemate" and to stop government from working, Meyers said, adding a call to politicians in The Hague to impose the same instruction on themselves as they have for St. Maarten. "Let it be throughout the kingdom."
Meyers commended the marchers for their "courage" to take to the street in spite of the naysayers who were against the march. He pointed out that visionaries like the late Nelson Mandela and the late Dr. Martin King Jr. "were ostracised by their people" for standing up.
"We will continue to march until St. Maarten is liberated and is in control in her own destiny," Meyers said.
MP Dr. Lloyd Richardson (UP) said this kind of protest action was "something St. Maarten has to grow accustomed to," as St. Maarteners are not wont to display their discontent publicly.
The march was about St. Maarten people "not wanting to give up the rights we got four years ago" with the breakup of the Netherlands Antilles, he said. "All we are asking for is fairness to do what we have to do. ... The government can't do its work. ... We demand an opportunity to do so for the country," he said.
Richardson, like Meyers, said the resistance would continue against the actions of the Dutch "no matter how long it takes."
March organiser Elton Jones commended marchers for "the courage to come out for something you believe in. ... We are marching for the rights we lost since the days of the Netherlands Antilles."
The screening of minister candidates has worked "beautifully" the last three times it was used in the past four years. Now it appears the Dutch believe "they should handpick who should sit in the hall of power. We the people say no. ... We will not accept dictates from Europe any longer."
Fellow organiser Etienne "Tochi" Meyers chided the people who had spoken out against the march, saying their condemnation was an attack on the children of the country whose future was being safeguarded. St. Maarten's case against the instruction will be put before "a man from the UN" today, Monday, according to him.
Ed Gumbs, another organiser, said he "will never accept The Hague telling me who will govern me. We elect our government." He called the instruction an insult to the governor.
Gumbs called for an integrity investigation into Dutch Kingdom Affairs Minister Ronald Plasterk to establish the amount of money he might have received for posing in a photo with Bada Bing bribery case suspect Jaap van den Heuvel aboard a plane when he had refused to take a photo with now-former MP Patrick Illidge because he is a suspect in the same case.
Prior to the march setting off from the ring road down W.J.A. Nisbeth Road, United People's (UP) party leader Member of Parliament Theo Heyliger, who took part in the march, told the press he supported the march and the efforts of the organisers. The marchers were "pushing for the freedom of St. Maarten" and for the Dutch Government to "respect democracy" and St. Maarten's Constitution.
Heyliger said the march was not about him, but about St. Maarten. The situation in St. Maarten is one where the Dutch Government clearly showed it had no problem with the National Alliance/Democratic Party/United St. Maarten Party coalition formed after elections, but are now imposing an instruction because the UP had taken up the governmental lead with a coalition supported by two-thirds of Parliament, he said. This shows that "The Hague has certain preferences."
The instruction for the invasive screening comes without the minister candidates being known and even after the incumbent government and the present coalition partners have indicated they are committed to executing the recommendations outlined in the PricewaterhouseCoopers integrity report, Heyliger said.
As formateur of the new government, Heyliger said he hoped to round off the process soon and submit the list of minister candidates to Governor Holiday.
UP Parliamentarian Tamara Leonard also was among the marchers.
