~ Statements by MP André Bosman have now become our frame of reference ~ PHILIPSBURG – With all the pressing matters before us, such as the financial position of Government, the state of our Government agencies such as SZV, our healthcare and our fragile economy, the Parliament spent much of the past week discussing DECOLONIZATION! The Presidium of Parliament decided to quickly rush a Central Committee meeting and the following day a public meeting of Parliament to “establish a permanent decolonization committee” of Parliament. Only after objections from my part and others about the need for such a committee at…
Author: The Publisher
By Hilbert Haar Before anyone wants to hold it against me, let me say this: I support the notion that slavery was wrong for one hundred percent. We may however have different opinions about who was responsible for the slave trade in the past and who should be held accountable for it today. I am not going to throw numbers around, because they do not change anything about how people on different sides of the fence perceive this ugly part of human history. There is no doubt in my mind that the parties involved in the slave trade included West-Africans…
PHILIPSBURG – The motion approved by eleven members of Parliament on November 5th is yet another indication of the crossed signals currently bouncing around the governing UP/NA coalition and an unfortunate preview at the lack of cohesion and collaboration being forced down the throats of the people. The public meeting had been called to formally establish a Permanent Committee for Constitutional Affairs & Decolonization for the Parliament of Sint Maarten. During the meeting to discuss the establishment of the Permanent Committee, Gumbs and Peterson expressed their support for the committee and praised the approach taken to create open dialogue and…
PHILIPSBURG — A multi-disciplinary team consisting of Immigration, Customs, Police (KPSM), Coastguard and Department of Maritime and Shipping, carried out a joint inspection on a sailboat that had entered the island on in the evening of November 4th 2020. This control was carried out on information received from several sources that the captain of the boat would be smuggling illegal immigrants into St. Maarten. The control that was carried out at the harbor in Point Blanche on the sailing vessel took several hours. It later turned out that nothing illegal or illicit was encountered on board the vessel. This investigation…
PHILIPSBURG — The Alpha team has been kept busy with the ongoing investigation into drug smuggling that have taken place earlier this year. On Tuesday November 3rd, 2020, the team arrested a man with the initials E.A.B. (59) for his involvement in drugs transport. Before being transported to the police station, a house searches were conducted at the residence of the suspect. During the search, several items relating to the investigation were encountered and confiscated. The suspect remains in custody, pending further investigation. This investigation into drugs smuggling via the airport and harbor is still ongoing. The Alpha Team is…
PHILIPSBURG – Members of Parliament approved a motion on Thursday that instructs the government to complete the de-colonization process by hiring lawyers that should also pursue reparations for Dutch violations of international law and treaties. Even before the meeting started there was already a draft agreement with the Peter Choharis Law Group in Washington, DC., that aims to involve Curacao and Aruba in this process. While this agreement does not mention the term slavery it seems that the supporters of the motion want to turn its slavery-history into a financial bonanza. Choharis sent his draft-agreement on October 1 to United…
~ Motion to finalize decolonization, organize RTC by July 2021 ~ PHILIPSBURG — A joint proposal by MP’s Solange Ludmila Duncan (NA) and Grisha HeyligerMarten (UPP) to establish a Permanent Committee for Constitutional Affairs and Decolonization was approved unanimously during a public meeting of Parliament on Thursday. “Decades ago, the highest body in the world, the United Nations, made decolonization one of its core objectives. And up to this day, it continues to repeat the call to finalize the decolonization in all its forms. We as a young island nation are now finally giving decolonization its rightful place,” according to…
~ MP Wescot: Any “Decolonization” Petition can not be seen separate from the status we presently have and from the Charter that governs the Dutch Kingdom relations. ~ Philipsburg, St. Maarten, 4 November 2020 – I put the word “decolonization” in quotation marks, because many things are being said regarding decolonization, but seemingly meaning different things to different persons on St. Maarten. While this is good and healthy for the public discourse, when the Government weighs in, it takes on another dimension, stated MP Wescot-Williams on the proposal for the establishment of a Permanent Decolonization Committee in Parliament. The MP…
PHILIPSBURG — Police Central dispatch directed several Patrol units to Celsius Street on November 2nd , 2020, at around 3:00 pm, after receiving several calls concerning an ongoing altercation in the area. The patrol offiers who arrived on the scene received information from one of the victims, that he and his girlfriend were ill-treated, after having had an altercation with a man with the initials S.J.C. According to the victims, just before S.J.C drove away, he told them that was on his way home to retrieve his firearm to solve the problem they were having. After taking a statement of…
PHILIPSBURG — Members of the Alpha Team arrested an individual with the initials D.E.G. (43) for his involvement in the smuggling of large amount of narcotics via cargo facilities in Pointe Blanche, earlier this year. This arrest took place on Tuesday October 27th, 2020, at the residence of the suspect. After being interrogated by members of the team, the suspect was given a summons to appear in court and later released. This investigation is still ongoing. The Alpha Team is a jointly multidisciplinary Team that is comprised of the Police Department KPSM, the Customs Department, the Immigration Department, the Koninklijke…
