Power of the people
By Hilbert Haar
Something stuck in my mind about the address of attorney David Comissiong at the Governor’s Symposium about the Trans-Atlantic slave trade.
Related article: Comissiong makes strong case for slave trade reparations
One of the elements of a reparation package, Comissiong said, was a demand for sovereignty, independence. Why? Because that was St. Maarten’s situation before Dutch slave traders took hold of the territory and made it a colony. In other words: the Dutch have to give St. Maarten back the status it had before the slave trade.
On the surface, this argument makes a lot of sense. But when I thought about it, it does not make sense at all.
Why? Because the road to independence is completely under the control of St. Maarten’s population. Our people decide about the status they want St. Maarten to have.
There is of course one problem with this train of thought, because choosing independence requires a referendum. Unfortunately, it is not so that a random citizen can collect a number of signatures to enforce a referendum. No sir, a referendum can only be called by politicians, by the parliament of St. Maarten. So in reality, the future of our country is in the hands of just fifteen people, the members of our esteemed parliament.
Article 92 of the constitution makes the requirements for a referendum clear: an advisory referendum takes place at the initiative of the parliament. Article 95 stipulates that the consequences of a referendum will be described in a national ordinance.
As far as I know, but maybe I have missed something, such an ordinance does not exist, so it remains unclear whether the result of a referendum will have any consequences at all. And besides, during the past almost fourteen years of its autonomous existence, no parliament has ever taken the initiative to put the independence-question to the test in a referendum.
I have always thought, and please correct me if I am wrong, that politicians like to talk a lot about their desire for independence but that they are afraid to hold the required referendum because they fear its outcome. What if such a referendum shows that 40 percent of the voters supports independence, another 40 percent opposes it and the remaining 20 percent has no opinion? The best you could say in such a scenario is that 60 percent does not oppose independence, which is quite different from 60 percent supporting that status.
I stand firmly behind the idea that people are entitled to the right to self-determination. If the people of St. Maarten want independence, so be it. One has to respect that desire, if it is expressed as such in a properly organized referendum.
Unfortunately, as long as politicians continue twiddling their thumbs, St. Maarten will never obtain independence while at least a part of the population strongly favors it.
It is unfortunate that Comissiong made sovereignty the most important element of a slavery-reparations package, as if others have the power to decide about St. Maarten’s future. This is simply not the case. That power is, and rightly so, in the hands of the people who live here.
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Related articles:
Comissiong makes strong case for slave trade reparations
Governor’s symposium addresses Trans-Atlantic slave trade
One SXM Presents Reparations Claim on Behalf of St. Martin People Against the Netherlands
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