Respect the rules
As preparations for the December 15 Round Table Conference (RTC) gain momentum, the affairs of the Netherlands Antilles in general, but St. Maarten in particular, seem to be attracting much more attention in The Hague. Understandably so!
Unfortunately, there continues to be a lot of misunderstanding of the St. Maarten reality within the precincts of the Dutch Parliament. This became evident again during yesterday’s Kingdom Relations budget debate when several Members of Parliament expressed grave reservations about St. Maarten being able to comply with all conditions for its new constitutional status by 2010. There also were suggestions that St. Maarten be placed under higher supervision as was the case in the 1990s. (See our lead story on page 1).
Unfortunately too, St. Maarten has not been sufficiently proactive in serious attempts at disabusing the minds of politicians in The Hague of their unfounded views and, in fact, our own St. Maarten politicians and Government have been contributing (we suspect unwittingly) to the perpetuating and consolidating of a certain mindset extant amongst the Dutch politicians.
No matter how true might be the notion that all politics is local, St. Maarten ends up shooting itself in its leg and poisoning the chalice every time issues such as murmurs about schemes of self-enrichment by politicians, the Buncamper-Molanus conflict-of-interest debacle or more recently the Louie Laveist headaches make the headlines.
John Leerdam (PvdA) minced no words about this yesterday when he bluntly stated that politicians had to make a mental switch and realise that integrity and good governance were essential in attaining more responsibility as a country.
To the extent that St. Maarten’s house continues to be perceived as being in a state of disarray and does not exude an aura of confidence in areas such as good governance, transparency and full accountability with respect for a universally acceptable code of ethics, it will remain well nigh impossible for level-headed Dutch politicians like Alexander Pechtold to convince their colleagues in The Hague of the error of their thinking.
Yesterday, his seemed to be the lone voice crying in the wilderness for “respect and understanding” for the St. Maarten reality.
As Pechtold correctly pointed out in response to the criticisms about law and order and the functioning of the Justice system here, “The Justice problem is partly the fault of the Central Government (and) it is one of the reasons St. Maarten wants to be on its own.”
We share Pechtold’s view that the Dutch Government should not seek to change the rules of the game along the way. We hold firmly that it cannot arbitrarily or unilaterally change the rules. Unless there is consensus to do otherwise, all parties must respect the rules as agreed in the November 2, 2006, Final Accord, however imperfect those rules might be.
Give us your opinion on this story ![[new]](/images/new.gif)
Post a message on our message board! Click Here!
