Representative of the St. Maarten Consumers Coalition and the St. Maarten Anti-Poverty Platform Raymond Jessurun.
PHILIPSBURG--Members of Parliament (MP) shared varied opinions in Tuesday’s meeting on the concerns regarding human rights and inequality in the relationship between St. Maarten and the Netherlands.
Representative of the St. Maarten Consumers Coalition (SMCC) and the St. Maarten Anti-Poverty Platform (SMAPP) Raymond Jessurun started the meeting with the presentation in which he provided response to questions and statements from MPs in the previous meeting held on April 15.
Topics covered in the meeting included human rights discrimination in the Kingdom, the right to work, residency and work permits, short-term contracts and unequal treatment of non-nationals.
United St. Maarten Party (US Party) MP Claudius Buncamper took the opportunity to clarify statements made in the previous meeting. These statements regarded undocumented persons. He made clear the difference in undocumented persons versus the term “non-nationals” as used by the coalition in its presentation.
The MP further remarked on several other areas and statistics in the presentation where he cautioned Jessurun on the information provided. He also questioned the validity of the information provided to parliament, noting that there were several contradictions.
Buncamper took note of the comparison made in the presentation between the cost of living between Bonaire and St. Maarten and how factual was the information provided.
Buncamper noted that despite the claims that the cost of living in St. Maarten at present is much higher than that of Bonaire by the coalition this may not be the case. He provided examples as to where the cost of food items is considerably more expensive in Bonaire, the in St. Maarten and the poverty rate exceeds that of St. Maarten.
He cautioned the coalition on the information that they are provided, as he said that this may lead to misinterpretations by the public.
“I think clarity should be given the right way so that we don’t mislead people in these debates. It is my opinion...and I respect the opinion of Jessurun but, unfortunately I cannot share it nor support it,” the MP said.
United People’s (UP) party MP Rolando Brison expressed his gratitude to Jessurun for the presentation. He commented on the opening of the presentation in which that coalition touched on the “differing interpretations of international, state and national legislations”.
Brison said parliament have seen a many examples of this (interpretation) through-out discussions with the Dutch Kingdom. He said that law is up to interpretations.
The MP said he did not think that Jessurun as representative of the coalition was present to intentionally deceive or spin a story to the public. He further commented that it was somewhat unfair to say that he was deceiving persons.
Brison however, cautioned the coalition on its comments regarding equal distribution and asked for further clarity from Jessurun on these statements made regarding the topics.
He agreed that the government can step in on regarding equal distribution such as creating job opportunities, entrepreneurship and so forth. He said equal distribution of wealth is simple unrealistic in his opinion and sought clarification from the coalition on that statement.
United Democrats (UD) MP Sarah Wescot-Williams commented that meeting could go on forever, and said she will not continue in that type of deliberation.
She encouraged the coalition representative, Jessurun to read the recently released Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) report as she said many of the topics brought forward in the parliament are covered within this report.
The MP said parliament should be looking at that report and the consequences for St. Maarten and the governance of St. Maarten.
She said parliament needs to find a way to make the best use of the opinions of Jessurun and his colleague as she said that “these opinions” are very valid in her view. “I would like to be able to go through his answers carefully and then this committee would have to decided what will we do,” said Wescot-Williams. “I think we need to decide where we want to go with this information and with the meeting going forward,” she continued.
