Dear Editor,
In recent weeks we learned of the cries of many nationals abroad who were denied the opportunity to return home on vacation. The reason given was to protect the island from the COVID-19 pandemic. I myself returned home very recently from a working visit and had to go into quarantine. I did not make this an issue seeing the policy in place and I’m not vaccinated.
However, time and again we see various persons are allowed to come and work, participate in meetings with government officials while they are in quarantine under the so-called essential worker label. As an elected official I raised the question on numerous occasions: if members of the Island Council, the highest elected body of the land, don’t fall on the essential worker status. In a discussion with one of the leading policy-makers for this COVID-19 pandemic, I was told that if requested that I can be granted the relevant permission in line of my function to take part in meetings with the relevant adopted protocol. Over a week ago, since my return from the Netherlands, via the officer of the Registrar of the Island Council, I made such a request and this was denied by the powers that be.
What I find a double standard is that late last year and most recently we saw that State Secretary Knops at the height of the pandemic was allowed under a special protocol to visit the Island for various meetings. He also visited different projects where he interacted with several persons, and at the time we did not begin the vaccination process on our island. Recently he visited and sat in meetings with the Island Council and without a mask and that was okay. During the very same meeting with the Island Council, he was asked if he had taken the vaccine and he said no because this was done by age groups.
Today again we see members of the College for Financial Supervision visiting the Island and meeting with the Island Council, among others, and this seemingly is normal. Whether they are fully vaccinated or not, the point is they came from high risk countries and could have contracted the virus.
Are we to conclude that the government is measuring with two different yardsticks? What is good for the goose should be good for the gander. Is government busy promoting a South Africa apartheid culture on this small island?
July 1 we celebrated 158 years of emancipation. Are we truly emancipated or still trapped in a mental colonial paralysis?
Clyde van Putten
Island Councilman St. Eustatius
