Dear Editor,
As we fast approach Friday, July 1, I would like to request the Government to please cancel Emancipation Day. Perhaps no one has been paying attention to the news of late when it was uncovered that this current Government, unbeknown to the population, signed an agreement with the Dutch for support in the form of Kingdom Detectives being assigned to St. Maarten.
In principal this was not such a bad idea since our local Police Force is severely short-staffed, but alas the Devil is in the details. Not only are there 75 Dutch detectives on island, they report directly to Holland.
That’s correct, they have no accountability or reporting responsibility to our Ministry of Justice. No one knows what they are doing on island, what and who they are investigating, and what is being reported back to the Netherlands.
This reminds me of the Soviet Union era of the secret police. Instead of transparently enforcing the rule of law and being subjected to public scrutiny as our Police force is, these secret police are specifically intended to operate beyond and above our local law in order to gather intelligence on our local population and use it to target political enemies of the ruling political establishment in Holland.
This is such an egregious violation of our Civil rights and our right to privacy, that Emancipation Day in all fairness should be cancelled.
Despite learning of the secret police, I am even more shocked at the nonchalant attitude of our people. No one on island is immune to the investigative reach of these secret police. They listen to our phone calls, they observe your movements, watch who you interact with, and yes the things that go “bump in the night” are the secret police.
As much as this Government touted transparency and “Back to Basics,” it has instead been a Government shrouded in secrecy and has put our Civil rights back to an era that we thought long behind us.
Happy Emancipation Day!!!
Name withheld at author’s request.
