Dear Editor,
I have taken note of the announcement on page 14 of Thursday’s Daily Herald that the general public of St. Eustatius is invited by “Mr. M. Franco” as “Chairman of the Island Council” to attend an extraordinary meeting of the electoral committee.
Point 03 on the agenda of said meeting is: “Approval credentials of Island Council members-elect.”
As leader of the PLP, I want to again point out the following to Mr. Franco and the Dutch Government which he represents. The first one is that, based on the people of Statia’s right to self-determination and a full measure of self-government based on absolute equality as prescribed by international law, no Dutch appointee can be Chairman of the Island Council.
Secondly, based on the same unlawful act of the Dutch Government with which they pretended to dissolve the legitimately-elected Island Council of St. Eustatius, they decided not to have the Island Council elections on Statia take place on March 20th.
For the self-proclaimed “Chairman” of that same Island Council to now publicly and officially proclaim that the approval of the credentials of Island Council members-elect will take place can’t be anything else than an act of wilful, malicious deceit and incompetence. The fact that the mistake in the statement of Mr. Franco was widely pointed out and discussed on Facebook, yet still approved and sent out under his responsibility is proof of this.
It is bad enough that the people of Bonaire, St. Eustatius and Saba have been fooled and confused by having nonsensical elections for the Electoral Council take place.
But now the Dutch Government is displaying the exact incompetence and committing the same wrongful acts they tried to accuse the legitimately and democratically elected government of St. Eustatius of. This is a downright disgrace.
Combined with the many examples of incompetence and corruption taking place at all levels in the Netherlands in the past and present, this again demonstrates that the Dutch Government has absolutely no moral authority to rule over the people of the Dutch Caribbean or any other nations for that matter.
Recently, Mr. Franco’s Deputy, Mr. Stegers admitted to having committed an unlawful act by assigning a contract to a civil servant in violation of his own Dutch laws.
Based on this latest action by Mr. Franco, I want to caution the Dutch Government against continuing their misleading ways with these malicious and deceitful actions, for they might lead to unrest among the people of Sint Eustatius.
Clyde I. van Putten
Island Council Member,
Leader, Progressive Labour Party (PLP), St. Eustatius
