St. Maarten Private Eye

(Posted from an email with permission.)

Constitutional Confusion
By: P. Denicio Brison, B.Sc. LL.M.
November 7, 2006

I have just finished going through the “slotverklaring” which sets forth the terms and conditions of St. Maarten’s “Separate Status”. Those of us who voted for independence have been vindicated. We did the right thing. I shall explain at the end of this short article.

First of all, I would like to let those involved in preparing this document know that I understand the hard work and pressure involved in producing these documents at the end of important conferences. I have been there and done that. I will not disrespect your effort. You were no doubt sincere and meant well, and probably did the best you could under the circumstances.

Now on to the “slotverklaring”. This document is extremely dangerous and must be dumped as quickly as following for the following reasons:

St. Maarten gained absolutely nothing from this so-called Separate Status. Contrary to what Mr. Gibson claims in his piece, the debt write-off is a false argument for two reasons: First of all, Separate Status was never presented to us, the buying public, as being about debt relief. As a matter of fact there was never a clear cut reason stated for wanting Separate Status. In the second place, so-called debt relief could have been achieved without Separate Status. But, is there really going to be a debt write-off? I shall come to that shortly. True, the federal government disappeared, but here’s what’s supposed to come in its place. St. Maarten is going to be joined hip, waist and neck to Curacao . Same justice system, same police force, same Central Bank, same higher supervision. This is the same old Netherlands Antilles as we used to know it, only regressed back to the year 1793. No wonder some call it a restructured Netherlands Antilles . Under this agreement we might as well stop holding elections because Holland can now:

1 - Have anyone prosecuted: the governor (who they appoint) can order the prosecutor to investigate anyone, including the Prime Minister of the new so-called Country St. Maarten. He is obliged to follow the governor’s instructions. So much for prosecutorial independence. Holland can give its man in Philipsburg orders to investigate and prosecute anyone they choose, any time they choose.
2 - There will be one prosecutor general for all the five islands, just as before. He will be located in Curacao , just as before, with a “dependence” in St. Maarten, just as before.
3 - New: This prosecutor will be in charge of all the police forces, on all five islands. Policemen can be sent to work on any of the five islands just as before.
4 - The court system remains the same. Any changes are purely cosmetic.
5 - Finances: Holland will have total control over the complete financial operation of all the islands (Saba, Statia, Bonaire, St. Maarten, Curacao ) : preparing the budget, carrying out the budget, and reporting on the budget will fall under them. Every single penny will be scrutinized by them before it is spent and if it does not meet their approval it will not be spent.
6 - A new financial watchdog will be created between now and Separate Status. St. Maarten and Curacao can each appoint a member. Holland will appoint the other four. This watchdog will control the complete financial operation of the government.
7 - After Separate Status this watchdog will renamed “overheidskredietbank”. It will control every single facet of the government budget. Government can only make loans via this institution. It is managed by four members. Two appointed by Holland , with one being the chairman. St. Maarten and Curacao appoint the other two. They might as well stay home, because in the event of a tied vote, the vote of the chairman (appointed by Holland ) is the tiebreaker. End result: Holland firmly in charge of each island's finances.
8 - This watchdog can also ask the Kingdom government to intervene directly into St. Maarten’s (or Curacao ) financial affairs and place it under higher supervision. The kingdom government can also issue direct orders to our government. Something that is unheard of.

Financial Matters and the debt write-off:

This is where the biggest obfuscation will occur. This is also the biggest canard. The way it has been presented by Mr. Richard Gibson is as if Holland is standing by with a 5 billion guilder check to write off our debts in one swell swoop and carry us off to live happily ever after in the land of make belief. Nothing can be further from the truth. The wording of this part of the “slotakkoord” is so cumbersome and complex that it immediately sets off alarm bells. Some skulduggery is going on here. The so-called debt relief is so cloaked in conditions and sub-conditions and clauses intertwined with impenetrable technical jargon, that finding debt relief will prove to be rather illusory. Here is what I could garner from the document after reading it about 5 or 6 times. If you don’t have the patience don’t try and even if you do, there is no guarantee you will be able to penetrate the thick fog

Not all the debt will be paid. Holland has decided (yep, this document has the look and feel of something dictated to a hapless Antillean delegation) that we remain with a part of the debt. The formula states that the amount is “equal to the interest load”. Interest load is the maximum amount the government will be allowed to pay on interest. This formula goes on to say that 5% of the average receipts over three years can be paid in interest. If we assume for argument sake that St. Maarten’s average receipts are about 180 million per year, 5% means 9 million guilders max can be paid in interest in any given year. If we assume the island pays 9% interest on its loans that means that it can remain with a debt of Naf. 100 million ( 9% of 100 million = 9 million for the arithmetically challenged). So you see, this is not a total debt write-off. But it gets even trickier!
In order to get one penny during the period leading up to Separate Status, St. Maarten will have to meet four conditions, chief among them being allowing Holland full and total control over the island’s finances as outlined above. Holland will stop payment the moment they are not satisfied St. Maarten is cooperating fully with its own humiliation.
Holland will send down a team of technical assistants (to live in great luxury at exorbitant salaries) to collect taxes. At least, Holland will pay their salaries.

What this financial control means:

At a time when St. Maarten will be taking on greater financial burdens, it will be placed on a financial diet that will make the IMF and World Bank green with envy. Even if we need an additional 200 civil servants as I have heard bandied about, and it cannot be paid for in the budget it will not happen, which is the way it is supposed to be. But do we have to have someone else do that for us? Surely Holland will never let the European Union handle it finances under any pretext. The conditions imposed are reserved by the World Bank, acting as lender of last resort, to financial basket cases. Here SxM has agreed to draconian measures intended for the absolutely, totally and completely financially destitute nations of the world.

The fundamentals of negotiation:

One fundamental, immutably law of negotiating is this: You cannot negotiate successfully if you do not have something the other party wants, at least as badly as what you want from them. St. Maarten went to Holland to negotiate with absolutely nothing to offer Holland in return. Holland came promising debt relief, even if Holland itself has to borrow the money to offer this so-called debt relief. No wonder St. Maarten got taken to the cleaners. Kim Il Soon of North Korea understands this principle. This is why he tested a nuclear bomb. Now he has something to bargain with. Aruba and Anguilla were in the same position. Stuck with recalcitrant mother countries that refused them Separate Status, they made creative use of violence. Anguilla chased the St. Kitts policemen from their island and instantly got what they wanted. In Aruba , the same thing happened during the riots in 1972. When Holland realized that the next step would be armed confrontation between Aruba and Curacao, Separate Status for Aruba suddenly became possible. Aruba had a powerful tool with which to negotiate, albeit unintentionally arrived at. For the price of peace (that is, not having a violent confrontation with Curacao) Holland was willing to give them Separate Status under, compared to St. Maarten and Curacao , very favorable terms.

Why we independistas were right

Starting from the assumption that we must have something to offer Holland in negotiations about constitutional matters we can conclude that since Holland will desperately love to get rid of us, we can set as a condition for departing, complete debt relief, plus a handsome parting bonus. If on the other hand, Holland is reluctant to let us leave the Kingdom we can again negotiate as near equals, this time with the roles being reversed. Instead of us begging to stay in the Kingdom, they will be asking us to stay. In that event we apply the same logic. Debt relief and more autonomy as the price for remaining in the Kingdom.