St. Maarten Private Eye

I like your definition of local and I subscribe to that same thinking myself. I wrote some time back that I thought there were two kinds of foreigners, the kind that love the island, invest themselves into it and make it their home, and those who are just passing through and making a buck. Whilst I understand and sympathise with groups like the SMNBF, their program, whilst including some immigrants, does seem to me to be along the lines of wanting to have first and second class citizens.
If the lady from St. Kitts has been here a long time and is a permanent resident then her's is a local job, I am sure there are others like her employed there. But the fact remains that several people have made descrete enquiries whilst visiting the resort, and it is fairly clear that the number of locals, including those like the lady from St. Kitts, is not 80%.
When you add the destruction and polution of the environment, the inconsideration and even outright disrespect towards the residents, the 6 month contracts and minimum wage jobs, then it would be a very long stretch to say Dawn Beach Westin has been and is good for the island. Let's not forget the tax holidays and the rights to own and run all businesses within the resort, then the conclusion is that It is good to itself and it's politician friends only.

And that's the crux isn't it. Our politicians and print media are enslaved to developers and business, first of all with the illusion that rapid construction and hotels is the same thing as progress, and secondly by money and favors.

When nature activists and residents went to Dawn Beach to look at and record what was going on, they faced threatening attitudes and they had their photographs taken too. What would be the reason behind that? Maybe to identify and single out troublemakers?

Columbia Sussex has passed the point where they could just change their attitude and become good corporate 'island' residents as defined yourself, for me they need to appologize too. We will continue to give their story full coverage here and who knows, perhaps one day we can make it all into an educational movie for Caribbean Politicians, about how not to pimp your island and people out to people like CS.

Flipper