Dear Commissioner Hyacinth RICHARDSON,
Celebration SXM-Day 09...big step in the right direction
On behalf of my board, it is our privilege to highly commend you, your staff and the organizing committee for the St. Maarten/St. Martin Day 2009 for taking the celebration of this day to a 'new level'.
One of recognizing our ancestors, our people, our cultural-identity, heritage etc.on this day, specifically initiated 50 years ago to celebrate and commemorate our indivisible oneness as native St. Martin people.
It must be said, that since a very, very long time, we as St. Martiners felt that this historical day was really about us as a people and therefore worth celebrating.
It certainly gave us a feeling of finally being recognized in our own home-land and we are very pleased with that.
However, we do hope that during the celebration next year, the recognition of we the native St. Martiners, our history, our heritage as well as our rights to be preserved as such, will be presented to the people as part of the constitution of both sides of the island.
We will not only very keenly monitor the development towards such a 'next level', but we remain available to the Island-government of St. Maarten and the Collectivite of Saint Martin in partnership to contribute towards such.
While it is a great step forward for our government to have the courage and the decency to finally recognize we the native people of the island, without these nice words also being 'grounded' in legislation and in the constitution as well, they might just turn out to be lip-service, something that should be avoided at this time, because we St. Martiners are feeling replaced through genocide by substitution on a daily basis.
In ending, Mr. Commissioner, once more our sincerest compliments as well as my thanks for recognizing the work I have been doing towards the development of our island.
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Leopold James
President SNBF & L'Esprit de Concordia
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