Curacao/St. Maarten:--- The Ministers of Justice of St. Maarten, Curacao, and Aruba are yet to take a firm decision as to how they will move on with the RST that has set up shop on each of the countries. St. Maarten's Minister of Justice Roland Duncan in a telephone interview from Curacao told SMN News on Friday afternoon that the Ministers met to continue the discussion they started last month in Aruba. Minister Duncan said during the meeting with the Presidium a decision was taken where the three countries will draft a letter and send it to the Minister of Defense informing him of their concerns regarding the operations and services of the Coast Guard. Minister Duncan said they discussed a pilot program for St. Maarten and Aruba. In that pilot program the intention is to decentralize the Coast Guard, especially from the commander in Curacao to the local Coast Guard offices on the two countries namely St. Maarten and Aruba. It is also suggested in the pilot program that an evaluation will be done after one year. The Justice Minister said in his view this is a first attempt to deal with the issues of the Coast Guard, the Minister made clear that the decision they took during Friday's meeting is not a final solution but he believes that it is a step in the right direction because he felt decentralizing would give St. Maarten the opportunity to involve the local government some more. The Justice Minister said what they did on Friday was theoretical and it will be evaluated after one year to see how it functioned practically.
Duncan said that one of the things they will mention in the letter to the Minister of Defense is the equipments. Duncan said one of the things he has to see is what St. Maarten is getting out of the relationship, therefore parties have to be serious enough to discuss the failures or lack of interest. Minister Duncan said St. Maarten has a big mega yacht economy and a tourism industry which is far bigger than Curacao and Aruba, therefore St. Maarten is asking for special attention from the Coast Guard. St. Maarten wants to have its maritime police with a fully functioning harbor police that can patrol the lagoons. He said he already indicated to the Coast Guard that they have to provide the services St. Maarten needs if not St. Maarten will go ahead and set up its own maritime police and the Ministry of Justice would have to buy boats so that the job can be done. He said as Minister of Justice his first obligation is the security of St. Maarten and if he is not able to provide that security then St. Maarten would have a problem. The Justice Minister said this matter was raised by the FCCA last year. He said from day one he has been telling the Coast Guard if they agree to take care of air and sea patrol then they need to do the job and they have to do so under the command of the local law enforcement agencies. Duncan said people are asking why he is purchasing boats while there are boats at the Coast Guard. He said the boats that are owned by the Coast Guard have big cutters so they simply cannot patrol in the lagoons and monitor Oyster Pond. He said that is why he is now buying boats for the police and it is not because he has a problem with the Coast Guard but it is because they are not providing adequate services to St. Maarten. He said Curacao and Aruba have the same concerns and they too want to ensure that they could rely on the Coast Guard for certain services. Duncan said Aruba bought boats for its police and they also bought a helicopter because the Coast Guard does not provide the services that Aruba wants from them, he said the same thing applies to St. Maarten.
RST still has no Budget --- Year Plan has to Reflect the Budget.
The Ministers of Justice from Aruba, Curacao, and St. Maarten also met to further discuss the budget of the RST. Minister Duncan said that the RST budget was not approved during this meeting. Duncan said there is still some information lacking from St. Maarten regarding the RST. The budget the RST presented does not show what the countries, Curacao, Aruba, and St. Maarten are contributing.
He said Aruba doesn't appear to have much more problems with the RST and they also don't seem to have a problem with the budget of the RST. Duncan said both St. Maarten and Curacao do not agree with the budget the RST presented. The budget has to reflect what the countries are contributing and the services they are paying for. He said that he has to give Parliament accountability on how he is spending the people's money. "The RST does not have a prison, some of the detectives working for the RST are being paid by St. Maarten but this is not reflected in their budget."
Minister Duncan said the year plan that was presented represented the philosophy of the RST and the two countries do not agree with these philosophies, therefore the year plan has to be re-visited. Minister Duncan said there is a committee in place that comprises of the police chiefs of the countries within the Kingdom (namely Curacao, St. Maarten, and Aruba, the President of that committee is the Chief of Police of St. Maarten Peter de Witte) and this committee had the task of re-working the annual plan (year plan) of the RST. Minister Duncan said he is hoping that the report will be completely finalized in another few weeks. He said the committee did submit a report but the Ministers did not have enough time to fully analyze the report with the suggestions that were made by the committee, therefore no final decision was taken on the report submitted by the board of the police chiefs. Minister Duncan said he is not in any rush to take decisions on these matters because he wants to be able to tread carefully on the decisions he will take. "Aruba already made clear that the protocol of the RST should be revisited now and not in 2014." It should be noted that in 2008 Suzy Romer made a report where she stated that she felt the same way in 2008 about the Protocol of the RST. Minister Duncan said he agreed with Aruba and what the former Minister Suzy Romer said but the agreement they have is with Curacao, St. Maarten, and the Netherlands which states that the RST will be evaluated in 2014. Duncan said the Netherlands feels that changes should be made in 2014 when the evaluation is done, but Aruba's position is that the Netherlands does not have to do any evaluation because in their view the protocol is no longer relevant. Duncan said right now there is a new situation where the Police Forces in the various countries are much stronger now than they were in the year 2000 when the protocol on the RST was signed. He said one of the concerns is the operations of the RST outside of the local police force is not acceptable. He said while the RST was put in place to provide support they have a tendency to believe that they are functioning on their own and they don't report to anyone locally. Duncan said he is not creating issues with the Netherlands regarding the RST because St. Maarten is not the only one that has concerns and not in favor of the functioning of the RST. He said right now the Netherlands cannot just blame him for not wanting to cooperate because Curacao and Aruba have the same problems as St. Maarten. The Justice Minister of St. Maarten said Holland does not want to agree with these issues because their intention (mission) is to dictate. Minister Duncan explained that no date has been set by the Ministers of Justice as to when they will meet again to continue the discussion on the operations of the RST and take a decision in the interest of each of the countries. He said they agreed to make contact with each other next week and at that point they will set a new date to meet again. Minister Duncan further explained he basically wants a new relationship with the RST. The Minister of Justice said that even though the RST has its own budget, St. Maarten has to pay the detectives that work for the entity as well as pay to accommodate and the feed the people they investigate and arrest. Besides that, Minister Duncan said that he is of the opinion that KPSM (St. Maarten's Police) is already in a position to hold its own and he is willing to cooperate with the world, not only the Netherlands. "Cooperation is different from having a law enforcement agency imbedded in your country." He said if they are to provide assistance then he should be able to call on them for that assistance but they should not set up a separate shop in St. Maarten. "Why do we need to have a Dutch organization that is managed by the Netherlands in St Maarten? In my opinion they don't trust us, yet they are disturbing the progress of St. Maarten and when they are told this they get upset." Minister Duncan said that there is a new argument with the Dutch regarding Saba and St. Eustatius. He said that the BES is trying to dictate for St. Maarten and while Minister Plasterk had a lot of nonsense to say in his letter, he never mentioned that St. Maarten is subsidizing two of the three BES islands with electricity. The matter of GEBE is not even mentioned but they are telling us about our taxes, airport taxes, and WINAIR (a private company). Minister Duncan further explained that WINAIR is a government owned company and the Dutch is telling us to intervene and tell WINAIR what to do to benefit them. Furthermore, PJIAE has a concession with the Government of St. Maarten and here the Dutch and their reporters are telling us that we should tell PJIAE what to do with their airport taxes. He said that the Dutch is constantly complaining but they are not speaking about GEBE and he believes what is good for the goose is also good for the gander. "Being a country within the Kingdom does not make any sense if the Dutch has the gall to write letters telling St. Maarten to decrease its taxes and what to do with government owned companies."