PHILIPSBURG:--- The Unified Resilient St. Maarten Movement (URSM), under the leadership of President Brenda Brooks, is fiercely disapproving of recent remarks made by far-right Dutch MP Thierry Baudet. Baudet proposed repopulating St. Maarten with hundreds of thousands of Dutch nationals to bring the island “under control." Baudet, known for his inflammatory and extremist views, shared his vision for demographic and economic domination of the Dutch Caribbean during a Parliamentary Committee meeting on Kingdom Relations this week.
President Brenda Brooks denounced Baudet’s remarks as “a grotesque resurrection of colonial mindsets dressed up as economic strategy.”
“St. Maarten is not an empty canvas for empire-building,” Brooks declared. “We are not subjects to be relocated, reengineered, or ruled over. —and we will not be dictated to by those still romanticizing a colonial past.”
The URSM board collectively described Baudet’s proposals as “an insult to the dignity and intelligence of the people of St. Maarten and the wider Caribbean.”
“This isn’t vision—it’s revisionism,” the board stated. “It’s a reckless blend of racial arrogance and economic imperialism parading as innovation. Such rhetoric has no place in modern governance and must be challenged at every level.”
Baudet's outrageous suggestions included transforming the Dutch Caribbean islands into low-tax economic zones and flying asylum seekers to Saba for processing, triggering alarm over human rights concerns and exploitative practices.
“His statements reflect an obsession with dominance, not development,” Brooks added. “We’ve endured centuries of being treated as property and profit margins. We will not allow that narrative to be rewritten in the 21st century under the guise of economic opportunity. The people of St. Maarten are not here to be managed—we’re here to be respected.”
The URSM is calling on the Dutch Parliament to reject Baudet’s remarks outright and recommit to the values of mutual respect, equity, and shared progress.
“This moment demands more than polite disagreement—it demands moral clarity,” the board emphasized. “This is not simply about one politician’s twisted views. It’s about confronting the dangerous normalization of ideas that reduce Dutch Caribbean citizens to pawns in a play for power. That must end now.”
