BONAIRE: 1 July 2026, James Finies announces to the people of Bonaire that, in recognition of the abolition of slavery in 1863 in the colonized Antillean islands of the Caribbean, the Bonaire Draft Resolution, sponsored by two Caribbean CARICOM countries, was formally submitted and registered into the administrative process of the 80th United Nations General Assembly on 10th June 2026.
Since 1955, when Bonaire and the former Netherlands Antilles islands were removed by the Netherlands from the United Nations List of Non-Self-Governing Territories (NSGT), this is the most significant step taken toward a major constitutional action concerning the colonized Dutch Caribbean islands.
This Bonaire Draft Resolution urges recognition that Bonaire remains a Non-Self-Governing Territory within the meaning of the Charter of the United Nations and declares that an obligation exists under Article 73 of the Charter on the part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, as the administering Power of the Territory of Bonaire, to transmit information on Bonaire. It further requests the Special Committee on Decolonization to consider the question of Bonaire at its next session and to report thereon to the General Assembly at its eighty-first session. The draft proposal was uploaded by the United Nations General Assembly Secretariat for worldwide access, including the 193 Member States of the United Nations, through the e-Delegate system.
What does this mean for Bonaire? It means that the Netherlands will be obligated to be accountable and report to the United Nations General Assembly on the social, economic, cultural, political, and educational development of the native Bonerian people, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and the treaties that the Netherlands agreed to and signed in 1945. This has happened only three times in world history: in New Caledonia in 1986, French Polynesia in 2013, and now, for the first time in this part of the world, with Bonaire in June 2026.
How did this happen? From 2003 to 2010, James Finies stood up, publicly objected, and voiced his opposition to the divisive and polarizing direction in which Bonairean and Antillean politicians were heading. From 2010 to 2016, James Finies abandoned his lifelong career as a commercial banker and became a full-time volunteer human rights defender on Bonaire and throughout the Antilles, advocating for a referendum and the right to self-determination. Following the failure to respect Bonaire's 2015 referendum, James Finies, from 2016 to 2026, embarked on an international trajectory of continuous awareness-raising and lobbying missions throughout the Caribbean, Central and Latin America, Europe, and the United Nations in Geneva and New York, advocating for the re-listing of Bonaire under the protection of the United Nations.
The advocacy group led by Mr. Finies is the only organization that has consistently worked, from 2003 to the present day in 2026, to highlight and justify the need for the international community to intervene in Bonaire and the wider Dutch Caribbean islands as part of a civil society effort.
Why Bonaire? - The people of Bonaire were left unprotected and abandoned by the CAS islands when Curaçao, Aruba, and St. Maarten, together with the Netherlands, following the dissolution of the Netherlands Antilles in 2010, unilaterally removed Bonaire from the protection of the Kingdom Charter. The people of Bonaire were incorporated, against their wishes and without their consent, into the Constitution of the Netherlands, subordinated and placed at the mercy of external rule from The Hague.
Unlike Curaçao, Aruba, St. Maarten, Saba, and St. Eustatius, Bonaire has since developed into a silent but major humanitarian crisis. Bonaire is in a dire situation, facing immediate demographic and cultural erasure. Native Bonerians, who comprised more than 70% of the population before 2010, according to CBS statistics, have been systematically reduced through institutionalized laws and policies to under 30% today, with predictions that within ten years, by 2035, they will account for less than 15% of the population but fortunately Bonaire possess large diaspora in the Dutch Kingdom. This places the Bonerians at risk of imminent eradication over the next decades if the world and the international community do not intervene to protect the Bonerian people.
James Finies - Bonaire
