OLD NEWS ON THE NETHERLAND ANTILLES, YET DISTURBINGLY RELEVANT

NETHERLAND ANTILLES POLITICAL LEADER CONVICTED OF CORRUPTION

WILLEMSTAD, Netherlands Antilles 2004 (AFP): The appeals court in Willemstad, the capital of the Netherlands Antilles, on Friday convicted the leader of the islands biggest political party to 15 months in prison, five of them suspended, for corruption and money laundering.




A lower court had already sentenced Anthony Godett, who leads the Frente Obrero Liberashon (FOL) party to a 12 months in prison of which three were suspended. The appeals court Friday said that sentence was insufficient in regard of the seriousness of the facts. Godett, whose FOL party came out on top in the Netherlands Antilles elections in April last year, was convicted for taking bribes, forgery and laundering money.




Slated to become prime minister after the elections, Godett had to give up that position because of the investigations and court cases launched against him. Instead he pushed his sister, Mirna Godett, forward as a candidate for the job.


After several scandals, Mirna Godett's government resigned after nine months. She also had no political experience whatsoever and she wasn't even fluent in Dutch, the language of government) to take "his" office. Myrna Godett who was a secretary for a waste disposal company had no education to speak of and was in fact a puppet of Anthony Godett who led the FOL and in fact the entire Netherlands Antilles from behind bars.


The Dutch Antilles are made up of five islands, Curacao, which has the most inhabitants, Bonaire, Sint Maarten, Sint Eustatius and Saba. Although the islands are an integral part of the kingdom of the Netherlands they have their own government.

Political crisis in the Netherlands Antilles

After about nine months, the Netherlands Antilles cabinet of Prime Minister Mirna Louisa-Godett (FOL) finally fell. The direct cause was the refusal of Justice Minister Ben Komproe (FOL) to leave his post after protecting convicted party members from going to jail.

Who was Ben Komproe?

As Minister of Justice, Komproe ordered the RST or recherchesamenwerkingsteam ("Team for Cooperative Criminal Investigation"), to cease investigation of his brother Hedwig Komproe. (Komproe and others appropriated almost a million guilders of the old Post NV was was sentenced to two years.) Additionally, he tried to have Attorney General Dick Piar fired.


When word finally came out that he had abused his position to help keep fellow party member Nelson Monte out of prison (Ben Komproe instructed the prison director to keep Monte in the hospital on "social indication", a condition not provided for by law. Yet another illegal act of Komproe.) The Netherlands Antillean parliament forced Komproe to step down, leading to the fall of the Godett Cabinet.


After his resignation, a judicial investigation was started on Komproe's tenure as a minister. The investigation included what went on at an open-air brothel Campo Alegre. Komproe was alleged to have given out signed letters, basically to allow dozens of prostitutes from Colombia and the Dominican Republic to reside on Curaçao. He was said to have plans to process each prostitute's permit of residence personally, and to have ordered a special stamp just for this purpose. In July of 2004, a judge determined that Komproe was not authorized to issue letters of that nature.


Additionally, Komproe did favors for Giovanni van Ierland, the incarcerated owner of the brothel. In September of 2004, Komproe was meant to be on the Curaçao Island Council for the FOL. However, he was arrested on 6 September 2004, and charged with corruption, fraud, and membership of a criminal organisation. On 24 September his imprisonment was delayed, because he had had a severe stomach operation a few days before. He never regained consciousness after his operation and died at age 61.


FOL's popularity stems mainly from its very anti-Dutch attitude. Blaming an external entity for all of Curaçao's problems has proven to be very successful with the Curaçaon population. The FOL provides them with a common enemy and an excuse for Curaçao's incompentence in governing themselves and for the general economic malaise which is rather a result of idleness of the Antillean population.


Promises of improvements in living conditions for the poorest of inhabitants have never materialised, as FOL-members have shown to be mostly out for self-enrichment at the expense of their voters.


(Source 1)

(Source 2)