THE DUTCH ISLANDS SHAKE-UP, IS DEBT TO BLAME?
Antilles granted new status in 2008
AMSTERDAM – The Netherlands Antilles will cease to exist as such next year. It was agreed earlier that the islands would receive a new status this summer, but this has been postponed until 2008.
Minister for Kingdom Relations Atzo Nicolaï reached agreements in the Antilles on the subdivision. Agreements still have to be made with Curacao, but it is likely this island will be granted country status like Sint Maarten. The Netherlands is giving a half billion euro to the Antilles. Most of the money will be used to pay off debt.
Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba will become Dutch municipalities and Sint Maarten will be a separate country within the Kingdom.
Minister for Kingdom Relations Atzo Nicolaï reached agreements in the Antilles on the subdivision. Agreements still have to be made with Curacao, but it is likely this island will be granted country status like Sint Maarten. The Netherlands is giving a half billion euro to the Antilles. Most of the money will be used to pay off debt.
Michelle's note: Why is it that there has been all this discussion about how these Dutch-owned islands have so much debt? My question is: Where does their illegal money go? Who gets it? What kind of debt are these islands in for, and how much? These are questions that the Dutch need to answer, because it sounds as fishy as those islands already smell.
7 comments:
So the Dutch answer to the problem is to change the name and give some money.
Borrowing a term from the Guinness commercials ... BRILLIANT! not.
Don
illegal monies dont trickle down to benefit the community. they are used for ones simple necessities as to fly our sons back and forth from europe every few months and expensive lawyers fees.
The Asians are buying up the Antillies. The Dutch Kingdom is completely broken by the government wasteful spending and corruptions. The Dutch wholesaled their island populations for slavery and hard labors market in Panama and Venesuela.
You people have no clue. A crime against an American happens in a country you probably never heard of before, and suddenly you are expert in foreign affairs. Have you ever heard the terms "third world" or "developing nations"? Most colonized island states fall in this category, due to limited resources. For goodness sake, please stop posting about things you don't know about.
Please do enlighten me how you have educated yourself on the diplomacy between the Netherlands Antilles and the Netherlands. Unless you live in one of those countries, you probably haven't got a clue.
Would you care to enlighten us Ms. Smarty Pants?
Indeed I will try. I was born and raised on Saba, and went to a Dutch school on the island. I think it's a bit odd that people on this site say they have nothing against Saba, just against the Dutch. Well, last I checked, my passport and heritage indicated I was Dutch. Even those people who are not of Dutch ancestry (i.e. English, Irish, African, South American) consider themselves Dutch.
Debt is an unfortunate part of being on an island. As you might imagine, there are limited resources - it's not like we have gold or something to mine, or endless amounts of land for agriculture. Fishing and tourism are the primary forms of industry on most islands. The income and taxes from that and income taxes are generally not enough to cover the costs of healthcare and infrastructure to support the population. So this debt you are concerned about, it's for sending citizens to the larger islands to get medical help, education, or to expand schools, medical facilities, nursing homes, run the airports, harbours. We're also prone to natural disasters (hurricanes). Hence we need help.
It would do the readers of this site well to visit sites such as www.volkskrant.nl, or www.vvd.nl to read about the constitutional changes that are taking place.
I guess I don't understand why the constitutional changes, that have been going on for many years, and are culminating in the recent historic agreement, are of interest to the readers of this site. This is something the individual islands and the Netherlands have worked really hard for, for a very long time. Please have some respect for this. I don't deny that something horrible happened to Ms. Holloway in Aruba and that you want justice for her. Trust me, I haven't met anyone from Aruba/the Antilles who doesn't want whoever the killer/kidnapper is brought to justice. But reprinting articles that discuss the culmination of a decade long process, which I'm pretty sure most readers have not been following for the last ten or more years, well, I'm just not sure what the benefit is.
"Michelle's note: Why is it that there has been all this discussion about how these Dutch-owned islands have so much debt?"
"Dutch-owned". Excuse me?? Are serious? You sister humping red-neck!! Don't talk about something you have completely no idea about. since when are you the expert on Netherlands/Netherlands Antilles political affairs? The Islands that you are talking about stopped being "Dutch-owned" and became part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands since the 1950's. Atleast treat us with some decent respect!
A punkass bastard like you wouldn’t look at the facts now wouldn’t he? After all he just insulted a struggling country and all of its citizens just to try to "feel" good about him self after all he’s doing all this for 1 missing person who happened to be born in the US.
Well big deal!! Of all the people who go missing daily (including in the US!) why should the world stop turning for one girl? Why must the inhabitants of a country suffer and be ridiculed on the world stage(by pompous morons like the one in "charge” of this oh so accurate piece of press) for the sake of one person?
Although the story is tragic, it is one in sea of billions of other tragic stories.
My question is, why not all the same attention for them?
Pleas get a life! Move ON! SHUT THIS WEBSITE DOWN!! Do something.. u have kept these scars opened long enough. Time to let them heal my friend. With all due respect, YOU ARE NOT HELPING WITH ANYTHING!!
What are you afraid of? Post this!
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