January 07, 2009

THE TRUE MEANING OF "GOING DUTCH"

What is this? A divorce? Do you want half? Is that how you resort to problems? Telling people to "pay up"...but this time you can't bully us, Aruba.

This was never a "Dutch Date".

Suck it up. Pay it yourself. We pay for everyone else in the world. Take care of your own mess that YOU created for yourselves.

You cut your nose off to spite your face when it all could have been avoided. You try to play this out by putting on your best poker face, push the bet and see if we'd call your bluff.

And ouch. You bet the entire farm--and LOST badly.

Now you have all this mess all over a few (un) "important" low-lives who think they are above the law? I'd be feeling a bit foolish right now if I were in your position. Aruba, you are the epitome of clueless tools.




Aruba's chief public prosecutor has defended the police investigation into the disappearance of Natalee Holloway. He claims it was one of the most expensive homicide investigations of all time. Meanwhile, allegations of Aruban corruption rumble on.

The investigation into the disappearance of Natalee Holloway was one of the most expensive investigations of its kind ever carried out in the world, according to Aruba's chief public prosecutor Hans Mos.

Speaking at a press conference on the island, he said he estimated that the investigation had cost more than 7.5 million euros. "I would challenge the United States to produce a homicide investigation that cost as much as this. This cost a fortune. The Netherlands sent detectives who had to be given accommodation, and F16 aircraft as well."


Intense media coverage

The controversial Holloway case has attracted intense media coverage around the world, particularly in the US and the Netherlands, and the investigation has attracted heavy criticism.

Natalee Holloway, then aged 18, disappeared during a school trip to the Dutch island of Aruba in 2005. She vanished after a drunken nighttime trip to a beach with Dutch student Joran van der Sloot, then aged 17, and two older friends. He was one of ten people arrested during the investigation, but was never charged. He was to become the focus of massive media attention and outrage, amidst allegations of police failure to bring him to justice.

In February last year, Dutch crime reporter Peter R de Vries screened a controversial documentary which he claimed solved the case. Hidden camera footage showed Joran van der Sloot confessing that Natalee Holloway had become unwell and died on the beach. He said he had arranged for a friend to dispose of the body at sea. However, a Dutch judge ruled that the footage didn't provide sufficient evidence for him to be rearrested.


Investigation continues

The public prosecutor's office says the investigation will be continuing for some months. Chief public prosecutor Hans Mos declined to name a specific date on which the police would close the case. Neither would he say if the office had come any closer to bringing charges against Joran van der Sloot. There appear to be few leads left to follow up in the case.

Many tip-offs have proved fruitless. A fisherman claimed that on the night of the disappearance a large knife was stolen from him, and in the same month a large lobsterpot went missing. The lobsterpot turned out to have been at his home all along.

Fabric retrieved from the sea by the costly research vessel Persistence proved after all not to match Holloway's clothing.

A recording of an incriminating telephone conversation allegedly between Joran and his father is currently being analysed for authenticity by the Dutch Forensic Institute.


"Second rate police team"

Recently Aruba's justice minister Rudy Croes said that Dutch police commissioner Jan van der Straten had delayed the start of investigations in order to protect his friend, Joran's father Paulus van der Sloot, who was working for the Justice Ministry on Aruba at the time.

Shortly after Natalee's disappearance in 2005, the Dutch police commissioner was reportedly overheard saying "I cannot do this to my friend Paul". Mr Croes also accused Mr Van der Straten of putting a "second rate police team" on the case.

On Wednesday in an interview with US news channel Fox News, Dutch right-wing Freedom Party MP Hero Brinkman repeated Mr Croes' allegations, and described Aruba as being "corrupt as hell".

The interview came at the start of a biannual conference between politicians from the Netherlands and the Dutch Caribbean islands, the Antilles and Aruba. The meeting was cancelled last year following Aruban outrage at similar remarks made by Mr Brinkman. And this year too, angry Aruban politicians nearly scuppered the conference again in response to Mr Brinkman's comments on Fox News.

Aruba's damaged reputation in the wake of the Holloway case continues to hamper the island's economy, which is heavily dependent on US tourism. Mr Mos denied the allegations of corruption and deliberate failure to follow up the relevant leads. He said he had even spent two and a half months consulting a psychic on the case, "who turned out to have dreamed everything".


http://www.radionetherlands.nl/currentaffairs/region/netherlands/090107-natalee-holloway


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

yea it is corrupt on Aruba but it doesnt come close to the good old USA .

Most hypocrite country in the world..finally there is a smart guy president but ofcourse hes too late to clean up the mess of the other 43.

But in the end who cares were having a good time in the sun.

bye bye