WILLEMSTAD — The parties MAN, FK, and NPA urge Premier Emily de Jongh-Elhage (PAR) and Lieutenant Governor Lisa Dindial not to attend the meeting of the political committee next Wednesday. The parties are of the opinion that participation of the consultation, while the draft statute law passenger traffic is still up for discussion, will be a slap in the face of the Curaçao and Antillean nation.
In a reaction, Premier De Jongh-Elhage stated that she would not comply with the request of the three parties. "According to me, these parties have no more arguments, and are therefore now in search of points to still state that they oppose the matter. I wish to state clearly that these are two different issues. We have the political process and we have the draft statute law, and we are currently dealing with the political process. These two issues are not related at all".
In their letter to the delegation leaders of Curaçao and the Land, the three parties state that the Island Council of Curaçao as well as the Antillean States had strongly opposed the draft statute law by means of two motions. De Jongh-Elhage points out that her party, PAR, has also supported these motions and that her fellow party member and former minister of Justice, David Dick had conveyed the viewpoint of the Antillean government to the Netherlands.
Aliansa Patriótiko (AP) also states that Curaçao should not enter into negotiations with the Dutch government as long as the draft Statute Law Passenger Traffic is still up for discussion. AP points out that the Island Council of Curaçao as well as the States of the Antilles had opposed the relevant statute law.
AP states that the governments of Curaçao and the Land cannot act against the motion adopted by the States that was rejected the Statute Law. This motion states that ‘all possible means and necessary actions’ will be taken ‘at national as well as international level to prevent a possible implementation of a statute law as described in aforementioned challenged draft’. According to AP, it is therefore unacceptable and impossible that the local government should enter into negotiations with the Netherlands as long as the relevant draft is still up for discussion.
"Participating with the consultation boils down to betraying the people with regard to our fundamental rights and means self-mockery of our highest states organs", the AP states in a letter to the States, the Island Council, the Board of Governors, and the Antillean government.
The institute Kòrsou Fuerte i Outonomo (KFO) also consider participation with the Governmental Consultation as betrayal. The institute consisting of professionals, who had strongly supported a No during the referendum, is also of the opinion that there should be no negotiations with the Netherlands as long as the aforementioned draft statute law is still up for discussion. KFO finds that the Antillean government has the task and the obligation to protect the people against the law, which the Netherlands wish to enforce. A government that is prepared to negotiate with those that have racist intentions against their people, is prepared to sacrifice the general interest for party political interests with material profit as the only target."
Board of Governors: Land Curaçao per 10-10-2010
The Board of Governors will do its utmost to accomplish that the date of October 10th, 2010 is set as the definite transition date for the Land Curaçao. The Board of Governors states this in their letter to the Island Council. In the letter, the island government looks forward to the Governmental Consultation, which is scheduled for Wednesday.
The Board of Governors also refers in their letter to the meeting of the Steering Committee Political Changes, which took place on June 24th. During this meeting, the parties agreed that the transition date for the new statuses for the islands that are currently still part of the Antilles, ‘would be somewhere during the second half of 2010, but in any case before the end of October 2010’.
However, the Board of Governors indicates that they would attend the Governmental Consultation of September 30th with the pursuit to realize the new status of Curaçao per October 10th, next year.