Member of Parliament George Pantophlet says that from the little he heard and read about the guns and ammunition shipment intercepted by Customs at Curacao’s Airport a lot of emphasis seems to be placed on the fact that it originated from St. Maarten.
It appears that no manifest no sort of labels were on these bags. Hopefully the ongoing investigation will bring the matter light. But a person or persons must have had access to the ramp in order to place these bags in the luggage or cargo area of the plane. The Member of Parliament wants to go further. His query would be how did the guns reach St. Maarten in the first place? Because the last time he checked there are no gun factories on St. Maarten. Were these weapons bought on or brought in from the French side? Were they smuggled in on a yacht in the lagoon, or by an undetected speed boat that landed on one of our patrolled beaches? Probably as the investigation intensifies we will get to the bottom of this very serious matter. And then my advice would be for the Government of St. Maarten to insist on the Dutch government that they sign the agreement that was sent a year ago for closer cooperation between the two sides of the island? In a Central committee meeting about 1 month ago the Minister of Justice Rolan Duncan informed members of Parliament that the document has been sitting on someone’s desk in The Hague for almost 1 year now. All indications are that the document has already been signed by France. The Member of Parliament sees this as impeding both sides from being able to protect their citizens. The Dutch have always placed great importance on trans-border crimes so why the delay? The much talked about cooperation between Dutch and French side of the island especially in the area of combating crime has to be intensified.