A central committee of Parliament was held on Tuesday February 9, 2009 at 09.00 with the agenda a discussion with the Curacao Sports Federation (CFS) to get its own recognition to establish its own Olympic Committee for country Curacao.
In a General membership meeting the Curacao Sports Federation unanimously decided to set up a Curacao National Olympic Committee to look into the possibilities of The Curacao Sports Federation getting its own Olympic recognition after Curacao becomes a country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. However the Rules of the Handbook of the International Olympic Committee were changed in 1996. The change of article 31.1 refers to the fact that the country has to be independent. CFS wants to contest this matter in courts and is requesting the Central Government to make Ang. 120,000 available to embark on this legal process. What the CFS wants to address is the interpretation of this rule. We expressed that St. Maarten sports Federation will also like to have its own representation in the Olympic Committee. St Maarten also would like to have its own flag flown and its own anthem sang but standing in its way is also the amendment to the hand rules of the Olympic Committee. What is interesting is that the Curacao Sports Federation (CFS) in a letter dated February 9, 2010 accused the NAOC of giving incorrect information to the International Olympic Committee, a statement that they later retracted stating it was a wrong choice of words. The Netherlands Antilles Olympic Committee (NAOC) is a member of the International Olympic Committee. And although the Netherlands Antilles will be dismantling on October 10, 2010 the NAOC probably under another name still wants to represent all five islands of the Netherlands Antilles afterward they become country Curacao, St. Maarten and the BES Islands. This apparently is also supported by the Netherlands Olympic Committee (NOC) in a letter written in 2007. The Central committee of Parliament also held discussions with the NAOC on Wednesday February 10, 2010 at 09.00 on this matter. A meeting was hastily convened for 5.00 p.m. with the committee of Finance and the committee of Education and Culture. This was done to seek support from parliament to approve the Ang. 120,000 the Curacao Sports Federation requested to start legal procedures against the International Olympic Committee. Our faction could not agree to this because nowhere was St. Maarten mentioned.
What was for us an extremely important meeting was the central committee meeting on Tuesday February 9, 2010 at 2.00 p.m. to discuss the Draft Ordinance to amend the Island Regulation of the Netherlands Antilles (ERNA) making it possible for the Island councils of the Island Territories of Curacao and St. Maarten to be dismantled separately in order to hold early elections. Our faction had problems with the difference between the wording in the proposal (Aanbieding) and the wording in the draft (Ontwerp). In the proposal No.1 it says thatin the mean time each island council of the Island Territory of Curacao and St. Maarten could be dismantled separately .In the Draft it says No.2 It states that the Island councils of the Island territories of St. Maarten can be dismantled in the meantime. It did not mention the word separately. We need a guarantee that St. Maarten is not left in the cold.
Curacao already has its infrastructure in place if they choose to leave now St. Maarten will be left in a precarious situation because our infrastructure still has to be put in place.
Furthermore on page 2 of the draft ordinance our faction asked for a more detailed explanation of Article 16a sub 1 to 4. We also wanted to know why preconditions were set for the Island territory of St. Maarten to extend our island council from 11 to 15 members. Because as far as we know the 3 previous times the Island Regulation of the Netherlands Antilles was amended there weren’t any preconditions set.
We definitely need to study this very technical document properly because after the approval by the Parliament of the Netherlands Antilles and then the Kingdom government having it amended again might not be easy. It has taken us almost 10 years to get here and the faction of the National Alliance had always said that we were not ready. Don’t forget we need to have a good starting position. Now that we are closer than ever to becoming country St. Maarten we should not allow ourselves to be pushed into something that will not benefit the people of St. Maarten. Everyone must cooperate with us to accomplish this feat.
Our final central committee meeting was held with the Directorates of the Roman Catholic School Board, Public Schools and the United Protestant Christian Education. The discussions had to do with the ongoing escalation of aggression of children in school. This meeting that lasted some 4 hours brought out again the importance of parents, government and society as a whole working together. Albeit a universal problem it does not diminish our responsibility to come up with the human and financial resources.