Ladies and Gentlemen,
Dear Taco,
Today is a special day for law enforcement in the Caribbean. With your upcoming retirement comes the age-Stein, or better said: the eras Stein ended. The past 25 years have thrice served for a long time and in different functions, the Public Prosecutor of St. Martin: first as a prosecutor, then as a field officer, and the last four years as attorney general. The latter function held you in between also in Aruba.
In 1983 you started your career at the Dutch Public Prosecution Service in Middelburg. After six years made the move you to your beloved Rotterdam, where you have worked, among other fraud cases. After your first deployment to Sint Maarten you first returned to the prosecutor’s office in Rotterdam, then for six years working at the National Office. Since you have been, among others at the forefront of the fight against cybercrime and have been part of the team that was responsible for the purposes of investigating serious crime with interceptions and special operations.
That first broadcast to Sint Maarten, between 1991 and 1996, must have done something special with you, because then you have lived and worked continuously in the West since 2005. It will certainly have been not only the dirt-cheap gasoline for your Harley, but certainly also the relaxed island life, away from the cold and the rat race in the Netherlands. Many of those present here will recognize that all too well.
In all these years you’ve been through a lot and have seen you change the islands. You were here for years when, in September ’95 hurricane Luis mercilessly thrashing, and which many opted for evacuation to the Netherlands, then you just stayed here and have you there where you could helped to build up the island again. Years later you have in your role of the chief public prosecutor of St. Maarten after turbulent times again helped on top of which the foundations were laid for the expansion and professionalization which subsequently took place in the years to come. As Advocate General finally you have shown you a true pioneer: his own hand you have AG’s office in 2012 stamped out of the ground, and thus played a key desire of St. Maarten after it became an independent country within the Kingdom in 2010.
Thus, Taco, you have become a true island man. Someone who is part of the local community with a great sensitivity to what is happening in that society. Someone with a strong connection to the people and the wellbeing of this island. You will be welcomed and appreciated by many. Walking through Front Street, driving in the car or on your Harley, waiting at the airport you will always and everywhere people that you without exception extensive and greet you warmly. Birds of all sorts, ranging from politicians and ministers, business contacts and friends, also to ex-offenders you’ve ever locked up but nevertheless no grudge
cherish. As you may quote like with a grin, “you do the crime, you do the time!”.
I got to know you as a cheerful and laconic problem solver, a realist with a keen eye for both the possibilities and the limitations of the relatively small OM organizations on the islands. In the exercise of your functions you stoic and low-profile, with a great sense of perspective and humor. In the close-knit societies of the islands have also always proven to be totally autonomous and independent. That I have great respect and admiration for. Gradually, you have become as the honest face of the Public Prosecutor in St. Maarten.
As no one will have noticed, there is currently a lot of attention to the development of law enforcement in Sint Maarten, and the country can count on the active support and assistance from, among others, the Netherlands. That is certainly not always been so, Taco, nobody has anyone else to talk about. Certainly in the past, the Sint Maarten prosecutor must often make do with what it had. It has been a tough task with extremely limited resources yet to build an OM could function properly. That was sometimes downright a thankless task. The task and responsibility you have, however, always taken you with vigor and conviction, and successfully.
That you are the proud founding father of the OM in Sint Maarten as we know it and hence you also stand at the basis of many new developments that the Office is going through the final period. Partly because of your experiences, your knowledge, your diplomatic skills, we as the Public Prosecutor of leadership inspired to put the current developments underway. You have in the last period of your great career there may be provided to a greater contribution than you realize.
You will now enjoy a well-deserved retirement. I understand that you Sint Maarten will not completely abandoned, but choose the variant ‘best of both worlds. Summers spent in the Netherlands with your children and grandchildren, and the months when it is reversed by harsher and bleaker you leave for your loved Friendly Island. I’ll give you quite right, and I am convinced that St. Maarten will continue to receive you with open arms.
Taco, with this I express my profound gratitude and appreciation for all the good work that you have done over the years for the prosecution, in the Netherlands and in the Caribbean. With your departure loses OM Sint Maarten are highly esteemed patriarch.
Ladies and gentlemen, having said all that I want to make a toast to Taco Stein, starting Advocate-General and one of the figureheads of our organization. We wish him and his wife Francine very lucky.