His Majesty King Willem-Alexander p/a Kabinet Der Koning Postbus 20016 2500 EA Den Haag, Nederland
Bonaire, July 4th, 2018
Majesty,
I write this letter as a follow-up to my prior letters to Your Majesty of June 9th, 2017 and October 22nd, 2017 with questions based on our personal meeting of September 16, 2013 on Bonaire and your promise to me and the people of Bonaire and with questions on the violation of the United Nations Charter by the Kingdom of the Netherlands which your Cabinet, in letters of July 5th and July 25th, 2017, only promised to answer as more time was needed to formulate answers, but up to today no answer to the questions was received.
On July 1st, 2018 we on Bonaire took note that Your Majesty landed on our sister island Curacao an autonomous country within the Kingdom for an official visit in connection with the celebration of Curacao’s autonomy and their own flag day of July 2nd.
Ironically, July 1st is for us the most important day in our history in remembrance and celebration of July 1st, 1863. Only 155 years ago our ancestors were given by Your Majesty’s government officially the status of humans. When we were recognized again as a human being, after being abducted and uprooted from our ancestral land and homes, culture, religion, way of life, Your Majesty’s government decided that we were not a trade-good or object with an owner anymore and were free again to start our emancipation and start building our own nations. We were about the last to be set free and have our humanity recognized. Almost a century, 100 years after the enslaved in other Caribbean islands were already free.
I know for sure that Your Majesty is well aware of our common history and also that the majority of our people is not aware as we were never educated about this dark part of the Kingdom history but were learned to respect Your Majesty and as we did and showed Your Majesty this respect at all times despite the inhumane cruelties done by the Dutch to our great-grandfathers, our families, our ancestors.
I am addressing Your Majesty as our people show profound respect for Your Majesty as our King and Head of State and because Your Majesty has shown to have a conscience and feelings for us. Maybe it is out of shame that Your Majesty did not look and give some support to us Bonaire, when Your Majesty visited our sister island of Curacao which are the same humans as us, but contrary to us have their own government and some level of autonomy. and maybe because your Government decided October 2017 without remorse to annex and embed us together with the island of St. Eustatius in the Dutch Constitution under unequal rights and against the wishes of the people as expressed democratically and legally through the referenda of 2010, 2014 and 2015
We hope that you as our King, whom we all highly respect, will take the responsibility to do everything in your power to address your government to answer above-mentioned letters and return our right to emancipate ourselves and build our own nation, our autonomy, and measure of self-government to our people as you promised me on September 16, 2013 and confirmed in your Cabinet letter of January 8, 2014. And as your great-grandmother, Queen Wilhelmina, promised and the Kingdom signed on June 26, 1945 and Kingdom Law of July 1, 1863, by which we should all be equally human and equally free in the Kingdom.
Yours respectfully,
James Finies