Zaandam firmly opposes
expulsion Antillean youth
ST. EUSTATIUS--Member of Parliament (MP) Reginald Zaandam (DP Statia) is firmly against the concept Kingdom law, which would make it possible for Dutch authorities to send criminal Antillean youths back to the Netherlands Antilles.
The Antillean Parliament discussed the draft law during its meeting on Thursday.
Zaandam said that “in another blatant attempt,” after former minister Rita Verdonk failed to accomplish that objective, Minister Ella Vogelaar of Housing, Neighbourhoods and Integration, supported by Justice Minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin and State Secretary of Kingdom Relations Ank Bijleveld-Schouten, “again picked up the torch in an unrelenting effort to try to expel criminal Antillean youngsters.”
Zaandam admits that there is a small group of Antilleans in the Netherlands, behaving in such a way that stringent measures must be taken to straighten them out and also if necessary, to incarcerate these individuals.
“But that in no way gives the green light to the Dutch to have the audacity to entertain the idea of having a Kingdom law which gives them the authority to expel our youth, forcibly sending them back to the Netherlands Antilles.”
The Dutch spend huge sums of money on social programmes, Zaandam said, especially to curb the behaviour of unruly youngsters, “but they have failed miserably because they thought that money alone was the solution to the problem. Now that the situation has reached crisis proportions, they hope to solve the situation by enacting a Kingdom law which would permit the expulsion and deportation of these troubled youngsters.”
Zaandam was critical of the political infighting of the various factions during the debate, which according to him would be playing right into the hands of the Dutch who, according to him, were masters at the game of divide and rule.
He said the position of the factions of the Windward Islands was worded unequivocally by his colleague MP Ray Hassell of Saba.
Hassell made it clear that if the motion was not signed by all the factions of the Curaçao and Bonaire parties, the MPs of the Windward Islands would not sign the motion.
That worked as a wake-up call, especially for the opposition, which made them change their stance in the meeting.
At the end of the meeting, Parliament carried a wall to wall motion, in which it condemned the intentions of the Dutch Cabinet towards Antillean youths.
