Unbiased look at the Sint Maarten Elections
~ Ronald van Raak publishes online article ~
THE HAGUE--Secret documents, supplied to Member of the Second Chamber of the Dutch Parliament Ronald van Raak of the Socialist Party (SP) and published on Tuesday on the website ThePostOnline.nl, revealed a meeting on or around the 2010 elections in St. Maarten between a member of the Curaçao Security Agency VDC, candidate Curaçao Prime Minister Gerrit Schotte, candidate minister George Jamaloodin and United People's Party Leader Theo Heyliger.
The meeting in St. Maarten was confirmed in a letter by then Antillean Minister of Justice Magali Jacoba on September 20, 2010, less than three weeks before the dismantling of the Country the Netherlands Antilles. The letter was addressed to the then Head of the Department of Internal and External Security of the VDC Lawrence Pietersz.
In the letter, which was based on a conversation between Jacoba and then Head of the VDC Edsel Gumbs, who was forbidden by Schotte to enter the VDC in the later part of October 2010, Pietersz was confronted with his unauthorised travel as VDC team chief to St. Maarten on September 16 and 17, 2010. Pietersz was offered a ticket to St. Maarten by a third person, presumably by Curaçao businessman George Jamaloodin who later became Finance Minister in the Schotte cabinet.
According to the letter, Pietersz was seen in the company of at least two Curaçao politicians of the MFK party of Gerrit Schotte. The letter doesn't mention names, but it is highly likely that the concerned politicians were Schotte and Jamaloodin.
Jacoba further informed Pietersz that he had met with Schotte, Jamaloodin and Heyliger at the headquarters of the UP party. The meeting was confirmed by Interim VDC Head Rudy St. Jago, who filed an official complaint against Pietersz in February 2011.
St. Jago stated in his declaration, which was published in Van Raak's article on ThePostOnline website along with various other sensitive internal documents, that Pietersz was seen in the company of Schotte and other politicians during the 2010 elections in St. Maarten.
According to St. Jago, Pietersz's behaviour infringed on the Intelligence Service Curaçao VDC regulations which state that members of the agency may not publically get involved in politics. St. Jago said Pietersz violated several other regulations and requested initiating a criminal investigation.
Minister Jacoba confirmed that Pietersz's behaviour could not be tolerated and that it had discredited the independent position of the VDC. The minister forbade Pietersz entry of the VDC office and ordered an investigation by a committee.
A few months after taking office in October 2010, Schotte ordered the reinstatement of Pietersz, reconfirmed in a decision of the Curaçao Council of Ministers. Gumbs and St. Jago refused to follow Schotte's order to allow Pietersz back at the VDC. The Supervisory Committee of the VDC deemed Schotte's order in violation of the objectives of the VDC. The committee recommended to dismiss Pietersz.
Pietersz' work mobile telephone, which was analysed as part of the investigation, showed various SMS messages to Jamaloodin. Pietersz asked Jamaloodin for NAf. 15,000 to pay off debts. Jamaloodin agreed and even offered to give him more money.
Van Raak mentioned in his article that this handling violated Pietersz's function as VDC employee and made him susceptible to be bribed. Van Raak pointed out that Jamaloodin had "close ties" with the gambling industry.
Van Raak's article, headlined "Secret documents-How the Curaçao gambling mafia bought a security service," also referred to the theft of information at the VDC late October 2011. VDC information, which Van Raak said included material of the Dutch intelligence and security agency AIVD and the American Central Intelligence Agency CIA, was copied, destroyed or removed.
According to a VDC informant, the theft was ordered by Schotte and carried out under pressure of some Colombians together with a few "Dutch persons" working for a private company at the VDC offices. "All information of the server was copied. There is now an exact copy of all data of the security service since the start-up of the department [in 1963 – Ed.] and also data of other security services in the world are now in the hands of private persons," the informant stated in a declaration.
The direct cause of the information robbery was reportedly the negative screening report of the VDC on a number of candidate ministers of the Schotte cabinet.
Van Raak said that since the "mass theft" at the VDC, he has repeatedly asked the Dutch Government for a clarification. Early February 2015 Van Raak again submitted written questions to Dutch Minister of Home Affairs and Kingdom Relations Ronald Plasterk after the Court in Curaçao ruled the honourable discharge of Gumbs in November 2013 unlawful.
"The reply by Minister Plasterk was shocking. The Dutch Government keeps looking away," said Van Raak, who hoped to make this case known in the Netherlands through his article and the publication of the internal documents.
"And now I want a debate with Minister Plasterk about the links between the upper world and underworld in Curaçao and St. Maarten. Our government has a responsibility in this. Because probably AIVD information ended up in the wrong hands, but also because we cannot hand over the people on this island to the mafia," Van Raak concluded his contribution.
