Unbiased look at the Sint Maarten Elections
THE HAGUE--Member of the Second Chamber of the Dutch Parliament Ronald van Raak of the Socialist Party (SP) wants to start the procedure to get informants of the Curaçao Security and Intelligence Service VDC to The Hague for a closed-door hearing.
Van Raak submitted a request on Wednesday during a procedural meeting of the Second Chamber’s Permanent Committee for Kingdom Relations to start a written procedure to get the input of other committee members on his proposal.
Van Raak wants the support of the Second Chamber to send a request to Curaçao Prime Minister Ivar Asjes, under whose authority VDC resorts. Asjes would have to give permission to allow the VDC informants to talk to the Dutch Parliament.
According to Van Raak, talking to the (retired) VDC officers could shed light on the alleged large theft of data at the security agency in 2011. There are indications that the stolen data may have included information of the Dutch secret service AIVD. Informants confirmed the theft, which is said to have been ordered by then Curaçao Prime Minister Gerrit Schotte.
A motion submitted by Van Raak, and co-signed by Gert-Jan Segers of the Christian Union and Peter Oskam of the Christian Democratic Party CDA, two weeks ago seeking the assistance of the Dutch Government to arrange a closed-door session with the VDC informants was voted down this week. Van Raak now wants to try to get his colleagues to approve a direct, formal request to Asjes.
The parties that supported his motion, the CDA, the Democratic Party D66, the Green Left Party GroenLinks, Christian Union, the Party for Animals PvdD, the reformed SGP party, along with a few smaller parties, and of course Van Raak’s own SP party might very well prove in favour of Van Raak’s request. The two coalition parties, the liberal democratic VVD party and the Labour Party PvdA, had voted against the motion.
During the same meeting on Wednesday, Van Raak sought the committee’s support to send Dutch Minister of Home Affairs and Kingdom Relations Ronald Plasterk a reminder to inform the Second Chamber on how the Dutch Government intends to give follow-up to the motion calling for a broad investigation of the flow of money between the governments of Curaçao and St. Maarten and criminal organisations, the upper and under world, with special attention for the gaming industry on the two islands. Ideally, the investigation would be carried out jointly with Curaçao and St. Maarten.
The motion, carried by an almost the complete Second Chamber last week, was submitted by Van Raak and André Bosman of the liberal democratic VVD party. Minister Plasterk voiced no objections to the motion and even suggested broadening the scope of the investigation to include drugs smuggling and trafficking in women. He saw the motion as an encouragement to the current policy of the Dutch Government to strengthen the law enforcement system on the islands.
