Human Rights Violations and Dutch Atrocities Committed Against Bonarian Peoples
Bonarians are fighting an uphill battle to safeguard our culture and heritage and maintain human rights from an onslaught of Dutch Immigration policy meant to make us a minority, if not erase us, in our own country. To further their intentions to decimate all aspects of sovereignty, the Dutch took draconic actions that adversely affected Bonarian autonomy.
Rights the Netherlands Is Denying the Bonarian People
First, they:
- Took border control over by Dutch Marachausee.
- Disarmed all security, even volunteer forces, and engaged in door-to-door campaigns taking away all arms -- even pellets guns.
- Expanded the foreign-dominated police station and built the world's second largest jail per capita.
Depopulation and Settlers -- Colonization:
- Open immigration -- foreign population doubled from 2010 to 2022; grew from 11,000 to 22,000 -- and Dutch European needs only an address and can vote in 90 days in local elections. In 2017, natives fell below 40 per cent, and by 2030, they will be less than one-third of the population on the way to eradication in a couple of decades.
Draconic Laws Instituted:
- Law I: Dutch Government imposed euthanasia law on elderly -- Doctors have the right to refuse medical interventions to people over 70 years old [the death rate exploded, before and after, about 60 per cent].
- Law II: Citizens' human organs are owned by the Dutch state and Dutch-owned medical system in Colombia; COOMEVA is under criminal investigation for illegal human organ trafficking of young peoples' organs who died in their facilities with minor issues.
- Systematic sterilization of our young women -- decline natural birth about 50 per cent.
- Diaspora – kids from native people [who are] born in neighbouring islands due to medical conditions, are denied reentry into Bonaire.
- Taking kids from their mothers due to poor living conditions and giving them to adoptive Dutch families, paying large sums of money to Dutch families, and leaving local mothers in poverty.
Tax and Land:
- Taxes raised to Dutch-European standards -- paying as much tax as in Holland -- and income is less than half of what (obtains) in Holland -- sending over 60 per cent of the population under the poverty line.
- Land and Property taxing -- raised 800 to 1,000% -- even NGO's sports facilities, scouting, and recreational parks are taxed excessively and taken over.
- Sale of 10 per cent of our island to a private Dutchman.
- Access to beaches denied or regulated to locals.
Poverty and Financial System:
- Changed our currency from Netherlands Antilles Guilders to U.S. Dollar; as a result -- products/food prices, cost of living raised, and wages and income lowered; bread price increased by 270 per cent.
- Changed policies to Open Market and Free Pricing in our small market led to cartels and price-explosion.
- The financial system taken over by Dutch Authority Financial Markets -- locals cannot lend anymore -- closing off all money-transfer systems such as Western Union, etc. -- closing/breaking down of all credit payment systems, cooperative systems, and credit unions that help build our island -- public housing financing and self-build housing shut down.
- Utilities such as water and electricity were taken over by Dutch Authority Consumer Market -- before, a couple/household paid about $100-200 per month -- last month, September [2022], same household bill was $1,000 -- cut off and re-connection charges are very high.
- Over 60 per cent of the population now exists below the poverty line -- reports from KITLV [Royal Netherlands Institute of Southest Asia and Caribbean Studies], NIBUD [Netherlands National Institute for Family Finance], Dutch Human Rights, Ombudsman, Greenpeace, Child Rights, etc.
Education and Culture:
- All levels of education -- changed to Dutch norms -- reversing our education from native Papiamentu to a foreign language -- violation of Bonaire children's human rights of education in the native mother tongue -- our native kids sent to lower levels of education -- segregation of our youth.
- Demoting and firing local teachers and replacing them with Dutch-speaking teachers.
- Giving Dutch teachers incentives to migrate -- tax incentives/double household premiums, etc.
- Vocational and second chance education -- using lack of fluency in Dutch to demote students.
- Making Bonaire attractive for Dutch interns -- giving jobs, which are retained as head or manager.
- Cultural events -- the existence of Carnival, Rincon Day, and regatta all heavily threatened.
- Fishing, hunting, our way of life are all heavily restricted and regulated, preventing locals' access to their natural food resources.
- Sea border control -- heavily armed coastguard; fishermen, and cultural event regatta, held up and searched at sea and intimidated as terrorists or criminals.
Institutional and Business Sector:
- Heads of governmental institutions were demoted and replaced by migrating Dutch Europeans.
- Local businesses were back-taxed and regulated out of business, and the Dutch took over all local businesses.
- Local Tourist Market -- regulated and taken over by Dutch.
- Now even gardeners, painters, etc., are Dutch.
The Question Is What Holland Gained From This Illegal Annexation
With the annexation of Bonaire, the Government of Holland gained the following:
- Full political and legislative power and control over the island.
- 200 nautical Exclusive Economic Zone sea miles of the Caribbean Sea.
- Complete control over the local airport [and has] engaged in continuous expansion, developing the airport to military standards. And since Bonaire is only 50 miles from Venezuela, with which the USA and the West have an ongoing conflict, the West may use Bonaire as a potential NATO base to pacify Venezuela and the region. The future of Latin America poses a threat of a possible NATO base in front of the coast of South America.
UN Charter and International Law Violated by the Dutch
The after-effects of the enslaved [continuous agitation for freedom] and colonized people's struggle for independence and equality gained momentum in the aftermath of the devastation of World Wars I and II. With over 80 million human lives sacrificed, nations had a new consciousness: no people, no government, big or small, should be held in bondage by another country as all countries should be free and equal to everyone else. That was the unique promise to mankind and hence the birth and the main objective of the United Nations, to maintain international peace and security based on respect for the principle of equal human rights and self-determination of all peoples.
Bonaire's status does not comply with self-governance standards and represents an incomplete decolonization with a fundamental power imbalance between the territory and the cosmopolis. These contemporary dependency arrangements characterized by political inequality do not meet the standards of democratic governance and merely represent incomplete decolonization, as Bonaire's dependency status was a preparatory phase to complete decolonization with a Full Measure of Self-Government with Absolute Political Equality.
The people of Bonaire have an inalienable sacred fundamental Human Right to Self-determination as guaranteed in several International Instruments, which the Netherlands is blatantly violating:
- Cosmopolis that maintain territories and territorial arrangements in the Caribbean should adhere to their international responsibilities under the United Nations Charter to advance the territories under their administration to the Full Measure of Self-Government.
Bonaire's civil society Non Government Organization (NGO) commissioned the Dependency Studies Project to do an investigation/assessment of the level of democracy and self-governance in Bonaire. This will be the first time in history that such an undertaking is done by a civil society NGO as governments do these. Due to the high cost of this investigation, we had to raise funds through BBQ, donation drives, lottery, and donation boxes for over three years. A humble Bonarian who wanted to remain anonymous sold a piece of land to help fund the investigation.
Assessment of Self-Governance Sufficiency in Conformity with Internationally Recognized Standards: Country Bonaire
The assessment concluded:
"The inalienable right to self-determination did not lead to a transformational process of decolonization and democracy -- but was replaced with a distorted process resulting in the cruel hoax of colonial reform with the Dutch perpetuating the inequality that the process was supposed to replace. It is to be observed that dependency governance is not democratic governance, just as colonialism is not democracy. The public entity renamed 'territorial public body' is one of several global dependency governance models erroneously projected in the 21st Century as forms of democracy and applied in a fashion that circumvents the inalienable right to genuine self-determination under international law. This is how the scenario has evolved for Bonaire."
The conclusion is that any projection of Bonaire as a model of democratic governance is illusory at best -- deficient by all measures of democratic governance. However, while colonialism remains an oppressive illegal form, its illegality and oppressive nature is often a matter of power, not justice. This is the fundamental challenge to the contemporary process of self-determination and its consequent decolonization for island jurisdictions such as Bonaire.
UN Recognized Report
This assessment is recognized and accepted by the UN General Assembly as an independent report/assessment as it contains UN General Assembly-approved self-governance indicators used for the investigation/report. It must be noted that this type of report was one of the key documents used in successfully re-listing French Polynesia in 2013 as an NSGT [Non-Self-Governing Territory] under the UN against France.
By having Bonaire placed on the list of NSGT, the Dutch government would be obligated, as a member according to articles, resolutions, and treaties of the United Nations Charter, to comply with the following. The Dutch must report annually to the General Assembly on the island's social, economic, and political advancement, as mandated by article 73 of the charter of the United Nations. Furthermore, the re-listing will allow the supranational organs of the United Nations to assess and intervene, help and support the island where necessary, and supervise all activities and actions that lead towards decolonization and self-governance.
Once these measures are respected, Bonaire will be on the road to reclaiming its inherent right to self-determination and joining the community of nations as a sovereign state since size should never deter a country's right to live freely.
Mr. James Finies is the President of Nos Kier Boneiru Bek and Vice President of Bonaire Human Rights Organization. An indigenous Bonarian, Mr. Finies has campaigned for decades to expose the Bonaire colonial situation and raise awareness of human rights violations and the self-determination rights of the people of Bonaire.
This article was published in
Volume 53 Number 12 - December 2023
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2023/Articles/M5301218.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca