Oranjestad- PLP leader Clyde van Putten insist that Kingdom Commissioners Mike Franco and Mervy Stegers be relieved of their duties and that the elected Government of St. Eustatius be restored to office. This is also the topic of a possible case (Kort Geding) in the Court of First Instance.

On February 7th of this year, the Government of the Netherlands decapitated the legitimately and democratically elected government of Sint Eustatius by rushing a Dutch law which violates the UN Charter through both houses of Parliaments. In doing so, it used a biased and bogus report with unsubstantiated allegations of wrongdoings as a justification for its unlawful acts”, according to a press release sent out by Van Putten this afternoon.

According to Van Putten, the Government of the Netherlands has committed unlawful acts against the elected Government, despite the fact that they (the disposed Government) had repeatedly warned them against what they call a violation of the UN Charter dictating that the island has a ‘full measure of internal government’.

“Unfortunately, the Government of the Netherlands arrogantly dismissed or simply ignored the communications and reasoning of the Government of Sint Eustatius and its legal representatives”, according to the PLP leader.

Van Putten in his press release calls it very surprising that now that the ‘legitimate Government of Sint Eustatius’ has initiated legal action against the Government of the Netherlands for committing said unlawful acts they have requested for additional time to respond and study the matter at hand.

“Both requests for additional time are clear indications that the Government of the Netherlands either did not think through their actions, despite all the time and efforts they put into prepare the execution thereof, or did not expect the unlawfulness of their actions to be challenged and exposed. Either way, it again demonstrates the consistent bad faith and untrustworthiness of the Government of The Netherlands which I have been pointing out for the past few years”, according to Van Putten.

The PLP Party leader says that the coalition has, at the request of their legal representative, Mr. C.R. Rutte of HBN Law granted the Government of the Netherlands an extra week to prevent summary proceedings from being initiated, under the condition that the three main civil servants who were installed to run the affairs of Sint Eustatius without a proper legal basis (Franco, Stegers and Thunnissen, editor) are removed by October 29th, 2018.

“It is unacceptable that the Government of the Netherlands acts as an international rogue State by using Dutch law to trample on democracy and circumvent and violate international treaties and laws that itself has pledged to uphold”, concludes the press release signed by Van Putten as island council member and Leader of the Government of St. Eustatius.