Dear Prime Minister Dr. Luc Mercelina,
We have read your recent and passionate condemnation of the deeply offensive and racist remarks made by Dutch MP Thierry Baudet. We commend your courage in speaking out so clearly against colonial rhetoric, demographic engineering, and the degrading idea that the Caribbean is still up for “repopulation” or exploitation.
What you now condemn as a “colonial fantasy” for St. Maarten has been the lived, painful reality for Bonaire since 2010. Baudet’s statements are not a new threat—they are simply a blunt expression of a policy direction that has already been silently executed in Bonaire, with devastating consequences.
Since the dissolution of the Netherlands Antilles and the forced annexation of Bonaire as a “territorial public entity” of the Netherlands, we have endured: -A 400% rise in immigration, with Dutch Europeans granted voting rights in local election and referendum after 90 days after arrival – The displacement of the native Bonairean population, reduced from approximately 80% in 2010 to less than 30% today – Loss of land, economic access, political voicelessness and cultural identity, as Dutch law overrides local governance. A process that amounts to ethnic and cultural erasure, framed as modernization.
While the world hears your strong words against recolonization, we have been living the outcomes of it for over a decade—not as speculation, but as everyday reality.
In 2015, the people of Bonaire overwhelmingly rejected this imposed status in a democratic referendum. Yet that clear voice of self-determination was ignored. Our democratic will was dismissed. Instead of being treated as partners in the Kingdom, we were expelled from the Kingdom Charter aka “Statuut” framework, left with no protection or recognition under its legal or political structure.
Shockingly, this exclusion from the “Statuut” was agreed upon not only by the Netherlands, but with the cooperation or acquiescence—or silence—of our Caribbean partners: St. Maarten, Curaçao, and Aruba. While they continue to operate as autonomous countries under the Charter, Bonaire was effectively cast out of the “Statuut” and subjected to the full force of unilateral Dutch rule. Silence becomes complicity?
Prime Minister Mercelina, we must also address what many across the Caribbean witnessed with concern: your role last October as Chair of a United Nations session during the “Pact of the Future” summit. We, with UN ECOSOC Consultative Status, witnessed firsthand how your presence was used to project an image of Caribbean inclusion and harmony in the Kingdom —yet while you chaired that meeting, Bonaire and its people were being systematically erased —its people displaced, its democratic will denied, under policies that mirror Baudet’s ideology in practice, if not in language.
This creates confusion and even false legitimacy in the eyes of UN Member states, experts and the international community. When a Caribbean Prime Minister appears to endorse the image of a harmonious Kingdom, while sister islands are being recolonized and depopulated, the result is misrepresentation of the truth and undermines our struggle.
We urge you to extend your voice to those already suffering under the very policies Baudet now dares to say aloud. Acknowledge the human rights crisis in Bonaire, and use your position to speak the full truth — for all Caribbean peoples in the Kingdom.
Sincerely, with respect and hope, as a native Bonerian who has survived three assassination attempts and unlawful imprisonment, I call on St. Maarten, Curaçao, and Aruba to unite with us in the name of justice.
James Finies, Bonaire Human Rights Organization
