Bek pa Articulo

Ladies and Gentlemen first of all I would like to express words of gratitude and recognition for the leadership and courage that the honorable President Uribe has demonstrated on the issue of security that today brings us together. Many of us have taken crucial decisions but few of us have had to face so many threats and danger for own life as did President Uribe. Senjor President Uribe Usted tiene nuestro alto respeto y admiracion……… gracias para la inspiracion.

I would also like to thank the organizers of this event, the prestigious Christian Democratic institutions, the ODCA, the International Democratic Center, the Adenauer Stiftung and the Research Institute of Partido Popular from Spain FAES and Partido Conservador de Colombia for having honored me with this invitation to be a speaker here today.

Today I would like to share with you the practical way in which we have approached the serious challenges of security for a small island nation like Aruba.

For many years our island of Aruba had struggled to become a separate country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The conviction of our politicians, during a long period, was that Aruba with the authority to decide its own course would be very beneficial for our island. In the constellation of the Netherlands Antilles we would always depend on the decisions of the Antillean parliament in which the island of Curacao had the majority of seats. Aruba was determined in its aspiration, and on January 1st 1986 we finally realized the Separate Status as a country within the Kingdom. This new status gave us the opportunity to decide for our selves the direction of our country. In a very short time Aruba managed to develop a country in which the people had a high income per capita, hardly any unemployment and even had to import workers from the neighboring countries. But at the same time our new status gave us big responsibilities we did not have before. We now had to take care of the enormous problem of the international drug criminality surrounding us, causing uncertainty among our people.

The local crime rate was and still is very low and most of the crimes committed in Aruba are small thefts and other minor offences. That is why the sudden obligation of our government to play an important role in from outside coming serious criminality, was a challenge that had to be taken care of immediately.

Aruba’s name was too often mentioned in various reports about drug traffic and money laundering connected to the drug business.

Realizing this Aruba by itself was not able to handle the new obligations in this very complicated type of criminality so we started planning a policy that would give the results we needed. We understood that our problem was that we had good seaports, a good airport and a well functioning banking system. Our geographic location between the producing and the consuming countries made successful action of the Aruban government, extremely difficult. Aruba has absolutely no plantation of any kind that can produce drugs or even raw material to be used in the drug production. But still, there we stood with the pointing fingers of the consumer countries, accusing Aruba of being part of the drugs criminality. Recognizing the huge amount of money involved in the drugs criminality and the threat of getting politicians on the wrong side of the problem made us study how to handle this urgently. We had to make difficult decisions. For many countries it is not easy to involve other countries in autonomous policies that first are the responsibility and authority of one’s own national governments. However when one is committed to creating a better wellbeing for its citizens, the issue is not the pride of one’s own authority but how you can overcome this very emotional feeling for the benefit of your citizens, your country and humanity as a whole. We chose to do exactly that. The fact that this criminality problem is created for us from the outside and that our possibilities of effective fighting against this type of criminality did not stand a serious chance, we decided to approach the consuming countries we had most ties with. Holland and the United States of America. Being part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the Dutch government is responsible for the foreign affairs of the Kingdom and having one of the countries of this Kingdom involved in this international type of criminality would not do the European part of the Kingdom any good. At that time the opinion in Holland on the drugs criminality problem was a bit laconic. In the beginning they had the impression that Aruba was exaggerating the difficulties and they did not understand how big the damage to Aruba was, when Aruba would be in negative publications on the subject. Understandable, because Holland itself would be in the news regularly accused of too easy handling of the drug problem. Holland in those days did not care too much about these accusations. We realized that our tactics must be forceful and well prepared and so we did. Our first meeting with the minister of defense of Holland was a strong confrontation. We had to make our point that it is not acceptable that we as a small country part of the Kingdom had to stand alone against the drug world while Holland is one of the consumer countries that causes our problem. We explained that it is insane to have the most sophisticated equipment that could assist in the fight against the drugs criminality in the Dutch army but this equipment is not used to try to eliminate or minimize the suffering and dieing of many drug addicts. We insisted that we had to set up a coast guard, consisting of the modern and sophisticated equipment of the Dutch navy. The minister of Defense stood speechless and looked at us with big eyes. The army of the Kingdom of the Netherlands involved in ordinary crook hunting did not look like a feasible venture. To make a long story short we now have an effective coastguard with military expertise and marine equipment of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, guarding the seas of the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba. Our pressure had its effect and there is a very close cooperation now between the countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in the ongoing fight against the drugs criminality.

The second country to be approached was the United States of America. A country that easily pointed the finger in Aruba’s and other country’s direction. We must remember that we are talking about more than 20 years ago. Here the task was more complicated, because the different departments of the United States often work without knowing what one is doing compared to the other. We had to explain to the State Department that of course the communist Russia is a serious threat to the United States and the world but we thought that the horrible consequences for millions of human beings, because of the drug addiction and the linked criminality, should have preference in deciding the directions of policies. In the case of the United States we also insisted that they had to be involved with us in this fight to be as effective as possible. We could not accept that the United States’ market is the biggest reason for us to have a problem and they would not be part of the solution. As we convinced the Dutch to have a presence on our island and in our seas, we managed to get the Americans to cooperate with us. If Aruba’s airport was an important channel to get drugs into the United States we found it logical that the US authorities would be a partner of Aruba on this airport. We managed to convince the American government to establish in Aruba their immigration and custom services. In this way the traffic to the United States, leaving Aruba, has to pass the American authorities to be checked, for, among other things, drugs. Aruba is one of the few countries in the world that has these facilities which naturally also has its very positive sides for our tourism industry facilitating travel between Aruba and United States greatly.

We also introduced an impressive amount of legislation to combat money laundering and drug trafficking. We even took import decisions with painful effects in a small community, in the area of regulating our free zone and complying with extradition treaties.

Later we also facilitated the United States government in establishing a Forward Operation Location giving the search mechanism of the US a strong instrument in controlling the drug routes from the air.

What is my intention now with this report to you? The international crime linked to drugs causes sad problems for millions and has to be recognized as such and needs serious planning of judicial and public health policies. It is a global problem and needs to be approached as such. Big and small countries alike have to get together and plan the future in the smartest and most effective way. Finger pointing at each other is not the solution.

Inseguridad, dolor evitable

Unsteadiness, uncertainty definitely do block steps to a good future and really hurts. The feeling of not knowing what a human being’s future is, takes away the necessary creativity and drive that is natural to men. Being surrounded by crime is one of the uncertainties that disturbs normal life but not having a job with sufficient income, a good educational system for the children, a payable health insurnance and a good pension are of vital importance for a happy life. Guaranteeing this for the citizens of our countries is the government’s responsibility. That is why I am proud to say today, that based on the vision that we carried out more than twenty years ago Aruba has experienced almost two decades of growth. Aruba has almost no unemployment, during the years we have welcomed thousands of workers from our neighboring countries contributing to our progress. Our income per capita is among the highest in the region. Our minimum wages are normally index-linked so that a socially accepted level of living is always guaranteed. Our educational system is of the Dutch standard and we introduced new financing systems for our students to be able to study abroad whenever the chosen study is not available in Aruba.

As Christian democrats we strongly believe that the level of wellbeing of our populations depends on the level of education. That is why only the best is acceptable. I think I can say here today that Aruba is one of the very few countries in the world that has a general health insurance for every citizen of our country. And taking care of our old age pensioners with a basic pension, is the obligation of governments. Every pensioner in Aruba receives an index-linked pension at the age of sixty. All of this was based on our Christian Democratic vision that came together and was executed in a joint commitment and cooperation fashion as we are reinforcing here today again.

Now again our island is facing new challenges that are weighing heavily on the well being of our citizens such as supporting sustainable growth on a small island, maintaining and improving the purchasing power and living standards of the community as well as preparing the country for the new global world. I am proud to say that we have a new generation of Christian Democratic leaders on our island who are working closely with Christian Democratic institutions around the world, confronting these challenges to secure a better future for our island.

Also in this task they are making the choices of having Aruba’s legal and economic security embedded in a bigger cooperation such as within the Dutch Kingdom and the European Union. They are the promise and hope for Aruba’s future.

The reflection with which we leave here today makes it clear that there are many reasons why people can feel uncertain that causes pain but many of these general reasons can be eliminated by good government. Even though we are a very small country we managed to handle most of the necessities to give the people of Aruba the feel of security. The international crime is a subject that cannot be solved by the countries by them selves. Even the big nations need cooperation to more effectively fight this, until now growing criminality. We have to be courageous in making these choices. For Aruba in fact we stand in the position of having hardly an interesting market for the drugs business and we do not produce any kind of drug. That is why we are convinced that the producing and consuming parties have a huge responsibility towards mankind. The pain caused by the uncertainty maybe cannot be eliminated completely but can surely be lessened. The fact that we are here today in such a unique gathering of former and present Christian Democratic government leaders to carry on our responsibility is a guarantee for the world that the commitment to create a better and stronger international community is embedded in an important political movement that has made a difference and will go on making that difference.