Member of Parliament Heyliger on IPKO: “Going around in circles in a non-functioning Kingdom”
June 12, 2023 –PHILIPSBURG – In the corridors of the Interparliamentary Kingdom Consultations (IPKO), murmurs have been growing louder about the lack of concrete results. Sint Maarten Member of Parliament Grisha Heyliger-Marten is the first to publicly question the purpose of the biannual meeting of the parliamentary delegations from Curaçao, Aruba, Sint Maarten, and the Netherlands.
“This IPKO has been the least productive one I have experienced so far,” states Heyliger-Marten in a press release. “To me, the agenda and discussions revealed a concerning lack of interest and urgency regarding the many important issues we face within the Kingdom,” says the former President of the Sint Maarten Parliament.
According to Heyliger-Marten, the most crucial issue is being deliberately avoided: “The flawed structure of the Kingdom. While we continue to waste time trying to make something unworkable work, more and more Caribbean countries are progressing, focusing on goals such as sustainable development, capacity building, decolonization, and reparations in cooperation with each other and with direct assistance from the UN. Goals that will truly benefit the people in those countries directly.”
“So, while we, as Kingdom partners, keep going around in circles in a non-functioning Kingdom, the issues we face are being addressed at a global level. It is high time that we organize a Round Table Conference with all the islands to discuss how we want to proceed within the Dutch Kingdom,” concludes Heyliger-Marten.
