October 1, 2024
Following the participation of our organizations at the United Nations’ Summit of the Future in New York, Davika Bissessar president of Bonaire Human Rights Organization and James Finies founder of Bonaire Movement For Change successfully engaged with over 100 world leaders, including Presidents, Prime Ministers, Vice Presidents, first ladies,CEOs, heads of organizations, monarchs, civil-society and youth over the course of the last eight days where the world-leaders united and agreed on ” The Pact for the Future” and not to leave no-one behind. We united in drawing urgent attention to Bonaire’s right to self-determination and the ongoing human rights violations faced by its people.
Part of Bonaire’s Statement to the Summit of the Future:
“Do we have a future? No! Why?
Our education system and our native language, Papiamentu, have been replaced by full colonial language standards to sustain Dutch-European settler colonization. This demotion segregates our children into inferior educational systems—not brain-drain, but brain colonization—forcing them into a colonial system that strips our youth of their human rights and their future.
Since 2010, we have experienced systemic and institutionalized depopulation and eradication of our people. By 2017, our population was reduced to less than 40%, and today, in 2024, we are less than 32%, a minority in our own homeland. As a colonized people, we are powerless to stop this. We are disappearing, and the world is witnessing it.
Our Recommendation:
Are we part of the forgotten ones, the ones left behind? Today, we call for solidarity from the Summit of the Future. We urge you to join COPPPAL and CARICOM revised 10 point-plan and the Baku Initiative Group in their fight against present-day colonialism and for reparations. Please adopt Bonaire as a project of the future – “Save the Bonerians, not only climate-crisis”
Our Message:
Self-Determination: Bonaire has the inalienable right to determine its own political future, free from external control. This fundamental right is being denied, in violation of international law and the United Nations’ principles of equality and justice.
Our Call to Action:
We demand that the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the international community respect Bonaire’s right to self-determination and that Bonaire be reinstated on the list of United Nations Non-Self-Governing Territories.
Immediate action is needed to address human rights abuses and ensure fair representation and access to resources.
We urge the United Nations and international bodies to provide oversight and hold all parties accountable.
We call upon the semi-autonomous Dutch islands of Aruba, Curaçao, and Sint Maarten to support the fact that Bonaire never chose to be expelled from the Kingdom Charter or “Statuut” and neither to be embedded in the Dutch Constitution. We urge our sister islands to stand with Bonaire in its rightful pursuit of self-determination and to support their brothers and sisters in this struggle for justice and self-government.
The people of Bonaire deserve justice, dignity, and the ability to determine their own future.