June 28, 2024
His Highness Willem-Alexander, and the new Prime Minister,
As we the people of Bonaire continue our efforts and struggle to restore our fundamental human rights according to Article 73 of the UN Charter, I wish to remind Your Highness that the promise made to me and the people of Bonaire during our personal meeting on November 16, 2013, has not yet been fulfilled. During that meeting, Your Highness told me that if it was what I wanted, it would not be a problem, giving me and the people of Bonaire hope, which we fully embraced. This agreement was confirmed by your government letter reference #20140000012853 dated January 8, 2014, from your Minister of Interior and Kingdom Relations, stating that the people of Bonaire have the right to make their voices heard and that the right to self-determination is fully endorsed by the Dutch Cabinet.
As your Highness government letter stated that the people of Bonaire have the right to make their voices heard and right to self-determination, I started a protest outside Bonaire’s government building on November 10, 2014, and demonstrated 24 hours a day for 222 days straight, demanding the people have their say until a referendum was granted to the people of Bonaire.
The government of Bonaire had no choice but to agree to organize a referendum for me to stop protesting and go home. This referendum was held on December 18, 2015, in which 66% of the electorate voted NO, indicating they did not agree with the island’s current and present status. This result was ratified by the Bonaire Island Council as a legal democratic decision by the people of Bonaire. Despite this, our people’s voice and decision were ignored, and our fundamental rights denied.
With no other options left, we approached the United Nations to seek our rights, where I delivered a historic speech before the United Nations Decolonization Committee in New York on June 22, 2016. After hearing the testimony, the C24 ambassadors recommended that our organizations initiate an effort to get Bonaire back on the list of Non-Self-Governing Territories.
As Your Highness may know, your main Dutch constitutional and legal experts, Prof. Dr. Gert Oostindie, Prof. Gerhard Hoogers, and Dr. Wouter Veenendaal, were ordered in 2022 by your government to fact-check our trajectory to be re-listed on the UN NSGT list. They officially reported to your government of the erroneous and premature delisting in 1955 of Bonaire and the other Netherlands Antilles islands.
I once more wish to recall our personal discussion of November 16, 2013, where Your Highness repeatedly asked me what I want, and if it was independence, and I reiterated my answer that day: No. And I reiterate that up today remain the same, it is not independence I am seeking, the only objective I aspire to is to restore the Bonaire people’s human rights according to UN Charter Article 73. Our plead is more urgent then ever as we the Bonerians are experiencing a demographic and cultural assimilation where the Bonaire population doubled, and we the natives were reduced since 2010 from a majority to today in 2024 to a mere under 32% minority group on our own island.
In this respect, Your Highness, we today seek your cooperation again to request your government to restrain their arrogance and to respect our rights. We are at the point of fulfilling our mutual agreement to restore our people’s human rights under Article 73 by being put back on the UN list of NSGT. Instead of cooperating with this process, your government representatives are continuing to bully our advances towards restoring these rights.
I need to share two recent aggressions by your government representatives that should seriously worry the Netherlands’ internationally portrayed philanthropic image of respect for human rights, the International Court of Justice in The Hague, and the recent slavery apology.
- During last month’s 4th Small Island Developing States Conference, May 27-30 in Antigua and Barbuda, organized by the UN, our colleague was racially attacked and abused by your Saba Governor Johnson just because our presence highlighted the dire truth about Bonaire, which the Bonaire or other Antillean Island delegations representing The Netherlands were seemingly prohibited from speaking out on, neither their own people’s issues nor relevant urgent situations.
- Last week, at the Special Committee on Decolonization, C24 meetings at the UN headquarters in New York, we were invited to attend a conference on decolonization organized by the Azerbaijan UN mission at the UN on June 20, 2024. Your Netherlands UN mission called the Azerbaijan UN mission requesting them to stop us from participating in their conference.
Before ending, I would like to remind Your Highness of my last letter dated June 27, 2022, where we received very disturbing indications that your intelligence service has wiretapped all my personal communications. I kindly requested Your Highness’s influence and cooperation to stop the Dutch government immediately from its illegal practices of violating me, my colleague’s and peoples of Bonaire human rights.
My group and I seemingly became victims of your government’s political repressive actions, with three assassination attempts on my life in September 2012, January 2015, and June 2017, and my unlawful arrest in September 2019, all above because I stood up and voiced opposition to your government’s violations of UN Charter Article 73 human rights. These truths are now admitted by your own legal and constitutional experts.
Finally, I have no other choice but to hold Your Highness’s Kingdom Government responsible for any further attempts on my life and my colleagues.
I trust that you, as our King, whom we all highly respect, will take responsibility to address your government’s animosity and aggression that are detrimental towards its portrayed good international image and moreover according to UN Charter Article 73 and your Highness government confirmation letter of 8th January 2014 to fully endorses our people’s rights, and as your Highness promised to me on November 16, 2013 in Bonaire, and as Queen Wilhelmina promised to the United Nations and the world and the Kingdom signed on June 26, 1945, and according to your Kingdom Law of July 1, 1863, where we all are to be equally human and equally free. With utmost trust in the justice and equity of Your Royal Highness,
Sincerely Yours,
James Finies