Today Newspaper St. Maarten

Curacao’s summer festival is about to kick off with a grand tragicomedy, columnist Jacob Gelt Dekker writes on Curacao Chronicle.

“Former Prime Minister Gerrit Schotte and his gang are cast as scoundrels, and present minister of Justice, Nelson Navarro, as a hero.

Scoundrel and hero, both are reputed for their checkered past, or at least, such is perceived by the community. If elections were held today, there is little doubt that GS-underdog would return in victory as leader to his scroundreldom, and NN-legal watchdog would disappear from stage as a beaten dog with his tail between his legs.

From a global point of view, it may all look like a storm in a tiny teacup, but still, the script is no chickenfeed. Drugs, money laundering, conspiracies, corruption, assassinations and murders will fill the stage; blood will flow in abundance to onlookers’ horror and delight. But even before the curtain opens, Curacao’s most endearing neighbor, Venezuela, offers a surprise prelude.

Hugo Carvajal, formally a Minister of Venezuela without portfolio, former Hugo Chavez-General and head of the Venezuelan Intelligence Services was arrested in Aruba on request of the USA- CIA, as being the kingpin of Venezuela’s drug trafficking for the FARC.

More than ten years ago, President Uribe of Colombia partially forced the FARC out of Colombia. The FARC responded by moving its drug running operations into the east, into poorly controlled areas of Venezuela, and enjoyed protection by Chavez’ military for a cut of the profits.

Within a few years, Venezuela became the world’s largest cocaine trafficking country. Quickly, the Antilles became the stepping-stone for worldwide distribution. Ten years of silly, infantile island politicians, who preferred to turn a blind eye, shredded to pieces the solid social fabric of the once so angelical Caribbean Dutch islands. Instead, a new scoundreldom was born.

In a lame effort to break the grip of the criminal underworld on daily life, a tragicomedy is being performed in the next weeks. It is to give the Joint Drug Task Force a license of greater intervention and to shock the simple citizens into awareness that they are all deeply involved in the island’s illegal money laundering and should better their lives.

Prelude: Venezuelan’ drug trafficking, First Episode: A Day- in- Court. Stand by for the rest…

Opinion: Summer festival by admin