PHILIPSBURG–Prime Minister Dr. Luc Mercelina and Nation Opportunity Wealth (NOW) Member of Parliament (MP) Lyndon Lewis have issued scathing rebukes of recent remarks by Dutch far-right MP Thierry Baudet, calling his statements “racist,” “colonial,” and a direct threat to the island’s dignity and sovereignty.
Baudet, leader of the Forum for Democracy (FvD), suggested during a Parliamentary Committee for Kingdom Relations meeting that St. Maarten should be “repopulated” with 300,000 to 500,000 Dutch nationals to bring the island “completely under control.” He compared the vision to Dubai or Hong Kong, and advocated turning the Dutch Caribbean into a tax haven, while also proposing that Saba be used as a holding station for asylum-seekers.
Mercelina called the remarks “dangerously racist and deeply disrespectful.”
“St Maarten is not a commodity to be traded, nor a territory to be reclaimed by relics of a colonial past. We are not the backdrop for someone else’s ambition. We are a proud, self-determined people – anchored in our heritage, alive in our culture, and empowered by our own voice,” he said in a press release.
He warned that Baudet’s rhetoric undermines the democratic foundations of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. “This kind of colonial fantasy belongs in the darkest chapters of our shared history, not in the democratic chambers of the 21st century. If the Kingdom is to thrive, it must be built on the foundations of mutual respect, dignity, and genuine partnership, not domination, exploitation, or racial superiority,” Mercelina said.