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Democratic Party Leader Reacts to St Maarten’s Achievements at RTC.

The Hague:--- Below is the full text issued by the leader of the Democratic Party and former Commissioner of constitutional affairs Sarah Wescott Williams after the conclusion of the RTC meeting in the Hague on Thursday.
"The weather on the drive from Schiphol to the Hague on September 8th was depressing. It rained and the traffic was slow. The trip was a short one and I had traveled the day before the final RTC of the constitutional process which started in 2000. The impulse in 2000 was the referendum held on June 23, 2000 on St. Martin.
The weather in the Netherlands on the day of the RTC however was appropriate and promising. It matched the mood of all delegation members in the Hague, hopeful and expectant.
10 years, 2 months and 17 days later, here we are, awaiting only the final signing of the declaration that will herald the birth of country St. Martin.
After 10 years of hard work, incessant travels, feats and defeats, delegation members from St. Martin need to mentally adjust themselves now that this process is over. The relief of a major accomplishment is however short-lived. For all, the sights and minds are now set on the job ahead.
For me personally, there is relief and probably some unbelief until faced with the consequences of this watershed occasion in the political history of our island.
We have undone ourselves of the classification of island territory. We are not a marked territory belonging to a bigger unit any longer.
We are willing partners in a political constellation called the Dutch Kingdom.
This feat is –in my opinion- no less than the charter declaration of 1954.
Now suddenly, 10 years seem like only yesterday, as scenes of the process flash by.
I look at the signatures affixed to the many declarations and agreements signed since 2000 and then again those in 2005, the year of the first RTC of this process and there-after. I see the different Dutch ministers and state secretaries responsible for Kingdom Affairs who have been part of this process. I see the representatives of the 4 other islands and I look back at the time we have all spent together on this process. I remember the euphoria of November 2006 and the disappointment when July 2007 was not achieved as the date for the new entities.
I remember the RTC of December 2008, and the recognition that there was no turning back.
I remember the meetings, some which went on for longer than 24 hours on a stretch. I see the faces, tired, happy, disappointed. People who came and went.
I still hear the reproaches leveled at St. Martin, but also the acknowledgments of the efforts by St. Martin to fulfill the promise of constitutional change to the people of St. Martin.
I remember the times, when compromise seemed to the detriment of the St. Martin people and we refused to budge. For years we lead the charge of constitutional change.
And regardless of what we were sometimes accused of, one thing is certain, we commanded the respect of all in the Dutch Kingdom.
This RTC is for me nearly a feeling of: "What do I do with myself now?" after giving the last 10 years or so to this process.
Maybe the criticism is somewhat justified that I did all of this to the detriment of other developments on our island and of other areas that needed my attention as well. Maybe I left too much of what else was to be done up to others.
But after having been part of St. Martin's renewed attempts at constitutional change in the late eighties, when St. Martin went in search of full independence; in the mid-nineties, when attempts to restructure the Netherlands Antilles failed, it was clear that we needed to complete this process once and for all.
I thank the people of St. Martin for their confidence and critique.
What do we do with ourselves now? Now, the work has started. On the horizon remains my conviction that this status of country within the Kingdom is a means, not an end.
Another station in our development as a people.
At this station, we have to build our country, starting at the very foundation. The future of our nation will fall or stand with the foundation we provide today; with the way we lead our country; the examples we set for our youth and the images we portray to the world around us.
Our foundation begins with the strengthening of our democratic institutions, the promotion of social unity and a fair and open government.
Even as an island territory we were part of the global reality, as a country this will be even more so.
I have answered the question: "What will I do with myself." We have a country to build; a people to unite and a government to establish.
I thank all the Kingdom partners who have been part of this process throughout. The successive Dutch Parliaments and Kingdom governments, the successive Antillean governments, the governments of Aruba, the governments of Curacao, Bonaire, Saba and St. Eustatius.
I salute the strong women of the Kingdom, a relationship, born out of the Constitutional process. Ladies, it was good working with you for all our people in the Kingdom.
And in a special way, I thank the teams of St. Martin, starting in 2000. Here too we saw people come and go, but a core remained constant and committed.
Ten years of our lives have gone into this process and today, the sacrifices seem small in the face of finally having succeeded.
We stood our ground. We did not know where it would end when we started, but we knew we would not give up, could not give up.
I thank God Almighty, for our nation and its people. I thank him for his guidance and his plans for our country. And I thank him for things yet to come in his infinite wisdom.
No-one ever said it would be easy, but no-one really knew the resilience of the St. Martin people and those called to lead them.
God be praised."
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