It is very interesting how our government is functioning at this moment. This requires a little more explanation to understand where we coming from. Okay, our island of Sint Martin contains of two nationalities, French (as a region of France, so also part of the EU), and Dutch. I am residing on the dutch side of this island, so this will have my main focus. In 2010 we became independent, or better said a 'constituent country'. This means we still are under the Dutch flag, but that about it. The only thing we are fully dependent on is the Dutch military, because our 37km2 island has absolutely no space for this.
Oke, the next thing you should know is that our political situation is definitely describable as unstable. We are on our 6th cabinet now since 2010, which generally means they are not really doing a good job. And so our Prime Minister AKA leader of the country is yes, chosen, but no because is so popular. Offering a nice amount of cash for a vote, is a thing that commonly happens here.
That said we can get to the nitty-griddy of what happened the last couple weeks. So we all knew major nuclear disaster cat 6 Irma was sneaking upon us. Every supermarket was bought empty, every house was boarded up, and everyone was ducking for cover. Our ray of light PM made the nice statement that the hurricane shelters would open AFTER Irma had passed, and you weren't allowed to stay any longer than 48 hours. Friendly right, since a significant amount of residents live in super unsafe shacks. So after a lot of criticism, finally two hours before the curfew went up, he decided to open the shelters before the storm. And a bit of military was on the island. And with a bit I mean 100 marines.
So Irma passes by, she was a monster and we were all scared as f*ck, and when she had passed, the whole island was robbed empty. Not by Irma, but by every looter that crawled around the corner. Literally every store was smashed and emptied with 50" flatscreens walking by when there were still 100 mph winds. This continued for 2 days after Irma, and still not a single soldier was to be seen. So 3 days after Irma we get a little visit from hurricane Jose, and this didn't hit us luckily but stalled the progress of bringing in troops from the Netherlands, Aruba and Curacao (all under the Dutch flag). After this on saturday the island filled up with military, we now live under Marshall Law, and from there we are starting to build towards our future, because now it is safe and controlled.
So why am I so angry, you wonder? Well, our PM is now denying so many things what have happened. He is denying that the marines were cooperating, he says they werent doing anything about the looting (you didnt order enough of them, and didnt let them act) He is denying that he ordered the marines too late (you are still the one that has to give out the order to fly in the marines), and then he even decided to censor our only working radiostation. This radio station is essential for people to be informed on where food and water is being passed out, and what was worse was that the station had to play music while hurricane Maria was coming. (yeah, we had 3 hurricanes in 2 weeks, I know). So people were informed on this quite late, and at a moment when their house already doesn't have a roof anymore I consider this as essential information.
Luckily he was so nice to at first make a statement to a Dutch Newspaper about all these things, to later deny it, but I don't think our PM realizes that modern journalists record everything. Epic fail William Marlin, your political ass will be going down when this is all over... Adios!