Status change means Dutch Antilles no longer exists

[pampango]

Source: BBC

The Dutch Caribbean dependency the Netherlands Antilles has ceased to exist with a change of the five islands' constitutional status.

Curacao and St Maarten have become autonomous countries within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, joining Aruba, which gained the status in 1986. Bonaire, St Eustatius and Saba are now autonomous special municipalities of the kingdom.

The Netherlands retains responsibility for defence and foreign policy.

The new status, which came into effect on Sunday, followed referendums over the past few years in which Curacao, St Maarten, Bonaire and Saba opted to leave the federation while St Eustatius supported the status quo. None of the islands voted for independence.

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11511355

[Hekate]

1. Very interesting. Best of luck to them. Geopolitics being what it is, tiny island nations ...

... really do need to shelter under the protection of more powerful nations, but with as much independence as possible.

Hekate

[Peace Patriot]

2. "Autonomous countries"? They are nothing of the kind. The U.S. military has bases

there, right off Venezuela's oil coast, with the U.S. doing illegal overflights of Venezuelan territory. These islands will have NO SAY if they are dragged into U.S. hostilities toward Venezuela. That means they do not have any real sovereignty.

Ecuador's president, Rafael Correa, stated this sovereignty issue very well, indeed. The people of Ecuador overwhelmingly wanted the U.S. military base at Manta, Ecuador, out of their country. During his campaign for president, Correa promised to evict the U.S. military from Ecuador. He won that election hands down with about 70% of the vote. He subsequently kicked the U.S. military out when their lease was up in 2009. And what he said about it was this: "I will agree to a U.S. military base in Ecuador when the U.S. agrees to an Ecuadoran military base in Miami."

U.S. military bases are a grave violation of sovereignty and independence. They are generally accompanied by vast amounts of U.S. taxpayer-funded military aid, "School of the Americas" training for local military leaders (how to torture dissidents, how to control and oppress the poor majority), the corrupt, failed, murderous U.S. "war on drugs" and support for fascist elites. In Honduras, for instance, the "School of the Americas"-trained military shot up the president's house, dragged him out of bed and removed him from the country at gunpoint, with a refueling stop at the U.S. military base in Soto Cano, Honduras. This U.S.-supported coup d'etat was aimed at re-installing a fascist government, on behalf of U.S. corporate sweatshops and other corporate interests; brutal repression of the poor majority; and securing the U.S. military base in Honduras (President Zelaya had proposed turning it into a badly needed commercial airport).

No country is safe from gross U.S. interference with the U.S. military occupying bases in the country.

During the 1980s, Honduras was used as a U.S. launching pad for aggression against Honduras' neighbors. That is very likely the Pentagon's intention now. The U.S. likely wants to topple the leftist government of neighboring Nicaragua once again, to further attack the Venezuela-organized ALBA trade group. (Zelaya had joined the trade group; the coup government withdrew from it.) And I have little doubt that that is the Pentagon's intention with regard to the Dutch Antilles. Their bases there are a provocation against Venezuela and other leftist democracies. They are spy bases. And they are launching pads for aggression. The islands have no decision-making power on this matter. That means that they are NOT "autonomous."

[Lance_Boyle]

3. There is no use for any of the ABCs in warfare.

A single carrier group has more useful "land" than Bonaire. None of the ABCs would be at all likely to get caught up in a US/Venezuela conflict. Which itself is unlikely to ever happen.

[Mudoria]

5. He has to spin it somehow you know.....

[hughee99]

4. The US has military bases in the Antilles?

I knew they were allowed use an airstrip down there for their "drug related activities" (spy missions), but I didn't think there was an actual US military base down there with any sort of significant US military presence on the ground.

[Peace Patriot]

6. They call many of them "Forward Operating Locations" (FOLs) not "bases."

And that makes no difference as to the SOVEREIGNTY and AUTONOMY of the countries where they are located. You think the U.S. "Southern Command" consults the people of the Antilles as to their spying activities and other plans? They don't even consult us--those paying for it!

http://www.southcom.mil/appssc/factfiles.php?id=63

With drones and other aircraft, at least SEVEN bases and/or FOL's in Colombia, and bases or FOLs in Panama, Honduras, El Savador and now Costa Rica, and the 4th Fleet in the Caribbean--to mention just the bare outlines of the Pentagon's presence in the Caribbean/Central America region--they don't need a "significant US military presence on the ground" in the Antilles. That is the point of all these FOLs. A USAF document described it all as preparing the U.S. for "full spectrum military activities" in Latin America, to deal with, among other things (such "drug trafficking," etc.), "anti-U.S. countries."

So whether they call the parts of the NETWORK "bases" or "FOLs" is not important. What is important is how many of them there are, where they are, their ability to coordinate "full spectrum military activities" and Pentagon and U.S. war profiteer intentions.

Those activities--whatever they are now, or whatever they will be in the future--will NOT have the consent of the people whose countries have been the launching pads for those activities.

This is an extremely sensitive issue in Latin America, and this is WHY it is an extremely sensitive issue. Once U.S. bases or FOL's are there, they have no control. They have ceded their sovereignty and even their fate to military forces outside of their control. Even in Colombia--where dissent can't cost you your life--there is significant dissent on this issue. The Colombian Supreme Court just ruled the most recent U.S./Colombian military agreement unconstitutional--and it also caused an uproar elsewhere in Latin America. The Mercosur trade group makes the presence of foreign military in the country a bar to membership. It is a sovereignty issue, and Aruba and Curacao don't have sovereignty on this issue. The Netherlands has kept control. And I doubt that even the people of the Netherlands have much (or any) control over what the Pentagon does. They could find themselves dragged into a U.S. war via secret shenanigans of their own power elite-all the way across the Atlantic in Europe.

Is the U.S. not currently engaged in two wars? Did the U.S. not pre-emptively strike another country with carpet bombing of a virtually defenseless city, mass slaughter, invasion and occupation? How can we know, how can the people of the Netherlands know, how can the people of the Dutch Antilles know, that activation of these U.S. military forces in the Caribbean/Central America is not being done at this very moment? (Given the intensity of the anti-Chavez propaganda, you gotta wonder--truly.) But whatever the Pentagon has sketched in, on its Big Dartboard, the issue is SOVEREIGNTY. Do you want to be dragged into a U.S. war? If not, step one would be to evict the U.S. military from your country. Period. Because, if you don't, your sovereignty is a joke. You have no control over the matter.

[hughee99]

7. Since these islands have already given up control over such matters

to the Netherlands, it's up to the Netherlands to either enforce or end the FOL agreements if necessary. In either case, the local population wouldn't have much say in the matter. The islands still do retain the right to kick the Dutch out entirely, if I understand correctly, perhaps this is something they should consider.

According to Southcom (and I have no idea how reliable their info is, I suspect, not very)

"Agreements with the host nations specify which missions may be flown from the FOLs and also authorize Host Nation Riders to fly aboard U.S. aircraft to facilitate in-flight coordination with host nation authorities during operational missions. Some FOLs required extensive U.S.-funded modifications and upgrades to ensure that airfield/support facilities and force protection measures meet U.S. standards for safe operation by deployed aircraft and personnel (airfields must be night and all weather capable, have an air traffic control facility, and an 8,000-foot runway with the capability to support small, medium and heavy aircraft)."

So at least according to this (if it's accurate) the Dutch should have knowledge of the missions and can even send a representative along. If they don't know what's going on, of if something is happening that was not agreed to, they should know about it and be able to take action.

The difference between an actual "base" and a "FOL" is that the host country should have considerably more oversight in the operations.

[Peace Patriot]

8. Some additional information on the Dutch Antilles...

US Threatens Venezuela. Netherlands has Granted US Military Use of its Islands in the Caribbean
January 14, 2010
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=16962

Chávez: Netherlands and U.S. Planning Military Aggression Against Venezuela from Dutch Antilles
12/18/09
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5017

Just the Facts: A civilian guide to U.S. defense and security assistance to Latin America and the Caribbean: Netherlands Antilles
http://justf.org/Country?country=Netherlands_Antilles

Netherlands Antilles’ Break Up Continues as Its Geopolitical Importance Mounts
http://www.coha.org/netherlands-antilles’-break-up-continues-as-its-geopolitical-importance-mounts/

(This last one is hostile to the Chavez government, but it contains some interesting information about the Antilles as a tax haven (including Venezuela's rich rightwing tax scofflaws), tourism (lots of Venezuelan tourists to the islands--important to island economies), the politics on the islands and in the Netherlands, the islands' debts, U.S/Netherland relations, U.S./Antilles relations and U.S,/Venezuela relations. Worth reading. I think it's kind of funny--or would be, it it weren't such a serious subject--how this article turns the threat to peace in this region around, and makes Venezuela seem like a threat, when it is the U.S. that is militarizing the region and is conducting two wars, pre-emptively bombed and invaded another country, tortures prisoners, has permitted banksters and war profiteers to rob us all blind, and so on. The Chavez government has done none of these things, yet they are a threat? I just don't buy it. They have harmed NO ONE. And the U.S. has harmed MANY. And the Chavez government would clearly rather put more of their resources into education, health care, economic development and other such uses, rather than have to worry about U.S. aggression, which they surely have to do, given this U.S. military presence right off their oil coast, not a hundred miles away, and throughout neighboring Colombia, including a base being built overlooking the Gulf of Venezuela, 20 miles from the Venezuelan border. Who is aggressing whom? The Chavez government is into trade--fair trade at that. Not the U.S. Our corporate rulers want UNfair trade--backed by the U.S. military.)