How Was the Price Created — and Who Is Paying It Now?

How Was the Price Created — and Who Is Paying It Now?

15 December 2025

Today is Kingdom Charter Day (Statuut Dag). On 15 December 1954, the Charter for the Kingdom of the Netherlands was signed, thereby establishing autonomy for the Netherlands Antilles and Suriname. Suriname marked fifty years of independence on 25 November 2025. Curaçao and the other islands commemorated fifteen years since the dissolution of the Netherlands Antilles on 10 October — fifteen years as autonomous countries within the Kingdom.

In this context, a volume titled De prijs van autonomie appeared in early December. The book, comprising more than thirty contributions, claims to offer a “critical balance” of fifteen years of self-government. Its presentation on 10 and 11 December was symbolically well chosen — and revealing.

Anyone opening the book immediately notices a striking pattern: almost without exception, the same group appears. The old guard. The political, administrative, societal, and cultural elite that have shaped Curaçao over the past fifteen years — some more visibly than others, but none entirely detached from the outcome.

I have written before: no one under the age of fifty-five. Age itself is not the issue. What matters is which positions these authors have held over the past fifteen years — and what role they played in what can, without exaggeration, be described as a disastrous outcome: Curaçao as the poorest country within the Kingdom.

The central question, therefore, becomes unavoidable: how can a group so deeply embedded in the governance of the past fifteen years now present itself as an independent assessor of that very period?

Analysis Without Responsibility

The Price of Autonomy examines fifteen years of self-rule primarily through institutional, historical and legal lenses. What is largely absent is any explicit attribution of political and administrative responsibility. This omission is not accidental. It is closely linked to the fact that many contributors were themselves directly or indirectly part of the governing and advisory structures that designed, implemented, and legitimized this period.

Autonomy is discussed as a constitutional arrangement rather than as a practice of power. Yet it is precisely this power practice — political appointments, informal loyalties and patronage — that has systematically prevailed over merit-based selection. The resulting hollowing-out of institutions led to administrative decay, the loss of economic pillars, and growing existential insecurity. Poverty appears in the volume mainly as a context or background condition, rarely as a predictable outcome of normalized governance choices.

Corruption is scarcely addressed explicitly. What is discussed in more detail — particularly by Donald de Palm — is political appointment power and administrative politicization. John Jacobs emphasizes the importance of integrity and anti-corruption frameworks. Even here, however, the tone remains cautious, almost technocratic, as if the issue were abstract system failure rather than power exercised by identifiable actors.

The Absence of Self-Reflection

A volume claiming to strike a critical balance would be expected to contain a measure of self-reflection. Largely, it does not. The contributions are written as though their authors stand at a distance — as neutral observers rather than as co-architects. That posture is difficult to sustain.

One of the editors is a former prime minister who left a decisive imprint on this period — for better or for worse. He led the first cabinet to complete its term. Since 10-10-10, Curaçao has had ten cabinets. His growth strategy laid the groundwork for policies that produced unrestrained and uneven growth: growth acknowledged in the book, yet one that simultaneously generated poverty. The urgent programme intended (Urgentieprogramma) to combat poverty was soon abandoned.

A significant number of contributors are architects and implementers of the Curaçao that exists today. With the exception of Dick Drayer — and perhaps one other — few made sustained public efforts to redirect policy or articulate structural criticism. Many were aware of systemic abuses. Many looked away. Many remained silent.

Fifteen years on, they are personally better positioned than in 2010. Large segments of the population are not.

The Bill

The book’s conclusion is unequivocal: Curaçao has not progressed. It is the poorest country within the Kingdom. At least thirty percent of the population lives below the poverty line. The quality of governance and public administration is deeply deficient.

The data confirm this assessment. The 2023 Census shows a further increase in income inequality. The Gini coefficient rose from 41.5 in 2011 to 46.0 in 2023. This is not a statistical footnote but the outcome of policy — or of its prolonged absence.

Yet we encounter contributions in which the architect of the civil service apparatus explains how weak that apparatus has become, without any acknowledgment of personal responsibility. This pattern repeats itself: analysis without accountability.

Who Pays the Price?

Through this volume, a group once again presents itself as the elite: absolved of responsibility for the outcomes of the past fifteen years, yet repositioned as the authoritative voice. Their judgment counts. Their analysis is published. Their status remains intact.

The price of autonomy — poverty, debt, and widening inequality — is paid by the population.

In this sense, De prijs van autonomie becomes, indirectly, a record of everything that went wrong, documented by those who were themselves partly responsible. Autonomy without accountability—including intellectual accountability—does not lead to self-determination but to self-preservation.

How many analyses can we still afford before responsibility is finally taken?

Miguel Goede