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The Baku Initiative Group (BIG) has issued a strong statement condemning the newly presented program by the Dutch government to the country's Parliament, criticizing its continued colonial policies. The program, which has been approved by the Cabinet of Ministers and is awaiting parliamentary discussion, is seen by BIG as a perpetuation of the Netherlands' historical approach to its former colonies, particularly regarding six Caribbean islands. The group calls on the Dutch government to respect the right to self-determination and the freedom of these territories, accusing the new administration of stifling their independence.

Azernews presents the full statement of BIG below:

Statement of the Baku Initiative Group (BIG):
“For your information, we inform you that the Government of the Netherlands has submitted a new program to the Parliament of the country. The program has been approved by the Cabinet of Ministers and must now be discussed and approved by the Parliament.

Our expectations that the Netherlands, which has been a colonial country for centuries, would eventually respect the freedom of the peoples it enslaved and remove the obstacles it imposed for the independent living of the territories located tens of thousands of kilometers away from it, did not come true.

Although The Party for Freedom, the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy, the New Social Contract, and the Farmer-Citizen Movement, which formed the new government of the Netherlands, wrote that they were fighting for "freedom" in their charters, six countries in the Caribbean—Aruba, Curaçao, Saint Maarten, Bonaire, Saint Eustatius, and the Saba Islands—continue to stifle the freedom of the people of these islands.

The new program presented by the government claims that Bonaire, Saint Eustatius, and Saba will implement legislative and strategic initiatives aimed at increasing the prosperity of the islands, based on the principles of good governance and cooperation. For this, a General Management Law will be prepared, which approach involves the application of the "obey and explain" principle.

Thus, the right-wing nationalist new Cabinet of Ministers of the Netherlands is preparing to continue the colonial policy of the previous government. Although the government claims that some of these islands have an autonomous status, in fact, these areas are completely dependent on the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Even these islands have been removed from the UN list of territories to be decolonized.

In order to convey the real situation in the Dutch colonies to the world community, on August 22 of this year, an international conference called "Bonaire's Pathway From Baku Through UN General Assembly To Self-Determination," dedicated to the island of Bonaire, was held in Baku.

These peoples fighting for their freedom, especially the island of Bonaire, plan to submit a draft resolution to the UN General Assembly in October of this year to have the island re-listed by the UN for decolonization.

The Baku Initiative Group requests the Dutch government to respect the freedom of the peoples and not to create obstacles to the struggle of the islands for independence within the framework of international organizations.”

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