Crazy Charlie came into my life in Amsterdam one unfortunate day. He was born in Tirol but had left there after having been involved in making explosives for a separatist movement. I was walking over the square in front of the Royal Palace towards my legally squatted home, when he approached me for a guilder; we still had national money then. He was broke and needed a coin to call his former girlfriend as he just came from a stint in a Belgian prison. He had no where to go and hoped she would take him in. Before he went to Belgium, he was in Amsterdam, hence his girlfriend. It had never been a good relation and he was happy to get to live in our amazing building. He told me he had done time for falsifying certificates of authenticity for fake antiques. He made new copper pots look old with acid and burying them in the ground for a while. He then sold them with self made certificates of origin stamped and signed by the secretary of the BADA, the Belgian Antique Dealers Association, rubber stamps and all. Charlie knew more tricks than the book holds. I took him in, first for a few days in my own big front room on a couch, later he got his own place in the building; there were empty rooms enough.

When Charlie was settled he asked me to help him with what he called a moral issue; paying of a debt of honor.  

He explained that when he was in Amsterdam some years ago, he was often approached by youngsters who asked for a little money. There were hippies who came to the magic city, curious kids and druggies from all over the world. Many used to sleep for free in the park or on the stairs of the National Monument. True enough, these guys who had over stayed their welcome roamed the streets, often begging me too for a hand out.

In those days the parking of cars in the city had become a major problem and the first parking meters had appeared on the streets. Charley had been a certified lock smith, although he was thrown out of the profession for duplicating keys of bank safes. He now figured a way to help the poor kids. He had secretly made keys for the newly appeared parking meters and gave them to all the kids who asked for money. He explained that their piggy banks where all over town and with the provided key they could serve them selves. For his trained locksmith eye, the first parking meters where simple enough and he easily made keys to gave away, just for his own satisfaction. He never showed me how he did it. He was proud of himself to have had that generous and helpful idea. It did not take long for the police to find him out. Some careless kid had been taken in who spilled the beans. He was arrested and led before a magistrate. This entire episode happened long before I knew him. He told me how the punishment for his giving out keys was difficult for the prosecutor and the judge to determine. One; the legality of the very parking meters was still in question. A discussion was going on over who had the right to tax the streets and two; Charlie had not damaged anything or stolen anything himself, three; the amount of money that had been taken by the key holding kids could not be determined. So the judge gave Tiroler Charlie a stern warning. The judge had said: “Charlie, this time you will get away with a warning. Be informed however that the next generation parking meters will be much better constructed now that you have pointed out that they are vulnerable. I bet you will not be able to open the new ones.”  Charlie immediately answered the judge: “Your Honor, thank you for your leniency, I heard you loud and clear, and I accept your bet. My honor as a lock smith is at stake and I bet you that I can open them.”

He then asked me help him with his task to defend his honor. I was amused about his story and found it hard to refuse such challenge, and I agreed. We went out for an inspection of the newly placed modern parking meters. They looked impressive indeed. Mounted on a 2 inch steel pipe, embedded in a block of concrete, buried deep in the ground they where practically immovable. Investigating them at location with a tent built around was not impossible but impractical, so it was decided to get one in order to study it in the privacy of his workshop. To do this we developed an ingenious device, a movable tent, to discretely remove one. In Holland we have transport tricycles for big loads. The front is a wooden flatbed of almost a meter and a half square that rests on an axle with wheel on each side. The driver sits on a saddle on top of the back wheel and his feet turn the drive chain. His hands move the flatbed in the direction the contraption is going. We had found a tricycle like that in a carport of our squatted house. Covered by a layer of dust with flat tires it had stood there many years. We mounted sticks on the four corners and connected those with horizontal bars. About one meter high it was. We covered the frame with old carpets and tarpaulin overlapping flaps in front. It was now a box big enough to hold a man. With a handsaw we made a slit 3 inch wide, in front of the wooden flatbed, all the way till the axle. That was to get the parking meter inside the box. Charlie had obtained a huge pipe cutter and his chariot was now ready for action. We waited till night fall and with Charlie inside I pushed it all the way across the wide main road. The weather was bad; there was not a dog outside. The rain came in gusts and the wet autumn leaves were flying through the darkness. With here and there a street lamp the light was scant and I was feeling excited and alert. Through an alley, on across another street onto the canal streets where the parking meters were. After a little more pushing I found an empty parking spot under a tree at a dark corner. The rain and cold wind made it the perfect night for our adventure. The trees rustled and swung their low branches and splattered me with wet leaves. I pointed the tricycle straight at the parking meter. The pipe went through the flaps and the slit, the parking meter was now right inside the box with Charlie. I walked away while he did his cutting. In case of a night stroller, or a dog walker coming too close, I was to whistle a certain melody. At my third pass, when I asked, I heard the muffled “All Clear” signal from within. Then I pulled the tricycle away from there. Up the steep bridge to turn left and get home as fast as possible. Looking back I saw the short steel pipe sticking out of the street where once had been the parking meter. Nobody would miss it or even know that there had been a parking meter. The trip back home was cold and apart from the feeling of victory uneventful. Once back inside the building Charlie carried his loot wrapped in a cloth with him to his dwelling.

I did not see him for a few weeks but one day Charlie came up with a bunch of keys. “It is time to try out my work, come along,” said he, “you have to watch for me, part of the deal.” He explained that the meters had indeed not been easy to crack; each one needed three keys to get at the money. He showed me three bunches of different size keys. One key to open the top, the second to free the box which held the coins and the third key to open it. The box was attached on a strong thin chain. We went out, again on a dark stormy night. It was autumn and the weather was often bad. Charlie was dressed in his black raincoat with a multitude of inner pockets that held pliers, cutters, a breaking iron and the rest of the tools of his trade. On his head a rolled up baklava, on his hands thin gloves. I put my darkest winter coat and gloves and out we went. The eerie light from the few street lamps through the moving branches, the rain and the howling wind made it a perfect horror movie scene. After midnight we spotted the perfect parking meter, between two parked cars, just there where a street lamp was not working. While Charlie started trying and inserting one key after the other, I walked around again with that crazy melody in my head. Nobody disturbed us; it was no weather for any one to be outside. At one of my passes he came away triumphantly and I heard the sound of silver. He attacked the next one much more confidently, but still needed a lot of time. When he had found the three keys that worked as passkeys for one row of meters on one street, the next street needed other keys again. I saw sometimes a glimpse of his doings, a flash of the many keys in the windy night under a tree that moves and rustles and the wind is raving loose leaves in the autumn storm. At a spot that was a bit more exposed, to save time, he would just open the top, insert the breaking iron for the money box, get it out and cut the chain with his strong cutting pliers. He would put the box in one of his deep pockets and move on. How many he opened I don't recall, but later that night we drank on his success in a few bars. We always paid with coins, not to raise suspicion we could not stay long in one place. We bought cigarettes from coin operated machines, and we ate at an automatic food dispenser. A few days later he asked me to come again but I refused. My argument being that I helped him keep his bet with the judge, to defend his honor, but I was not going to be a burglar, no thank you very much. He accused me of cowardice, but who was the stupid one when a few weeks later he was behind bars, for a good while this time? He had made keys for other people again and of course they had been caught and of course they had sung. I did not see Charlie for a few months; however, he did come back. Last time I saw him he was tapping electricity from a high tension wire. He had taped beer bottles two feet apart as insulators on a long bamboo pole. A thick copper wire was wrapped around each bottle neck and he shoved the pole out of his window until the copper wire touched the electric tramway overhead lines. The other end went into a buzzing transformer the size of three cubic feet. His room was the first one to have light that night. The guy who collected the money from the twenty or so people living here, to pay the monthly electricity bill, had eloped with the money, so what were we to do?

Like a blind man groping in the dark is the person asking about solutions for the violence, the lack of concern, the hate and the pain it causes. Jesus message of love has never been implemented by the churches that have sprouted up around His ideas and teachings. Born out of love and born with love everybody should be loving. But  the politicians and priests have destroyed that love from day one. Love makes one a rebel. A rebel against the lies and the hate. Against the possessiveness of the world. Love does not posses. Love is freedom. And freedom does not exist in this world of frontiers, religious laws and capitalistic money hoarding. Frustration is the result of those people who cannot suppress their love any longer. The church wants you to be their member and nobody else’s member. You belong to this or that church, you are not free, you cannot be love. Love cannot be restricted to One thing only, then it is not love, then it is preference. One must love his country, but can only do so by hating ,or not so strong disliking other countries. Every nation calls itself best, implementing that others are worse. There is no love in that. Every persons intrinsic nature is love when born. From the beginning this love is curbed, destroyed and corrupted.

 tat of a jealous God that tolerates no other? Is that Love? The religions have created fear, the opposite of love. Only people that are afraid are easy to manipulate. A person of love knows no fear. Love is courageous. The politicians and the priests do not want loving people, they cannot be manipulated. The natural love that is everybody birthright is hidden, hurt, damaged, but not destroyed completely, it cannot disappear totally. Hence the rebellion, the frustrated violence, the crazy deeds from those who themselves not  know why they go crazy. In fact everybody is part of the madness. Except for those few that come like Jesus, with words of love, and whips to chase the moneymakers, and words of comfort for the whores, nobody gives in to the natural love that is the basic source of life. People like Jesus that want to change the hate policy and the wrong of the authorities are killed, deported or otherwise eliminated.

 Society has no place for those who are filled with love. When love is in a person, why should he go to a church or temple to look for god? ten he is dancing, happy, full of gods love, why look for god in books, temples ? That is why we have this violence, crime and problems in the world. And here in our own backyard. ten more people are involved in planting trees and flowers than in making weapons and war, maybe the world would begin to heal. It won't happen. For those who feel the wrongs, because love is still alive  inside, hold on, you are not alone, a few of us are always around, under the surface, low profile. We are not wanted, because    we upset the policies from church and state. What courage  must the newspapers have, to dare print this very letter of mine.

 Where truth and love is, crime does not happen

Murder, violent encounters resulting in serious bodily harm for the victim, and/or loss of income, transport and use of bodily functions are punishable crimes. Or are they??? In certain cases they are but if these things happen between traffic partners they are not.

Hit by a car, driven by an angry or depressed or careless driver goes unpunished. No matter how many victims roll bleeding on trolleys into the hospital, laws to curb these road crimes are not in place. Doctors tend to traffic victims more than to any other sickness in hospitals and all that because the perpetrators who put these people in  hospital are innocent as the law decides. I say Bull Shit, nobody who hurts another human being is innocent. How can I make this known to the lawmakers? By what norm do these lawmakers judge? If a crime happens in anger, or in sudden instinctive action, or through stupidness, or in innocence, the victim does not care. The victim has to cope with a lame leg, or a blind eye or a missing hand and the perpetrator is guilty, no matter if he did it on purpose, through carelessness, through stupidness or whatever.

Ignorance of a law does not mean that that law does not apply to you. Ignorance in traffic means to my thinking not that one can hit someone and get away with it. If you run a red light and you say sorry, you still get a fine. If you hit someone with your car, maim him, hurt him, or whatever, and you say sorry, you go free... Why is that???

As a victim of a traffic hit by a careless driver I am now waiting over 6 month for justice. Costs that I cannot bear, troubles, handicap and nerves, under medication , not so much now for physical pain any more, that lasted only three month, but now for mental agony, because I am going mad. Want to kill myself instead of waiting for justice that seems to be non existent. This is maybe the 6th or 7 th letter I write on this subject. I wish it was the last. Having debts to friends, landlord and doctors, hospital, why should I continue? Angry that the man who hit me did not kill me. That would have been the end of my troubles. But no, I have to talk to my lawyer, ask for free court procedures~ -- as all my savings are gone. And take medication so as to stay functional and not become mighty mad at the person who did this to me, or go look for him, to take revenge, as the old testament advises me. why do we have laws??? I would think to keep the citizens in a kind of morally acceptable way of conduct. But in traffic any citizen can misbehave and abuse any other participant to the full. Morals are not taken into consideration and I wonder what my lifelong honesty and morality have brought me. Is it not time for me now to go out and steal a car, drive it like mad, send a few pedestrians into hospital with injuries as it does not get punished anyway? Stealing a car is called joy riding, hitting anyone (without intent) is not punishable. And any- way, if I should get jail time, by writing some articles in the Herald I will get freed sooner, as we all have learned from the famous shoplifter who gets praise from the judge for his public writings and confessing that he is a thief. I should have built up a buffer allowing me to steal me rich unpunished after all the articles I wrote. Cultivating crime is what I call it and it makes me sicker than I was already from the hit I got on the 2nd of December.'99. And this is the truth, so help me God.

The helicopter is a nuisance. People asked me to write what follows here. There is anger under the population about the flying thing. One lady who has made herself a private sunbathing spot and walled in her poolside was angered by the helicopter hanging right over her looking at her as she covered her modesty. She feels her privacy infringed upon. The children from St. Peters school got the scare of their life on Monday when the helicopter hang for one whole hour over their school and came so low that they had to run away from the blast.

Another man told me that he feels that he cannot park his car, which is one of a kind, behind the place of his secret lover no more. Other guys told me that they do not want their car to be seen parked at certain clubs. Another said it was OK with him, when he wants to shoot his neighbors' dog, he will do it when the noise maker comes, and nobody will hear the shot. Again another, this one a professional pilot himself, tells me that the eye in the sky costs 500 dollar per hour. It is 5 hours in operation per day. And every 100 hours it needs servicing at considerable cost as well. The young inexperienced pilots, perverts as the lady from the beginning of the story can confirm, are just making hours to build up the amount they need for a commercial license.

The economist in the group sees no other explanation than that the police must have sold confiscated drugs in order to pay 2500 dollars per day for this thing. The tourist gets the impression that more crime happens here than in Miami were there are no helicopters sweeping Overhead all day. He was saying that this was the last time he came this way o In plain English: the thing is very bad for tourism. And when it hangs in a valley, the sound reverberates double loud and keeps those who need their siesta from sleeping. These were the things I overheard lately from just a few people.

I myself say that the helicopter can be useful in case a car chase is in progress. And if rentals have their numbers painted on the roof in big letters, stolen cars can be found back from the sky. For the rest that flying eye should stay out of the beautiful Sint Maarten sky. What good has it done so far? Nothing anybody could think of. On behalf of the people that I heard, I ask the head of police Mr. Richards to explain the benefit against the damage the helicopter does. And have it grounded until it can be of help.

On the night of 24 September I got robbed in my own house by two masked men, armed with a gun and a machete around midnight. Bound hand and feet, after they left, I could free my feet later and get to the neighbors who freed my hands and called the police, who came, but not immediately, 40 minutes later. There is no distance on this island greater than 20 minutes. However, the two officers saw the mess the gangsters left behind and the next day I filed a report. Although i knew and gave to tne Detectives the name of the female accomplice who was scheduled to fly out of the country 2 days later, she was not stopped for interrogation. On the night of 20 October a car, Daihatsu Feroza (6146 ZA 971) pulled up behind my house at 11pm and when I went out to see, it turned and sped away. I followed with the car of Linda which I used that day. It went dangerously fast, overtaking every car in front, and I only got close at the Texaco gas station where I saw the two occupants. One with a slight moustache, both light brown complexion both under thirty years of age. On the front window of the car was the word "DEATHROW ' in huge letters. That same night at 12:30 that car came up my drive again. I then called the police who would send a patrol car to investigate. The Feroza left as soon as I had put on lights in order to use the telephone. This Sunday morning at 4:30 the same Feroza drove up my road again, and parked a small distance away. I saw it put its lights off standing there. I called 542 2222. No one picked up the phone at the police station. I tried 911. No one answered that number. I tried 5 times both numbers, while the Feroza stood there menacing, waiting. I put as little light as possible. Then I called 5426001 the fire department. Someone answered the phone at once. I explained the situation. The fireman said he would run over to the police station in order to find out why they did not answer. That made me wait in Lear. I called the ambulance department on 542 2211. Mr. Hamilton answered the phone at once. After explainingthe situation he raised the police station on his wireless, the communication system amongst the emergency services. After he spoke to the police he told me to call 911 again. And yes, I then got a policeman on the line. By then the Feroza car slowly drove down my road.

The Occupants had seen me put on the lights and knew I was awake. The police man told me that he was all alone, no patrol car was on the road, two colleges had reported sick, there was nobody to help. It was a night for gangsters, police is simply not here. I then asked if I could get permission to have a gun; I must be able to defend myself. It is not allowed for a citizen to own a gun, however, in a case like mine, it is better to be alive in jail for shooting a gangster than to be dead and robbed by the same. I ask our head of police governor Richards to beef up his force. As it is now it is a gangster’s paradise.

Boelie van Leenwen wrote it already long ago: The respect one gets on the islands depends on the amount of money you have managed to steal. This old-fashioned pirate mentality does still exists. Also here on Sint Maarten. In the Simpson Bay area is a person who steals, robs, swindles and fools people out of anything possible. His name is Richard Lissenberg. He is what doctors call a sociopath. He starts out very helpful, friendly, ever so active. He will run errands, fix a broken fence or waterpipe. He will lie to you about his past and cover one lie with the next. He will become so friendly with you and your family that when the day comes that you ask him to take some money to pay the electricity and water bill and he does not return, you don't know how to explain it to your wife and kids. Richard has fooled such a number of people in the Philipsburg area that he cannot show his face there any more. I know of some people who would do him physical harm if they would run into him. If I would have the mind for it I would happily brake him an arm myself. And make him suffer. He owes me 700 dollar for about ten years now. How he has abused my trust and friendship is more than disgusting. The money he took from people that owed me, and the rent for the place I let him for three month he never repaid. He is sick in the sense that he has the old pirate mentality, as a few politicians and commissioners or former commissioners still have. Rob, steal, plunder and pillage as much as you can, he who has most wins most respect. Society can do without these rotten apples and it is a shame that the police cannot act to lock these evil persons away. Because they never have anything written down, whatever money they manage to take from someone is cash, and any trusting person does not suspect Richard to be so rotten as to take off with your fridge, deep fryer or other tool, household item or jewelry. The word con-artist comes from the word confidence. You start out trusting the man so much that he creates the situation where you see him go with your valuables before you realize that it is so. Be warned for this particular One, a warned man counts double.