The saga between Land Aruba & Embassy Suites took a decisive turn this morning, when Aruba Birdlife Conservation went to the judge to try stop the heavy equipment WORKING on the beach in front, attempting to expand it, practically overnight, before anyone notices.
They probably planned to say oops, once we found out.
The film I posted by Aruba Birdlife Conservation shows pretty aggressive movement of heavy equipment, working against time to establish a new topography.
Embassy Suites has been lobbying for a beach, though developers knew that once the hotel construction was done, they had to ask the Ministry of the Environment for a permit.
They did not even bother to ask, because they knew the answer.
But they tried to establish a new reality, by ‘Just Doing It.’
A pretty sneaky strategy.
This morning a lawyer walked into court and got an instant response from a judge, stop all construction, immediately. If you move one more grain of sand, you’re looking at an Awg 500,000 a day, fine.
Gotta get a permit from Natuur & Milieu!
As I drove by the beach this afternoon, it was quiet, but they managed to move quite a bit of sand and boulders, the damage is done.
Lawyer Geert Rep went down to the beach with the HANDWRITTEN stop order, this morning, and presented it to the construction project leader on location.
They didn’t even stop to type it, time was of the essence.
The issue will remain in court, but for now it’s Cease and Desist.
The resort manager was off-island, probably because Hilton International could not be happy about Wild West tactics, so they got him out of the way.
This is a classic: The Minister of Tourism is pushing for building and development while the Minister of the Environment keeps his foot on the brake.
Eventually Aruba must decide, what it wants to do, and who it wants to be, but we are nothing without pristine nature.
Embassy Suites tried to present us with fait accompli, something already done and beyond alteration, creating an irreversible reality. Is that legal?
It reminds me how on a Sunday morning the bulldozers wiped the cunucu rum shop, in Noord, off the face of the earth in the name of Burger King. We woke up, and it was gone.
Here, the ministry was awake, and noticed.
Will GOA’s coalition collapse, in the wake of the rift between Tourism and Environment?? It could, but then what is the alternative.
