WILLEMSTAD--Giovanni Atalita of Curaçao’s AVA Airways said on his Facebook page that he had not used forged documents, in response to a story of local Dutch-language newspaper Antilliaans Dagblad (AD).

 

The AD claimed to have a forensic report which indicates that representatives of the airline used papers that were not real to try and get an economic licence.

 

Atalita denied having used forged documents and as far as he knows the company’s owner Olivier Arrindell did not do so either. AVA Airways incidentally still has not received the permit needed to operate that it requested two years ago from government.

 

The company in an article published on Thursday by Papiamentu-language afternoon paper La Prensa stated that it was expecting a final answer from Minister of Transport, Communication and Spatial Planning Suzy Camelia-Römer on the economic licence this week, to be able to get an Air Operating Certificate (AOC). The airline says it has complied with all requirements in the minister’s letter of September 23.

 

If the decision is negative, AVA will not accept this and take legal steps because “justice must prevail in Curaçao.”

 

Arrindell went on a rampage via PJD-2 102.7FM radio Thursday evening, accusing the two St. Maarten newspapers of –among other things- racism for taking over the AD story without calling him. He indicated it was all part of some Dutch-inspired Antillean conspiracy to keep a native black man from having an airline.

 

Arrindell also said a judge had declared Minister Camelia-Römer corrupt and that Curaçao’s civil aviation could never get back into the category one status of the US federal Aviation Administration because it is run by a Jamaican involved in corruption as well.

 

He claimed forensic reports are done when people are murdered, not when an aviation company is being established. That his financing is international according to him is because the local banks don’t do anything for the people, “but so what; it’s the Dutch who invented off-shore.”

 

Arrindell further advised St. Maarten to start taking aviation matters into its own hands and to stop sending its dollars to the Central Bank, because Curaçao is sinking both islands.

 

Ava Airways is assisted in this matter by attorney Chester Peterson of Sulvaran & Peterson.