ORANJESTAD, Aruba -- Aruba, one of the six islands in the Netherlands Antilles, is another illustration of the tragedy that no two islands in the Caribbean seem to be able to get along.
As soon as you try to join two or more islands into one state they want to split off and secede.
St. Croix doesn't want to be under St. Thomas in the American Virgin Islands. Tobago doesn't want to be under Trinidad. Barbuda doesn't want to be under Antigua. The Grenadines don't want to be under St. Vincent. Nevis doesn't want to be under St. Kitts.
And Aruba doesn't want to be under Curacao, the main island in the Netherlands Antilles group.
But at least for the moment cooler heads have prevailed in Aruba and talk of a unilateral declaration of independence -- a rebellion in fact -- has subsided.
Secessionist feeling in Aruba had been running high for some time, but it came to a crisis in October when Aruba leader Betico Croes (the last name is a Dutch spelling of the Spanish surname Cruz) pulled his three members out of the Netherlands Antilles coalition cabinet headed by Prime Minister Don Martina of Curacao and threatened an immediate unilateral declaration of independence.
The issue was offshore oil exploration rights around Aruba. Croes wanted total Aruba control over any oil riches to be found while the national government proposed a board of directors for any oil exploration company of two Arubanos and one representative from the other islands with veto power over any deals.
But the general feeling here is that, if it hadn't been oil exploration rights, Croes would have found another issue over which to push for Aruba's independence.
After consultations with the Dutch government in The Hague, which is still responsible for defense and foreign affairs of the Netherlands Antilles, a commission was set up under former Dutch Prime Minister Barend Biesheuvel to study the economic effects of Aruba's separation from the other five islands on itself and on the other islands.
The seven-member commission has to make its report in six months, which has bought some time for all parties concerned.
The central Martina government is working on a plan to make a looser federation of the six islands, to transfer most powers to the individual islands, and to do away with the parliament of the Netherlands Antilles. Each island would send some representatives to a national cabinet which would take care of some national affairs, like currency and justice.
Meanwhile, Aruba is thinking hard about whether it wants to take the final plunge by itself into independence. Croes may have the majority there at the moment, but another political leader, Benny Nisbet, has proposed a referendum in the meantime on the status question.
'Politicians must know for sure what the Aruban people want - independence from Curacao but not from Holland, total independence, or what,' Nisbet said.
The betting here is that the preference of the people would be for independence from Curacao, but not from Holland -- a separate dependency of Holland -- but that is a choice Holland isn't likely to accept. None of the other alternatives -- total independence or staying with Curacao - generate much enthusiasm.
There is also some suspicion about independence leader Croes' ideological intentions. Croes earlier this year invited Marxist Grenada Prime Minister Maurice Bishop to Aruba with much fanfare and Croes travels freely to such countries as Cuba, acting as if he already headed an independent Aruba government. Many people on this tranquil tourist and refinery island are worried about what camp Croes would steer them into after independence.
At present the Netherlands Antilles consist of Curacao, population about 300,000, Aruba with about 65,000 people, Bonaire with about 10,000 - all three lying just off the coast of Venezuela -- plus the southern half of St. Maarten (the other half is a French municipality in the department of Guadeloupe), Saba and St. Eustatius, or Statia, with a combined population of only about 15,000, lying 600 miles to the northeast in the Lesser Antilles.
The language in Aruba, Curacao and Bonaire is Papiamento, a Creole mix of Spanish, Portuguese and other languages, while English is spoken on the other three.
The racial mixture of the people is also different, with blacks dominating on Curacao but not as much on the other islands. The economy is largely based on tourism, but both Aruba and Curacao have big oil refineries and shipping is a vital industry in Curacao.
The war of secession is so far a war of words and there are no outward signs of any revolts against the central government on Aruba or any of the other islands, but there is a precedent for a violent coup in another former Dutch colony, Surinam, where two years ago a group of army sergeants seized power.
Geography has separated the islands and history and colonialism have lumped them together under the Dutch. It's anybody's guess whether the islands will be able to stay together with their present political leadership.
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