A Tropical Punch

A Tropical Punch
© 2005 Ross Williams

Let's be frank and realistic. Natalee Holloway is either dead, or sold into white slavery. If she's dead, which she probably is, it's either because someone killed her or she was so drunk that she wandered into the ocean and drowned.

The pertinent facts are these:
1] On May 30 2005 she got plastered with 3 Arubans – the son of a local judge, and two brothers – in one or more local bars, and then went off to have sex with them. All of them. On the beach.
2] She hasn't been seen since.

They might have killed her; that sort of thing happens from time to time. What's more likely, to my way of thinking, is that the three young men she was drinking with screwed her on the beach and left her there to sober up on her own while they went home laughing about the dumb, naive American slut. Afterwards, she puked up a few Long Island Iced Teas or some Sex on the Beaches, staggered into the surf to clean up, passed out and got washed away, before drowning, or after.

Or maybe some sleazeball with connections in the White Slave trade came upon a young, drunken, semi-naked white chick lying, freshly screwed, on the sands of Aruba, stuffed her into the trunk of a car, drove her to the marina, put her on some unregistered yacht that was sailing for the East Indies, and today young Natalee Holloway is entertaining Saudi businessmen and Arab League diplomats, two or three at a time, in some Yemeni retreat.

At least she'd be alive, right? Let’s keep a good thought.

The young men in question at first tried to dissemble their connection with her. No, no, they didn't know her.

When confronted with witnesses who saw them all together, they changed their story: "Oh-h-h-h, her! Sure, we knew her. We met her at the bar, filled her with enough rum to grog an entire British Frigate, took her to the beach and fucked her brains out."

This may be the 21st century, and folks may cynically believe there is no shame left in the human race, but this isn't something that most people would volunteer, even if they hadn't killed her afterwards. To jump to the conclusion that these three killed her because they lied about getting her drunk and banging her all night long is just a wee bit too presumptive.

Is the whole arrangement suspicious? Well, of course it is. A young woman is missing, for godsake. But while "missing" probably means "dead" in this case, "dead" does not immediately lead to "murdered".

Natalee's mother, Beth Twitty, is understandably upset. She's beside herself with rage and fear and frustration. Most any parent would be. And it's easy to jump all over mom here: "Why'd you let a child go to Aruba all by herself? What kind of parent are you?!" But, face it, the "child" was 18, legally an adult[1], she was heading off to college in three months to be far more independent than a chaperoned vacation in Aruba was allowing her to be and, frankly, it's none of your business.

But still, American parents? Wake up. The rest of the world is not the United States. Things can happen there that can't happen here; things that only rarely happen here happen, sometimes, far more frequently there. And in any event, when something awkward, bad, or tragic happens in a foreign country, they are not obliged to follow US customs or US laws or cater to US citizens' demands in sorting it all out.

And that is most of the problem that Beth Twitty is facing today as she's trying to piece together what happened to her daughter. She has been pestering Aruba since early June, trying to get them to respond to her like they were the local Birmingham police department and paid by her taxes.

Clue, Ms Twitty: they aren't.

She's been pestering Aruba trying to make the judge handle the case as if the judge were an Alabama state judge and coming up for re-election in the fall.

Clue, Ms Twitty: he ain't.

This is ARUBA, an entirely different country, with entirely different laws, entirely different procedures, and entirely different customs. They do not have to tell you what they are doing; they do not have to hold your hand and inform you of every lead they're going to follow; they do not have to hold the three suspicious young men in jail just because they're suspicious. Aruba is, from all accounts, following their own laws, and following them properly. Deviating from those laws to give you what you want them to give you would only be because they were being nice ... and they are under no obligation to do that.

And frankly toots, I wouldn’t either if I were in their position, doing what I'm supposed to be doing, and I kept getting badgered by a smug foreigner making demands upon me. My suggestion to you, in fact, would be very very similar to what your daughter went to the beach to do: fuck off.

Now I sympathize with you greatly, as do, I'm sure, the Aruban officials you keep pestering. But you are going to get nowhere, and very quickly, by your current tack.

Aruba has bent over backwards for you, and for the American Consulate. They have indulged enough of your whims and demands, and invited the FBI to undertake high-tech investigative procedures. They did not have to these things. They did anyway. That was very, very nice of them.

I’m not sure, but you probably thanked them, and you were probably very sincere in your thanks. But you are still making demands of them. This isn’t going to be greeted well, but too bad: drop it. Stop pestering Aruba. You are one of the reasons foreigners dislike Americans. You are one of the reasons that foreigners think Americans are smug and arrogant and demanding. We frequently are, as you are demonstrating right now.

Aruba is following its laws; that’s all they’re required to do. You have no right to expect more from them than that. Your legal rights – as an American – when dealing with a situation in Aruba – is exactly what Aruba says they are. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Build a shrine to your daughter if you wish; refuse to vacation in Aruba if you wish; pester other Americans to refuse to vacation in Aruba as well. Those are your rights. Demanding Aruba rewrite its criminal procedures, or operate outside them anyway, because your stupid daughter got drunk and screwed her way around the island and turned up nowhere-to-be-found isn’t among them.

[1] who is allowed to drink to stupidity in most countries in the world – it is only in the US we segregate adults who can drink from "adults" who cannot