Curaçao
Curaçao (; , ; , ) is a Lesser Antilles island in the southern Caribbean Sea and the Dutch Caribbean region, about north of the Venezuelan coast. It is a constituent country () of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
1969 Curaçao uprising
Another issue that would come to the fore in the uprising was the Netherlands Antilles', and specifically Curaçao's, relationship with the Netherlands. Its status had been changed in 1954 by the Charter for the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Under the charter, the Netherlands Antilles, like Suriname until 1975, was a "land" which was part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, but was distinct from the "land" Netherlands, which constituted the European part of the Kingdom. Foreign policy and national defense were Kingdom matters and presided over by the Council of Ministers of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which consisted of the full Council of Ministers of the Netherlands with one minister plenipotentiary for each of the countries Netherlands Antilles and Suriname. Other issues, however, were governed at a more local level, that of the land (Netherlands Antilles) or island itself (Curaçao). Although this system had its proponents, who pointed to the fact that managing its own foreign relations and national defense would be too costly for a small country like the Netherlands Antilles, many Antilleans saw it as a continuation of the area's subaltern colonial status.