I'm sure most of you have heard about this. Natalee Holloway, 18, from the USA, disappeared 3 years ago on Aruba. The main suspect is Joran van der Sloot, who lived on Aruba but is from The Netherlands(like me).

Then a few weeks ago, Peter R. de Vries(who is quite famous here, it's great to see the reactions in America "Who is this Peter R. de Vries?"), a crime reporter, made a deal with a friend of Joran and placed hidden cameras in the car.
The friend got him to talk and he confessed he was guilty. Then a load of blabla came.

Then he showed the tapes to Natalee Holloway's mother, and she was shocked. Of course, who wouldn't be? You just find out that a person dumped your daughter in the ocean while she was probably still alive - Yeah, I would be shocked too.
She's like "oh my God, look what he's done, look what he's done to Natalee, to our country"-

Wait. Hold on. Rewind. Eh, not really? Yeah, it's unforgivable what he's done to Natalee, but your country has nothing to do with it. The same thing would've happened if Natalee would've been Chinese, but she just happened to be American. The only country this has something to do with is Aruba, because Joran singlehandedly destroyed that country. The economy has collapsed because of a lack of tourism.
This has nothing to do with America.

Opinions on this, and on the whole case?

I don't particularly follow criminal cases in the news, but that is a load of crap. I very much doubt that Holloway's murderer cared where she was from.

As for Aruba's tourism industry being hurt, it's from far more than the Holloway case. That was just finally the one that brought international attention to an existing problem. Now if only the media would get on the rest of the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico islands for their rampant crime against tourists, perhaps the governments there would start to give a shit and things like this would happen far less often. It really makes me wonder why, when this kind of thing happens hundreds of times each year, one certain case will get all sorts of media attention while the rest are ignored.

My wife and I had considered taking our honeymoon in plenty of different areas, including many Caribbean and Gulf islands. However, once we looked into them and saw all the travel warnings about crime, we chose a relatively safe area in Mexico (there are plenty of bad areas in Mexico as well, especially the capital and near to any of Mexico's borders).

I've read that many parts of Africa, Eastern Europe, Russia, Central America and the Middle East have similar issues. There are safe areas to travel to in those regions, you just have to do a bit of research.

Yeah, that's true, this was just the final drop. But because of this, Aruba has gotten a lot of negative attention, like 30% less tourists from the USA, which is their main income, so to speak.
But Aruba is very small compared to those regions you named...and besides, nothing much really happens over there, so people think it's safe, and then this happens. That's what going on right now.


Another thing: In a talkshow here in The Netherlands, Joran threw a glass of wine into Peter R. de Vries' face. Yeah, that's not very nice.
But guess what? De Vries has had hundreds of questions from Americans who wanted to know if that really was wine, they couldn't imagine alcohol in a decent TV show.

'Scuse me? Everyone above 18 can have a weapon in the USA, but a glass of wine is over the top? Don't make me laugh. That's a bit hypocritical.

Yeah I've only seen bits and pieces of this and it's been a while, but the actions of one man like this against one person should not and hardly can disgrace a whole country. I doubt the Aruban (or whatever it's called) government plotted to kidnap an American girl all for attention, political gain, arousing pleasure, whatever.

It was a criminal act of one human being on another. Not one country against another country.

I do feel bad for the victim and her family, but you need to be cautious of who you trust these days and what kind of situations you put yourself in.