Short News Netherlands

Searchlight - March 2007

The Netherlands oldest nazi party, the Dutch People's Union (NVU), will contest the provincial elections in Gelderland in March. Unlikely to win a seat (and a job) for its leader Constant Kusters, the NVU staged a demonstration, on 27 January, in Apeldoorn, where, in 2003, anti-fascists prevented a nazi march by occupying the town centre. This time, under the slogan "Close the borders to East European workers, against the EU and Neo-liberalism" but with a hidden agenda to smear the world wide Holocaust Memorial Day, the NVU was allowed to walk through a populated area, backed by the German nazi National Democratic Party from neighbouring North Rhine Westphalia. Local youngsters tried to pelt the hundred or so nazis with bricks and eggs but the police stepped in to stop them. Though Kusters ordered his friends to desist from singing the infamous nazi anthem, the Horst Wessel Lied, he did call for a minute's silence for the executed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. The demonstration was also used to collect money for Michael Krick, the German nazi jailed last year for attempted murder.

Meanwhile the National Alliance drowns itself in commemorating fascist leaders like Corneliu Codreanu of the murderous Rumanian Iron Guard and demonstrating for the Croatian war criminal Ante Gotovina. A NA delegation travelled to Bucharest on 2 December for a two hour-long march organised by Noua Dreapta. Then, on 9 December a small group of NA supporters demonstrated in The Hague for the release of Gotovina, currently standing trial at the Yugoslavia war crimes tribunal in the city. The NA also released a statement in support of Saddam Hussein, that looked a bit strange considering party leader Jan Teijns participation in a pro-US demonstration in 2003 in favour of the invasion of the US in Iraq.

7

Jeroen Bosch for Alert! and Antifa-Net