Attacking the squatter movement head on

Check the picture here for better focus.

Weak protection of property rights

More than a month ago I wrote about the weakness of the protection of property rights in The Netherlands, especially in Amsterdam. Now this blog will feature an article on the improvement in the protection of property rights.

You see, since the late 1960ies it had been so that squatters who took over someone's real estate would receive more protection from the courts and police than the owner of the property. If the owner would try to take back the property the squatters would be able to call the police and the courts would convict owners for the use of violence against people in their own house. The police would seldomly come to evict the squatters, as long as the squatters limited themselves to squatting in houses which had been unoccupied for half a year or longer.

Rolling back the squatter movement

With the Fortuyn revolt in 2001, which was copiously supported by real estate developers the squatter tide started to recede. Early in 2010 legislation was enacted that would make squatting illegal again and which in effect would give property owners the power of the police to get their property back if it was occupied without his consent. The legislation went into effect on 1 October 2010.

Evicting squatters

Today in Amsterdam the new legislation made itself felt. The riot squad of the police evicted squatters from occupied houses in the Spuistraat in Amsterdam. The squatters had demonstrated a few days before. The demonstration had turned into a riot and pavements, windows and cars had been damaged. More importantly two policemen and a squatter were injured. The major of Amsterdam, Eberhard van der Laan, announced that the squatters would have to pay the damage, including the health bills of the policemen.

Conclusion

After 1968 most of the Western world went off the rails. The knowledge of Good and Evil was surpressed. Damage to our societies is immense. One society worst hit by the progressive wave was The Netherlands. The return to the protection of property rights is one indication that our society is on the way back to sanity, one step at the time. Let us hope that more many more steps will follow!

Some animals are more equal than others

750 privately owned houses

This blog featured a post yesterday about the City of Amsterdam which is confiscating the second house of people who have a first house elsewhere. 750 owners are risking de facto confiscation. The confiscated houses have to be rented at controlled nominal rents to people who are deemed needy by the municipal bureaucrats, according to the housing statute of the City of Amsterdam. Labour party (PvdA) politicians are still defending the policy on the thinnest of grounds. Namely that the shortage of houses is "so acute". But no grounds are needed when men are bent on being tyrants. Whim is the heart of tyrranny.

Forced into loss

These house owners have to rent out the houses at rents which do not cover the costs of the mortgage, they are forced into heavy losses. But the municipality does not care about their troubles. It does not feel their pain. 

400 municipality owned houses

How could it know their pain? The municipality does not own houses, does it? However today Dutch daily "De Telegraaf" dug up the fact that the municipality owns about 400 houses in the centre of Amsterdam (Dutch). Two municipality owned firms, NV Zeedijk and NV Stadsherstel, obtained these houses in campaigns to end the large power drugs- and other mafias have in the Amsterdam red light district. By forcing suspect and seedy owners to sell their houses in this district. This by force of another right to property undermining law: BIBOB. But that is another story.

Paying mortgages is a pain

The municipality paid good money to obtain these houses. It had to get mortgages from banks to finance the purchases. And now the municipality has to pay the montly payments on the mortgages. According to the statutes used against the owners of second homes the houses are not used for living by the owner. And they have a value below 163,000 Euro. So they qualify as houses which must be rented out at controlled, nominal rents, according to the Amsterdam housing statute.

Amsterdam and its newest, bestest friends

However the houses are rented out through nearby hotels, Krasnapolsky and Barbizon, at 200 Euros per night. The location of the houses is the best, there will be a lot of demand for these municipality owned houses. The municipality and friends must be making a killing on this deal. The civil servants enforcing the confiscations from the private owners of second homes have been instructed to waive the statute for the municipality owned houses. This was confirmed by former Amsterdam Alderman Hans Gerson in September 2009 on the grounds that otherwise the municipality would own the houses at a loss. That is enough reason when the municipality has to bear it, but not enough reason when prive owners have to bear it.  

See no evil

Oh and if houses are rented out and it does not get into the books? There is no keeping track of the coming and going of tourists and travellers is there? This situation is ideal for the creation of black, undeclared money flows. Who knows who might be on the take?

Some animals are real pigs if you ask me

The right to property undermined in Amsterdam

No protection for property owners

Within The Netherlands Amsterdam has been infamous for the weak protection of property rights. Bikes and cars be stolen without the police being willing to investigate the matter. I am speaking from experience here. Real estate, such as houses and apartments, is prey to a violent and arrogant squatter movement, who may take over empty buidings counting on the protection and assistance from the city government, and the public utilities for supply of power and water. This has been so since the late 1960ies.

Movements for property rights

Since the Fortuyn populist revolt in 2001 there is a counter-movement, seeking to bring back the protection of property. Fortuyn was bankrolled by big real estate owners, who sought the protection of their property rights and the destruction of the squatter movement. The leadership of rightwing parties in parliament saw in this a part of the agenda of the populist movement that they could implement without touching the multicultural ideology. They were hoping to isolate the populist movement from its financial base and they felt they needed to give something to their respective conservative bases to ease the grass roots pressure on the party leadership. And so the Balkenende cabinet wrote and passed a anti-squatter bill. This bill is going to take effect on 1 October 2010.

The bitter-enders of the left

The left did not give up so easily. Last June the national council of Public Prosecutors announced that they would not enforce the new anti-squatter law (Dutch). Law or no law, Naboth could go to Hell. Minister of Justice Hirsch Ballin insisted that the law would be enforced. Whatever that is worth.

But the left is not finished in its quest to replace the rule of law with the rule of whim of bureaucrats. And the the whim of its favoured violent special interest groups such as squatters, animal rights activists and such 1.). Which in the past furnished them with the assassin of Pim Fortuyn, when they needed one. To show their disdain for property rights the Labour Party (PvdA) dominated City Council is confiscating privately owned apartments (HT KV) whose owners are living in a first home elsewhere. Distributing the apartments to their own needy clients at a nominal controlled rent. A typical apartment with a monthly mortgage payment of 1,000 Euro will be rented out for a maximum rent of 548 Euros. So the owners will not be able to make good their investment. In addition the clients of the City Council may run down or damage the property of the owner, with uncertain recourse for the owner through the overloaded courts.

This is not at all new. In book 6 - Democracies and Oligarchies - of The Politics and The Constitution of Athens 2.) Aristotle remarks on phenomena which tend to bring democracies down:

The demagogues of our own day often get property confiscated in the law-courts in order to please the people.

The Rule of Law is a good thing

Kleinverzet introduces his article by remarking that

all and sundry on the Dutch left are decrying Geert Wilders as a potential threat to Justice and Rule of Law.

In the context of the lack of protection of property rights invoking the Rule of Law by the left is indeed totally unappropriate. The Rule of Law is a convenient stick to batter Geert Wilders and his Freedom Party (PVV). The left has never shown respect for the Rule of Law when it fettered their unrestrained rule.

By contrast, it is the effort of the supporters of the populist PVV and its forerunner, which put the nation back on the track of the rule of law. The efforts to enshrine and protect private property are part of that quest.

1.) This blog featured articles on the collusion between the Dutch establishment and violent radical leftist groups and how this was a fertile breeding ground for the assassin of Pim Fortuyn. E.g. connections to Fortuyn's assassin.

2.) Aristotle's Politics and the Constitution of Athens may be purchased from Amazon here.

Antifa

Hyphenated-Canadian:
"Your report is both interesting and disturbing. Does the average Dutch citizen care about this or is he passive? Is there any outrage in the Netherlands over the way Fortuyn's murder has been handled by the authorities? "

Snouck:
Not anymore. Immediately after the murder this was so. But right now there is little focus for a policy directed at the animal rights violent fringe in The Netherlands. On the other hand the cabinet has effected an anti-squatter law, in order to defend property rights of real estate owners.

Half a year ago there was a huge police action against "kraakpanden" or "squatter fortresses" in Amsterdam. Squatters from about 20-30 of these fortresses in the citywere evicted with some buildings having been occupied for decades.

The municipal authorities in cities with many squatter "fortresses" are trying to get the law scrapped and mounting a press campaign. Obviously they are collaborating with the squatter movement.

The Fortuynist movement was funded by real estate developers with a grudge against the violent extreme left squatter movement which conspire with bureaucrats and municipal politicians. There is a lot of overlap between the violent animal's rights movement and the the squatter movement. But the squatter movement is weakening and the animal's rights movement seems more lively, from what I can see.

Pim's Ghost:
"I can only wonder why Pim did not hire his own security, why would he have not taken this step? "

Snouck:
The Netherlands has for a long time been very peaceful, so people's minds are not open to such measures. There had been measures discussed with Fortuyn when he was with Livable Netherlands and often there were 2-4 bodyguards from a firm called HSC (I think) to protect Fortuyn from attacks. Also there was his chauffeur, Mr. Smolders who actually ran after and overtook Volkert after the assassination. Fortuyn also had no helpful attitude to be protected. He refused 24 by 7 protection.

The protection from the government that Fortuyn asked for was in my interpretation a call against the hate campaign the politicians of the cartel undertook during the elections, especially the dangerous and silly comparisons to the Second World War that people often use when they run out of real arguments.

Also Fortuyn had studied the campaigns of the governments sponsered extreme left (squatters) against anti - immigration parties in the 80ies, which culminated in the attack on a hotel in Kedichem in 1986. During this action squatters attacked a hotel that was hosting a conference of mr. Janmaat. Janmaat is probably the Dutch Haider, the leader of the CD (Centre Democrats). The hotel was burned down in broad daylight. The secretary of Janmaat, a mrs. Schuurmans, actually lost her leg which had to be amputated, when she jumped from a window on the second story of the hotel.

The government subsidized and cuddled the squatters and the "Antifa". The attackers of the hotel were never apprehended or imprisoned for their violence. There are still attacks on right-wing groups, by violent Leftists.

Winston Churchill said after the Second World War:
Future Fascists will call themselves anti-fascists.......

Dutch police finds murderous connections to Fortuyn's assassin

Volkert van der Graaf, ideological killer

Dutch daily "De Telegraaf" published exerpts of a confidential police investigation report (Dutch), in which clues are put together adding up to a picture of Volkert van der Graaf's extra-legal activities as a animal rights activist. The report is remarkable because it is one of the very few police reports into the violent animal rights activists in The Netherlands. This report was composed by the Investigative Branch of the National Police (Nationale Recherche, Korps Landelijke Politie Diensten).

Volkert is the assassin of populist Fortuyn. He shot Fortuyn on 6 May 2002, at 18:00 hours in Hilversum, The Netherlands. Hilversum is a town near Amsterdam where most of the media have their national offices and their studios.



Not the first assasination

There have been suspicions that it is not the first killing Volkert carried out for a long time.

Chris van der Werken, a civil servant responsible for environmental policy in the North Veluwe, an agricultural part of the country, where both Volkert and van der Werken used to live and work. Volkert as an animal's rights and environmental activist subsidized by quasi-governmental organisations ("Postcodeloterij" and "Actie Kinderpostzegels").


Chris van der Werken was shot in the back when he was taking a stroll in a forest in 1996.

Volkert and Chris van der Werken had a conflict about a plan both their organisations were collaborating on. A plan to reduce the ammonia emissions of pig breeders. This was in 1995 and 1996. Chris van der Werken was a moderate.

The animal rights network, an infrastructure of the left

A bit of background: Volkert was working for the Environmental Offensive Foundation or VMO ("Vereniging Milieu Offensief"), a foundation he had founded himself and of which he was a administrator and paid employee. The organisation was funded by subsidies, alotted by sympathetic politicians. The organisation was a part of administrative bodies and councils that deal with environmental policy. A lot of his work consisted of lobbying provincial and municipal polities, in addition to starting up environmental complaint procedures against farmers who wanted to change or enlarge their operations.

Those were his legal activities. Volkert was also a member of a group called the "Furious Potatoes" (De Ziedende Bintjes). This is a group that carries out illigal violent actions against fur breeders, companies that carry out animal tests and firms that operate in a way that is environmentally unsound. These groups are connected to the extreme leftwing squatter movement. Their activities are again often subsidised directly and indirectly by sympathetic politicians. Politicians hinder and disband police units investigating violent activities of animal rights and environmental activists. The activists are known to terrorize police investigators and their families. Biologist Margreet Jonker, a researcher into cancer treatment using test animals, was one of the few who dared to come forward to testify about the violence and threats against her and her family, by these governments sponsored left wing terrorists. Dutch judges are full of sympathy towards the terrorists and let them off with minumum sentences.

The new facts in the police secret file

The Investigative Branch (Nationale Recherche) report mentions:

1. a "Farmer B." who told police that Chris van der Werken had come to his farm in a state of shock because Volkert had threatened to kill him. This was a few weeks before he was killed.

2. witnesses who were walking nearby the liquidation on country estate "Welna" saw a red Opel Kadett, the car Volkert used at the time.

3. Both Fortuyn and Van der Werken were bravely shot in the upper back by multiple shots.

4. The landlord of Volkert of the house where Volkert was living at the time of the murder of the civil servant has declared that he entered the house unannounced during the tenancy of Volkert van der Graaf and found a pistol on the attic were Volkert slept. He identified the pistol as a Walter PPK.

5. Volkert has no alibi for the time of the murder of civil servant Chris van der Werken.

6. A friend of Volkert spoke with Volkert about obtaining a pistol, to commit suicide. Volkert had said that he knew how and with whom to procure pistols.

7. Both murders involved the use of ammunition that does heavy damage to the human body. Both used heavy automatic pistols (in van der Werken's case a Walter PPK and on Fortuyn a Star 9mm) and rapid fire hitting with all bullets fired. Achieving rapid aimed fire takes practise.

International co-operation hardening the Dutch scene

The Dutch animal rights and environmental activists have a working co-operation with like minded extremist British organisations as SHAC (Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty), a violent British organisation.

Again support in high places

One of the most shocking attacks is the abduction of Ferry de Vries, a fur trader. He was bound and gagged and beaten up by 10 masked animal activists. Later during the court case against the abductors the judge shows all kinds of sympathy for the abductors who go off scot free, no jail time, just corvee, maximum 200 hours. A symbolic punishment. The activists got all kinds of possibility to propagandize during the court hearings and even to show a propaganda film about fur breeding.

Volkert van der Graaf is an example of the way these organisations operate. They create legal entities. They do not fund raise or appeal for money from the public, but are funded by chums in the governments, provincial and municipal administrations and bureaucracies. Their activities are encouraged by mainstream environmental organisations as Lekker Dier and Greenpeace. They gather information (maps, registers, notes of meetings) using their legal fronts and use the information for attacks by the underground organisations, such as SHAC and the "Furious Potatoes/De Ziedende Bintjes").

In case of investigations by police they use their contacts in the Leftist parties Greens, Socialist Party and Labour to disband the Investigative Teams. In case of prosecution due to theft, destruction of property and accounting ledgers of firms the judges show their sympathy and give the activists very light sentences.

And so the violent environmentalists scene grew throughout the 70ies, 80ies and 90ies. A hairtrigger gun, just lie-ing about.

The aftermath of Fortuyn's murder

Let us now go to Fortuyn's murder. During the 2002 election campaign Fortuyn challenged the establishment political cartel. He received broad political support for the party he had joined, Livable Netherlands. Three months before the elections the establishment manage to have Fortuyn thrown off the Livable Netherlands party list. The challenge to the cartel has been fended off.

Pushed by Van Gogh Fortuyn starts a new political party. Lijst Pim Fortuyn (LPF). Soon he is again dominating the polls. Support levels are as high as 20-30 percent of the electorate again. Due to the fact that The Netherlands does not have a two party system, this translate in real political power. Municipal elections show a landslide in Rotterdam, home turf of the Left since 1945.

The establishment panics. Especially the Left because their organisations are so dependent on subsidies. Subsidies that Fortuyn says he will end.

A killer from the animal rights organisations network kills Fortuyn. Co-incidentially there is a car nearby with policemen with bulletproof vests and guns. They arrest Volkert within 10 minutes.

But they do not go to his house, to search for clues and a wider involvement.

Cover-up

A politician of the Greens in a nearby town of Wageningen, a hotbed of Green and animal rights activism, an acquaintance of Volkert hears the news that Fortuyn has been assasinated. His name is Jack Bogers and he is a Green Aelderman. He makes a phonecall within minutes after the assasination to a friend of Volkert, Sjoerd van der Wouw, working for the same organisation as Volkert. Sjoerd van der Wouw enters the house of Volkert and erases the hard disk of Volkert's computer.

Obviously Sjoerd and Jack suspect or know that Volkert is the killer of Fortuyn. At the time the identity of the killer is not known and there is widespread speculation that it is a Muslim.

Only the next day the police search the house. They still found some clues, amongst other things plans and blueprints of buildings and premises of targeted firms.

It looks as if Volkert was a tool for other people who knew what he was up to and what he was capable of and did not want him stopped. Fortuyn was threatened and had asked the Ministry of the Interior for protection against assasination. This protection was denied by the Minister himself, Labour politician Klaas de Vries. Fortuyn had also said on TV that if he would be shot the blood would be on the hands of the politicians denying him protection.

In conclusion: Klaas de Vries was in charge of the police, which had the arrest team ready to apprehend Volkert as he killed Fortuyn, but which did not search Volkert's house until at least some of the evidence had dissappeared.

And Sjoerd and Jack, the Green aiders of Volkert were never prosecuted.

Vice-Premier calls for tax revolt

Dutch Vice Premier Zalm called upon Dutch citizens in municipalities that raised the property tax to refuse to pay the tax.

Until about 15 years ago Dutch property taxes were very low, almost nominal. Municipalities were mostly funded by subsidies granted by the central government and by selling permits to businesses.

In the 1990ies this changed and municipalities more and more were expected to fund themselves. This caused them to increase property taxes. Because property taxes had always been very low and more or less the same in the whole country this means that Dutch tax payers are more and more starting to pay attention to their local taxes. Irregularities are becoming an issue.

Last week VP Zalm of the liberal-conservative VVD not only raised the issue, stating that in 62 Dutch municipalities the increases are bigger than permitted by the provincial government. It is off course already a bit strange that this is monitored by the provincial government, which is co-ordinated by the national bureaucracy.

The VP also indicated that tax payers living in municipalities affected by tax hikes should not pay the raised rates. This caused a bit of a stir. The VP, also Minister of Finance, was calling for local tax revolts.

It then turned out that Zalm had based himself on inaccurate data, had not thoroughly checked his facts and shot from the hip at the first opportunity in a televised news program. No doubt thinking of the local elections coming up early next month. It turned out that only a few municipalities had raised the property tax over the limit set by the national state. Zalm had to retract and apologize, which he did.

Interestingly the debate never questioned the rules. Why is the provincial and national government meddling in the affairs of the municipalities? Why do the municipalities raise the taxes?

Obviously, if one municipality has elections, and the voters want the local services raised, taxes have to be raised as well. For instance, Snouck’s party, a local party in a village, wants to improve the local swimming pool and the library. In order to finance the plans and balance the budget, the property tax will be raised by 10 percent. The local population is happy and votes for Snouck’s party. But once Snouck becomes the leader of the biggest municipal fraction it turns out that the plan cannot be executed, because the central government does not allow the property tax to be raised. What is the point of having a municipal council and elections if the way it will be run is narrowly prescribed and the municipality lives mostly from subsidies which are granted by the central government and funnelled to the municipality through a provincial authority? Is the whole set-up even supposed to be transparent? Or is it designed to take as much power and influence from democratically elected officials and to give it to a combination of the political parties in cahoots with the bureaucratic grey eminences whispering from the corridors of power?

The political system has been set-up in such a way that only people who are willing to invest a significant part of their lives and come from the right back grounds will run it, with minimum interference from the public. And the media quickly run from one orchestrated scandal to another, carefully avoiding to raise any questions that might upset the status quo. In the long run, cynism is on the rise and the population increasingly chooses not to vote. I get that it is like that all over the Western world, not just in The Netherlands.