15 August 2008

THE NETHERLANDS - GreenLeft member of parliament Wijnand Duyvendak has resigned.

It recently became known that he had been involved in a burglary at the economics affairs ministry as an environmental activist in 1985. Secret documents about new nuclear power stations were stolen in the raid.

The affair took a fresh twist Thursday when it was revealed that he also stole a list with the names, addresses and phone numbers of six senior civil servants involved in Dutch nuclear activities and gave the list to an activist anti-nuclear publication.

The magazine published the information and called on its readers to 'disturb' the civil servants. This resulted in them being threatened and intimidated.

GreenLeft leader Femke Halsema distanced herself from the incident soon after it hit the news, calling the MP's involvement morally and politically unacceptable.

Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende's Christian Democrats said that in light of Duyvendak's past activities, his resignation was the best course of action. Two opposition parties, the conservative VVD and the Socialist Party, said it was an internal GreenLeft issue.

[Radio Netherlands / Expatica]

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