14 August 2008

Fresh revelations on Green Left MP’s break-in
De Telegraaf opens with fresh revelations concerning Green Left MP Wijnand Duyvendak and the now infamous 1985 break-in at the economic affairs ministry.

Last week, Duyvendak revealed that he took part in the break-in, and he and several other activists stole plans for new nuclear power plants. It now appears that Duyvendak also stole a list with the names, addresses and telephone numbers of six senior civil servants involved in Dutch nuclear power activities and gave the list to Bluf, an activist publication involved in the Dutch anti-nuclear campaign.

The battle against nuclear energy was fierce and Bluf published the information along with a call to its readers to "disturb their rest, they're disturbing the environment".

This resulted in the six civil servants being threatened and intimidated and one of them had several windows smashed in.

The MP claims he had nothing to do with the actual threats made against the civil servants although he admits being partly at fault to Bluf's decision to publish the addresses and telephone numbers.

The paper quotes Duyvendak: "I acknowledge my responsibility in connection with the publication. I already admitted to being involved in this in 1996. I'm very sorry that I did it and my apologies to the people involved".

Public more cynical of politicians
There is more political news in De Volkskrant, though it's not very encouraging for politicians.

The national voters survey, conducted by Statistics Netherlands has revealed that two out of three Dutch voters believe that the gulf between the public and politicians has only got deeper and wider in recent years.

A whopping 93 percent of the electorate says politicians knowingly make false promises, and a majority believes that ministers are driven by self-interest rather than the good of the country.

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