'A Pawn of Washington' · 3 April 2006, 22:21 CET by Charles Vermeulen
Today Dutch public television news show NOS Journaal published a report on its website on the reply of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez on a somewhat provocative characterization of the president by Dutch Minister of Defense Henk Kamp. Lately Kamp typified Chávez as a ‘bigoted people populist with a lot of money, who looks with big eyes to the sniplets in front of the Venezuelan coast, which are part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands’. According to NOS Journaal Chávez replied that Kamp is ‘a pawn of Washington’ who, as part of the ‘worldwide campaign’ of the U.S. against him, spreads lies to discredit Venezuela. Furthermore, the VVD-minister is ‘a man of the extreme Right’.
Pacifying the Venezuelan Threat in the Caribbean · 31 March 2006, 08:10 CET by Charles Vermeulen
After calling Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez a ‘bigoted people populist’ Dutch Defense-minister Henk Kamp used a meeting with Antillean Prime Minister Emily de Jongh-Elhage and the ministers David Dick of Justice and Ersilia de Lannooy of Finance, held on Curaçao last Wednesday, to stress the good relationship with Caracas. According to a report by the Curaçao based newspaper Amigoe Kamp mentioned the good collaboration with Venezuela ‘in the field of anti-drug campaign and search and rescue’. Furthermore, Amigoe reports that ‘the Netherlands wants to expand the collaboration with Venezuela in the sphere of coastguard and navy’ and that Venezuela is invited to join a military exercise this coming fall. Besides a top military delegation from Venezuela will meet Naval Commander Caribbean Area, Frank Sijtsma next Monday. To conclude, concerning the military exercise ‘Joint Caribbean Lion’ Kamp said that it mustn’t be seen as a provocation towards Caracas:
Will this Dutch attempt to appease Venezuela and to avoid an armed conflict in the Caribbean succeed? In any case it’s ‘a challenge’, to quote the words of Kamp, for the Dutch government to be a loyal ally to the U.S. (in ‘the War on Terror’) on the one hand, and to maintain a friendly relationship with America’s main adversary in the Caribbean on the other.
In Case of a Caribbean Showdown with Venezuela · 25 March 2006, 09:42 CET by Charles Vermeulen
This week’s Elsevier (page 14-15), ‘by far the largest weekly of The Netherlands’, reports about a possible military confrontation between Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela and the Netherlands about the windward part of the Netherlands Antilles. According to Chávez, who is still at loggerheads with the U.S., ‘imperialismo yanqui’ operates from Curaçao, the largest of the islands. That is, according to the Venezuelan president the U.S. will use Curaçao as a sortie base for an invasion of Venezuela. Although the Netherlands Antilles are part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, this idea is not utterly unfounded, since the Netherlands are a close ally of the U.S. Furthermore, American airplanes, in search of maritime drug traffickers, patrol from Hato, the airport near Willemstad. (Willemstad is the capital of the Netherlands Antilles located on Curaçao.) Even American F-16’s are stationed on Hato, which allegedly violate Venezuelan airspace. Tension is rising because of Venezuela’s recent order of 100.000 Kalashnikovs and 50 Mig-29’s in Russia and Chávez’s provocative statement that the ‘colonial powers’ should ‘piss off’ from the Caribbean.
How will the Dutch government respond to this thread? Although some members of the Dutch Second Chamber urged the Dutch minister of defense, Henk Kamp, to make an assessment of the threat, for the time being the Dutch government’s official position remains that there is no need for this, because of the friendly relations between the Netherlands and Venezuela. Between May 23 and June 15, on the other hand, a military exercise (Joint Caribbean Lion) is scheduled involving American, Canadian, Belgian, French and Dutch troops. According to Elsevier this can only be considered as a warning to Venezuela.
Also interesting is the response of public opinion in the Netherlands. The relationship between the Antilleans living on the otherside of the Atlantic in the Netherlands and the autochthonous population of the Netherlands isn’t very well at the moment, for the Antilleans are often considered by the latter as an immigrant group mainly causing annoyance and criminality. Since the voters revolt lead by Pim Fortuyn and, in his slipstream, the rise of right-wing political parties like the LPF, Leefbaar Rotterdam and the Groep Wilders a more stalwart policy towards Antilleans has become popular. In his so-called ‘Onafhankelijkheidsverklaring’ (‘Declaration of Independence’) (March 13, 2005) Geert Wilders of the above mentioned Groep Wilders even plead for complete secession of the Netherlands Antilles from the Kingdom the Netherlands because of ‘the danger and the influx of (drugs) criminality, and because of the enormous corruption and the administrative impotence of the Antilles (...)’. Although the Fortuyn inspired right-wing political parties, that is, their local variants called ‘Leefbaren’, suffered considerable loss during the Dutch municipal elections of March 7, one wonders how much public support there will be for an armed conflict with Venezuela.