Anti-immigration Dutch politician killed
HILVERSUM, Netherlands (AP) – In the first assassination in modern Dutch history, a lone gunman shot far-right leader Pim Fortuyn on Monday, nine days before elections expected to catapult his anti-immigration party into a position of national power. Fortuyn, 54, a former academic and columnist who led an openly gay lifestyle, was shot six times in the head, neck and chest as he left a radio interview.
Police said they arrested a suspect whom they described as a “white man of Dutch nationality,” but had not established an identity or a motive. Prosecutor Theo Hofstee said the suspect refused to talk, and will be arraigned within days.
“After this assassination, Pim Fortuyn is no more,” said outgoing Prime Minister Wim Kok in The Hague.
Fortuyn’s supporters broke into the parking garage of Binnenhof, the Dutch parliament in The Hague, waving posters of the slain leader. At least two cars were set on fire, and smoke billowed from ventilation shafts.
Fortuyn had expressed fears for his safety after protesters threw two cream pies laced with urine in his face a few weeks ago. But he said in a 3FM radio network interview in Hilversum, 12 miles southeast of Amsterdam: “I’m not going to die soon. I’m going to live to be 87.”
His body lay for hours near the entrance to the building after paramedics tried to revive him.
Fortuyn’s death immediately halted campaigning as party leaders considered postponing parliamentary elections set for May 15. Opinion polls had predicted Fortuyn’s new party, created earlier this year, would get more than one-sixth of the 150 seats in parliament, which could put his party in the ruling coalition.
Fortuyn (pronounced fore-TOWN) had dictated debate during the campaign with verbal attacks on the country’s growing Muslim population and strident criticism of the national government. He called Islam a “backward” culture and said the Netherlands should reconsider its law guaranteeing freedom from discrimination.
Kok called his shooting “indescribable.”
“Respect for each other means you fight with words, not bullets,” Kok said in a televised interview, warning of a threat to Dutch democracy. “For God’s sake, let’s remain calm.”
“These are things you thought were just not possible in the Netherlands,” said Ad Melkert, new leader of the ruling Labor Party and its candidate for prime minister. “It’s a low-point for our democracy.”
It was believed to be the most prominent killing of a European politician since Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme was gunned down in Stockholm in 1986. In Dutch history, the first leader of the Dutch republic who led the war for independence against Spain, William the Silent, was shot to death in 1584 in the city of Delft.
Fortuyn was widely dismissed as a serious political threat until last March, when his newly formed party, “Pim Fortuyn’s List,” swept 35 percent of the vote in local elections in Rotterdam, a port city with a large immigrant population.
“Pim was not an extremist. He wanted to do something for the working class to save us from taxes and do something for the normal people and not for the immigrants,” said one protester outside parliament, Leslie Gonggeyp, a truck driver.
Following his lead, other parties pledged to re-examine their country’s generous refugee policy. About one person in eight comes from a non-Dutch background, and nearly half of those come from Islamic countries.
Fortuyn’s rise mirrored a right-wing resurgence in several European countries, lately highlighted by the anti-immigrant Jean Marie Le Pen’s surprise showing in the first round of French presidential elections. Le Pen was soundly defeated in Sunday’s run-off vote by incumbent Jacques Chirac.
Nevertheless, Fortuyn had dissociated himself from Le Pen and other European extreme right leaders.
Far-right parties and mainstream politicians across Europe condemned the slaying. In Austria, home to the extreme-right Freedom Party, spokesman Karl Schweitzer said he was shaken by the assassination.
“It is madness,” Schweitzer said. “It always starts with verbal violence, and in that respect some serious disarmament will be needed at some point.”
British Prime Minister Tony Blair canceled a planned trip to the Netherlands. “No matter what feelings political figures arouse, the ballot box is the place to express them,” Blair said.
Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt told Belgian media on a visit to Skopje, Macedonia, that he was extremely shocked. “I believed something like this was impossible in this day in age, in the European Union, in the 21st Century,” he said.
Fortuyn’s platform seemed out of place in the Netherlands, which has a reputation for liberalism. It was the first country to legalize gay marriages, regulate prostitution, approve and control euthanasia, and tolerate the over-the-counter sale of marijuana in hundreds of “coffee shops.”
Though the Dutch are tolerant of such subcultures, Fortuyn’s popularity exposed a deep vein of suspicion of immigrants, often blamed for a perceived rise in crime and drug abuse.
In the Netherlands, most political leaders travel without bodyguards, often using public transportation. Fortuyn occasionally had bodyguards, but his lawyer said he could not afford 24-hour armed protection.