Sonja van den Ende: The Most Russophobic Party

The Dutch Political Party Democrats 66 (D’66) Is The Most Russophobic Party In The Netherlands

31 JANUARY 2020

The former leader of D’66, Alexander Pechtold, is who started the Russphobia trend in the Netherlands, back in 2018. In 2018, the then-Dutch Foreign Minister Halbe Zijlstra (VVD Party) admitted on national TV that he lied about his visit to President Putin’s dacha in 2006. For more than 12 years, he claimed that President Putin wanted to create a “greater Russia”. The former head of Shell in the Netherlands, Jeroen van der Veer, debunked Halbe Zijlstra and tolled the Dutch Media, saying in an interview that Halbe Zijlstra wasn’t even present back then in 2006 in President Putin’s dacha.

In response to Zijlstra admitting that he'd never attended a meeting with Putin, the then-Parliamentary leader of the Democrats D’66, Alexander Pechtold, toldstate-run TV NOS that he appreciated Zijlstra's frankness and openness but that he has "yet to meet the first Russian who corrects his mistakes himself."

The Russophobia started with this sentence and behavior of the leader of D’66's Alexander Pechtold and became the party’s standard. Soon the other parliament members of D’66 had to follow the “leader” on any occasion and debate in parliament about Russia, but also, on Syria, where the Russians helped to defeat the terrorists. By this, they showed their anti-Russian attitude. 

They made Russia-bashing to their party policy. They accuse Russia of interference everywhere in the Mainstream Media. They revived the Cold War with their MH17accusations, going back to the Soviet era. They even participated in creating a website called “Raam op Rusland”, where you only find negative writing on Russia, McCarthyism 1.0.

D’ 66 was was once a new innovative political party, established in 1966 by Hans van Mierlo, a charismatic leader, who wanted more democracy for Dutch citizens. He argued that a referendum is the most democratic way for citizens to get involved in politics. They fought fiercely for it so to speak and it even letd to the downfall of the cabinet in 1999 due to D’66. Finally, in 2000, the new referendum law was there, but by then D’66 got in power and for the first time in their history, they formed a coalition with the VVD and delivered four ministers and secretaries of state to the current government. Among these ministers is Vice- Prime Minister Kajsa Ollongren, Minister of Internal Affairs. The Dutch Intelligence Service (AIVD) is part of her portfolio, and she is doing everything she can to fuel Russophobia by taking all kind of measures against so-called “fake news”. As it turned out, she even “spied” on other parliament members like Thierry Baudet and Geert Wilders because D’66 considers them a "threat” to Dutch democratic values.

On the 10 of July, 2018, this amazing party voted against their own “crown jewel", the referendum, so it is now prohibited to have a referendum in the Netherlands. Due to D’66, the law was implemented. The reason? The Ukrainian referendum in 2016, where the Dutch people voted NO to the Association Treaty with Ukraine. This was not what D”66 wanted, too much business was involved. As it turns out, a lot of chicken farmsare now bankrupt in the Netherlands because the largest one was opened in Ukraine with the help of EU subsidies. Cheap eggs and meat now flow into the Netherlands, once a country where chicken farms were the largest in Europe, famous for their eggs.

Over the last few days, there was a row in Dutch politics. A delegation of political parties, consisting of several Dutch political parties, wanted to visit Russia for a constructive talk. Of course, they wanted to mention MH17 and so-called human rights, but the D’66 member Sjoerd Sjoerdma was refused to visit Russia as Pravda, a Russian news site, writes:

“Russia stops Dutch Russophobe. Moscow refused to grant a visa to Sjoerd Sjoerdsma, a deputy from the Democrats 66 party, Dutch website nu.nl reports.

The publication quoted the Russian Foreign Ministry, a representative of which said that "colleagues from the Netherlands 'deliberately' included a sanctioned person on the list of delegates. The Dutch side was informed in advance that including Sjoerdsma in the delegation was undesirable because of his aggressive statements about Russia. However, despite warnings, The Hague deliberately arranged the provocation while being well aware of possible consequences, the statement from the Russian Foreign Ministry said. That is, (the Dutch) wanted a scandal to break out. They were not striving for a constructive discussion of ways to straighten the Russian-Dutch relations and issues on the international agenda“, the Foreign Ministry said.

Conclusion

Whatever the case may be, the specific relationship between Russia and The Netherlands took a downturn when the Dutch government falsely blamed its Russian counterpart for the MH17 incident and imposed sanctions against it, leading to counter-sanctions that resulted in major losses for Dutch companies, farmers, and flower growers. Also, the Russia-bashing of D’66 made things worse.
Lying about the Russian president's intentions and discriminating against Russians is a poor form that will continue to damage relations between both countries, with Dutch citizens as a whole being negatively affected by it in the long run.

By Sonja van den Ende

independent journalist

http://oneworld.press/?module=articles&action=view&id=1289&fbclid=IwAR3IZfpTvkP

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