• Home /
• Statewatch Database /
• Dutch domestic security service to clean up archives.

Dutch domestic security service to clean up archives.

01 March 1991

In November 1990 it was announced that about two thirds of the BVD files estimated at 200 000 - 600 000 would be destroyed in the following 6 months. The criteria for the destruction list are to be published and the State Archives together with the Institute for Dutch History will supervise the selection process by way of random checks. A closed congress on these matters for selected historians was held on 17 January 1991. The sudden energy with which the BVD cleans up its cellars is explained by a forthcoming change in the Archives Law by which the period after which files will undergo a mandatory transfer to the State Archives is to be reduced to 20 years. It is expected that this will lead to a greater openness on outdated BVD materials. A BVD historian Dr D Engelen is to write the history of the BVD during the Cold War. He will be supervised by a commission of mostly social-democrat professors of history that will have full access to all BVD files. This project is to be completed in 4 years. Meanwhile a group of researchers journalists activists and privacy protectors organized in the "Vereniging Voorkom Vernietiging" (Association Prevent Destruction) plans a judicial procedure to stop the destruction process. They claim that a decision with such political impact can not be decided by some selected scholars and civil servants alone. Also they point to the fact that other services such as PID's (Special Branches) and military intelligence are excluded from the operation. Mr. Doctor van Leeuwen head of the BVD is quoted as saying that he fears a Swiss situation where because of a near-total exposure of archives the security service is almost out of business.