Holland: "Threat analysis"
01 March 1992
The Dutch internal security service Binnenlandse Veiligheidsdienst (BVD) published its first unclassified "threat analysis" on 19 February. The report states that corruption of civil servants, terrorism, arms proliferation, sabotage of vital infrastructural systems and services and theft of high-grade technology, together with organized crime form the new diffuse panorama of dangers that Holland has to prepare for. BVD analysts point to the danger of political ethnic or religious conflicts originating in the Middle East or Africa that could spread to the Netherlands.
According to the report, because of its relatively stable character the Cold War offered a certain amount of security. This balanced situation has definitely come to an end: "Our concept of safety needs thorough modification" according to the BVD. The report argues that subversion of the democratic order "from the extreme left side of the political spectrum" no longer poses a serious threat. Rightist extremism is also not considered "an especially big factor of threat", although the BVD says it carefully monitors whether foreign groups gain any influence in Holland. Terrorism is seen as a more serious risk, with no certain protection possible.
Among the groups on which BVD agents keep a keen eye are Islamic 'fundamentalists', Sikhs, Tamils, Yugoslavs, Turks, the Provisional IRA and the Basque ETA. Several Eastern European secret services still operate in the Netherlands, but their main interest nowadays seems to be economic espionage.
Bomb attacks ignored
The report painstakingly avoids any reference to the recent wave of bomb attacks by extreme right activists against immigrant projects, radical left-wing activists against the firmer immigration policy, and anti-militarist activists against helicopters of the new Dutch Air Mobile Brigade (a 3000-strong rapid intervention force presently under development). Serious incidents against which the BVD so far has not been able to do anything more than claiming in public that it knows the perpetrators. Furthermore, the BVD is under serious criticism from political parties throughout the political spectrum for refusing to end operations and infiltrations of activist and left-wing groups.