Belgian Brabant killers, police, extreme right, NATO

This music video is of Belgian band The Strangers, singing in Antwerp dialect their song Bij de Rijkswacht, about what was then the paramilitary Belgian national police. The tune of the song is In the Navy, by the Village People in the USA.

However, the Rijkswacht does not exist any more. In 2001, it was abolished, and reorganized as the ‘Federal Police of Belgium’, after scandals like the Dutroux affair.

This week, another Rijkswacht scandal became public; their links to the Brabant killers murder gang. It turned out that ‘the Giant’, probably the leader of the murderers, was a member of the Diane elite unit of the Rijkswacht. This raises questions once again, about the links of the Brabant killers to the extreme right and NATO.

Translated from Herwig Lerouge in Belgium, 23 October 2017:

Investigation of the Brabant killers, after 32 years of sabotage finally a breakthrough?

The gang of Nijvel [Brabant killers] terrorized the Belgian people in the 1980s with apparently gratuitous violence. The investigation got nowhere and was sabotaged. The PVDA [leftist political party of which Lerouge is a member] stated 32 years ago that it was an extreme right-wing cell within the Rijkswacht. Now that this appears to be real, there may be a breakthrough in the investigation into one of the biggest political crimes in Belgian history. …

Between 1982 and 1985, the Gang of Nijvel made 28 victims around the Delhaize and Colruyt supermarkets. They terrorized the entire population, but the investigation got nowhere. The PVDA and their then weekly Solidair, together with various journalists, said this was the most likely scenario 32 years ago: namely, behind the gang of Nijvel, there was an extreme right-wing cell within the Diane group, the elite corps of the then Rijkswacht. However, this was ridiculed as “fiction, good for police novels” by then Minister of Justice Jean Gol (of the right-wing MR party) and by Attorney General Deprêtre of Nijvel, responsible for the dossier. …

The Strategy of Tension is a way to control and manipulate public opinion by using fear, propaganda, disinformation, psychological warfare, provocateurs and terrorist actions.

In the 1980s we were in the midst of the Cold War. Part of it was the arms race between the West and the Soviet Union. Belgium also participated and wanted to install medium-range missiles and nuclear weapons against the Soviet Union. Against this, however, there were more and more protests. Hundreds of thousands of pacifists opposed that installation. Washington and the pro-American political world in Belgium were worried about these growing protests. The attacks of the Brabant killers caused panic and prepared the ground for a giant reinforcement of the Rijkswacht. The nuclear missiles came.

The Strategy of Tension, the repressive forces within the state that consciously provoke attacks to cause terror was a tried-and-tested extreme-right strategy in Italy in the 1970s and 80’s. Eg, the terrible attack in Bologna in 1980. The Italian extremist groups had close links with the Italian and American secret services.

Germany also does not appear to be sheltered from American maneuvers. Andreas von Bülow described the tactics of the American secret services extensively in the book Im Namen des Staates that he published in September 1998. Von Bülow was from 1976 to 1980 State Secretary for Defense in [the West German capital] Bonn and from 1980 to 1982 Minister of Research and Technology. He states that “US secret services have had a hand in all European terrorism, if they have not already fully or partially led them.” Italy, Germany? why not Belgium? Like the Italian and German extreme right, the (former) members of the elite group Diane had ties with Belgian fascist organizations and with United States agents.

Two investigative committees, not a single perpetrator

In Belgium, no single murderer of the Brabant killers has ever been imprisoned.

From Belgian daily Het Nieuwsblad today:

Former acquaintance of ‘The Giant’ had already reported him to the police in 1998: “Since then, I felt very threatened”

An earlier acquaintance of ‘The Giant’ of the Gang of Nijvel reported his name to the detectives in 1998. “But in twenty years nothing happened,” said Marc Van Damme, that man, to VTM News. …

A number of statements made by “The Giant” also showed that he was militarist. “There should be a coup d’état,” said the Giant, according to Van Damme. …

When in the late 1980s messages were received in the media about possible links between the gang and the Rijkswacht, Van Damme also made that link. His former acquaintance seemed to have the profile of ‘the Giant’. When Van Damme saw a robot photo of ‘the Giant’ in 1998, it became clear. “I stood before the red light, the picture was right before me and I realized it was him.” Van Damme called the detectives to tell them he suspected that an acquaintance of him was a member of the gang of Nijvel. “But they did not really do much,” said Van Damme to VTM.

Van Damme, however, decided not to go further when he felt a few days after his report to the police that he was being spied upon. “For a few days, a car was suddenly at my door with two people in it. I felt incredibly threatened.” Van Damme has since felt like he was spied upon. That’s why he did not use his own phone for a long time, fearing that it would be traced. “

Deathbed confession may crack case of the ‘Crazy Brabant Killers’. Ex-policeman allegedly admitted before he died that he was ringleader of Belgian gang that killed 28 people in the early 1980s: here.