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Whistle-blower on Dutch security service. (1)

01 January 1991

Whistle-blower on Dutch security service.
artdoc May=1991
Statewatch no.1 March/April 1991

For the first time, a former agent of the Dutch secret service has given an
account of recent operations to the press. Mr. S. Bos, former chief of the PID
Zaanstad (a local branch of the Binnenlandse Veiligheidsdienst BVD) told Nieuwe
Revu magazine (6-12-1990) in detail why he felt the security service was "a
state in the state". Mr Bos retired in 1983 after 11 years of PID service. He
gave details on illegal operations like burglaries, tampering with mail,
unauthorized telephone tappings, providing confidential data on personnel to
major companies and other offences which he claims are common practice. Also he
confirmed gloomy views held so far only by leftists as to the range of interest
of the service. Members of political parties, trade unions, social-cultural
organizations and various action groups were spied upon. The former PID chief
feels that successive ministers of the interior had been most naive in taking
everything the BVD directorate told them for granted. However, all PID personnel
knew that any responsibility would be denied by their superiors should any
illegal activities ever be discovered. The basic intelligence law still holds:
do what needs to be done, but don't get caught.
Mr Bos gives details on how the BVD arranged an informer in a most sensitive
position as research assistant to the parliamentary fraction of the (moderate)
communist party. Also an informer in the South Moluccan ethnic minority was paid
a total of $25,000 for mostly useless information, and several political
refugees were put under great pressure to spy on their friends, in exchange for
which they were given legal status in Holland. All questions on these matters
in parliament have so far been referred to the in camera parliamentary committee
by minister Mrs Ien Dales.

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