Wednesday, July 26, 2006

HOW HOLLAND FOOLS THE WORLD CorpWatch: "Joep van den Nieuwenhuyzen, was called a financial magician or the company-doctor because of his knack for buying defunct companies, nursing them back to financial health, and then selling them for a large profit. Later this summer, however, Nieuwenhuyzen will go on trial for driving RDM (Rotterdamse Droogdok Maatschappij - Rotterdam Drydock Company) into bankruptcy. In 1995 Nieuwenhuyzen took over RDM, a Dutch company that dates back to the 1920s when it built and sold submarines, that had also fallen on hard times. The government sold it to him for just over $20 million, but he realized that he could use it to make even bigger business deals because of its history and reputation. RDM was a key part of a major Dutch arms production system that manufactures warships, electronics, munitions, and spare parts for aircrafts - all exports heavily supported by the government. Indeed, for a country that is not involved in major military operations, the Netherlands ranks an astonishing number seven on the world list of arms exporting countries. A deal with Chile clearly reveals how Nieuwenhuyzen made some of his money. On September 11, 1973, when General Pinochet seized power from Chile's leftists, the Netherlands's socialist government cut almost all ties with the new fascist regime. The Hague's policy at the time was to ban all weapons sales to Santiago. Unknown to the general public, however, in 1995, two ambitious Dutch bureaucrats met secretly with Chilean army officers in Santiago and offered them 202 Leopard 1V tanks at $50,000 a piece, not including munitions and spare parts. Nieuwenhuyzen lives in beautiful surroundings in the shade of trees. But his trees are the evergreens that dot Switzerland where he keeps his mountain-top residence and the palms that sway in the breezes of Curaçao, the largest of the Dutch Antilles islands in the Caribbean. The Netherlands is the seventh largest arms exporting country in the world. Critics have charged that the Netherlands is profiting from arms trade with countries likely to use the weaponry to violate human rights." 12:48:31 PM

© Copyright 2006 Hetty Litjens.