by Charles Sanders
De Telegraaf, 8 March 1997
Photograph: Jan Schultze Kool, retired high official of the Royal Police Force: "The arrival of all these Tamils at Schiphol is a slap in the face to all tax-paying Dutch nationals. When is this going to stop?"
On Friday the Chamber of Law Unity is going to make a decision on whether or not Sri Lanka is safe enough in order to send Tamils back, who fled to the Netherlands. This is a hot item ever since the arrival of 173 Tamils with Turkmenistan Airlines last month, and then the applications for asylum of yet another group of Tamils last week, who arrived at Schiphol via Bulgaria.
Last Saturday our journalist reported about the North of Sri Lanka, which according to the Tamil refugees is still "very un-safe". The report showed that Tamils are not being prosecuted in their own country at all. Today, this newspaper has a report by Jan Schultze Kool who was stationed in Amsterdam-Harbour and at Schiphol as brigade commander of the Royal Police Force for years, and who was involved with processing of thousands of applications for asylum by Tamils: "After 1984 we were also fooled by economic refugees. When is the Hague going to interfere, the silent majority of the population is fed up."
Jan Schultze Kool is glad that he finally has a chance to speak his mind without having to watch his words. Until 1990 he was one of the highest ranking officials of the Royal Police Force, with key positions at Schiphol and in the Amsterdam harbour.
Last week, the limit had been reached as far as the retired captain of the Royal Police Force was concerned, when he read the article in this news paper about the actual living situation of Tamil civilians in sunny Sri Lanka in the Indian Ocean.
In his house of Hoofdorp, with a thick Tamil file in front of him, Schultze Kool said indignantly: "I have had a career of 39 years with Royal Police Force and I have always been in favour of admitting genuine asylum seekers. That means people who flee to our country because of political, racial or religious prosecution in their own country. This is the reason why I am so angry about this new inflow of Tamils who can live in Sri Lanka without being prosecuted. Even the famous Dutch tolerance comes to an end because of this situation. With all the dramatic consequences for genuine asylum seekers!"
Friends and acquaintances ask the retired official of the Royal Police Force almost daily about the Tamil affair which has been keeping the Netherlands busy for weeks. "People know that I was brigade commander and in charge of a team which handled the cases of the first Tamil invasion in the '80s" Schultze Kool explains.
With the knowledge and experience he has gathered in that time still in the back of his mind, the 65 year old is getting more and more desperate about the developments of the last few weeks. "We, and then I am referring to the politicians in the Hague, will never learn it" Schultze Kool says. "Even in 1985 the large majority of the Tamils who came here had economic motives. I can prove that with hard evidence, which no organization of interest or lawyers of refugees can deny!"
"A German had been arrested in Amsterdam, who was under suspicion of transporting Tamils from Germany to the Netherlands" Schultze tells us. "The Tamils who were in his company told us that they had got into the car of this Hans Jurgen W. in Willech, but the car in which they were travelling was registered under the name Mohammed Nawaz M. This seemed to be organized human smuggling. The Tamils stated that had got off the car just in front of the Dutch-German border, and following instructions of the driver they had entered our country through the edge of the woods and without identity controls. Behind the regular border control posts the driver picked his load of Tamils up again..."
This is one of the many examples which convinced Schultze Kool during that time that Tamils were not people who really had to be afraid for their lives in Sri Lanka. The retired official of the Royal Police Force was in Colombo himself, the capital of the former British colony, and concluded at the time that life without threats was possible for groups of the population on the popular vacation-island.
In Colombo, Sri Lanka, Peter Meijer, the Dutch director of the refugee organization of the UNHCR said: " People who are not refugees can come back. This is also shown by the Swiss deportation project. Of all the hundreds of Tamils which have been deported by Switzerland during the last years and who the UNHCR, among others, looked after, not one has had serious problems with the authorities. Of course there is a war going on here, and if you are stuck right in the middle by coincidence, you are not safe. But there is definitely no strict, systematical prosecution of Tamils in Sri Lanka. I do realize that many lawyers and help organizations in the Netherlands do not like to hear this".
Together with his wife he has travelled through all of Europe after his retirement. They attach the caravan to the car and stay away from home for months. And they are no longer worried about all the problems Schultze Kool had to deal with during his work. The fact that the Netherlands is still Land of Leisure No. 1 for economic refugees in the world and therefore has a magnetic attraction, is frustrating for Schultze Kool even after his retirement.
"It is very sad" the 65-year old explains. "Because it undermines the tolerance of our entire community on long term. I can already see it now. People are no longer accepting this, they are fed up. First you find another high bill from the tax department in your mail box, and on the same day you read in the papers that a group of 173 Tamils, after having used a clever trick to get into the country, are allowed to stay here for a year at the expense of millions of guilders of community money. And a little later you here that most of these people have disappeared. What are we talking about here, why does everybody see this, except the aliens judges and the politicians?"
In the years during which Schultze Kool processed the cases of the in-flowing Tamils, he wrote several reports on cases of these refugees who are even described as "rich gold diggers" in Sri Lanka. The Royal Police Force, together with other institutions, urged to terminate the regulation which provided a payment of one thousand Guilders net per month for each Tamil.
"This was a bizarre situation" Schultze Kool tells us, "which had an incredibly attracting effect. I was working as brigade commander in the Amsterdam harbour and Ijmuiden, when the Head of the Foreign Police in Amsterdam Asked us for assistance with this entire Tamil lunatic asylum. There were days on which 109 Tamils a day were registered at the office on Oosterlijke Handelskade. They were questioned briefly, photographed, had a medical exam, were told that they had to report every week... and received a gray card from the social service with which they could get 1000 Guilders!" This regulation resulted in so-called "1000 Guilder trips" to Amsterdam by Tamils, who often already had a refugee status in other European countries.
Even then the police and the Royal Police Force was facing Tamils who don't know anything, not how they travelled, who they travelled with, how they had lost their passports...
"The only thing they could say is that they were threatened in their own country and they were safe in the Netherlands." Schultze Kool adds: "We never saw at least 60% of them again after the first interview. They never showed up for the second, more detailed interview weeks later. And just like today nobody knew what happened to them. Nothing has changed over the years."
The effect of the '1000-Guilder-regulation' was clearly shown when it was replaced by the 'bed-bath-bread-regulation'. Only three days after the announcement that Tamils and other refugees would only receive 25 Guilders pocket money per week from now on, it became very quiet in the registration centres.
Former brigade commander Schultze Kool: "From one day to the next the Tamils moved away. On Monday there were still 109 of them, on Wednesday only 12 and on Thursday only 3. This was proof to me and my men that something was really wrong."
And he fears that this is the case now as well. According to him the Netherlands is still the entrance to heaven for Tamils who are looking for welfare and wealth. With Eastern Europe as stop-over, just like in the '80s. Schultze Kool: "Then the Tamils were arriving in Eastern Europe at Tempelhof Airport in East Berlin, and went on by car from there. Now they are coming with East European airlines like Turkmenistan Airlines and Balkan Airways via cities like Sofia. This is very frustrating for the officers of the Royal Police Force at the gates of the airport. They are doing what they can, but they are restricted to all sorts of rules."
According to the former high official there is one barrier which could easily be put up against economic refugees: "Airlines and shipping companies with destination the Netherlands should be obliged to pay for the return trip of this type of refugees, even after investigations and long procedures. And just like the Americans are doing, they should have to pay a fine of 2000 Dollar for every refugee who is not admitted to the country. You want to bet that Balkan Airways and Turkmenistan Airlines will never again bring undesired visitors!"
"Why didn't they send a really independent commission to Sri Lanka much sooner? Why is it possible for the 'Telegraaf' to reach the North of Sri Lanka and observe the situation there, and it is not possible for our own government? I really wonder what is going to happen on Friday. If the judge rules that Sri Lanka still is NOT safe, we can just sit and wait for the next Tamil-flight to Schiphol. This kind of news spreads like a fire among economic refugees. I hope that the judge will rule sensibly. Because by allowing this to continue, the large silent majority in the Netherlands is being discriminated."
14 March 1997 07:48:09
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