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‘Ethnic Riots are Acquiring National Character’

www.nisnews.nl

CULEMBORG, 06/01/10 – The riots between Moluccans and Moroccans in Culembourg municipality are threatening to grow into a national conflagration, according to De Telegraaf newspaper.

Moroccans and Moluccans from other parts of the Netherlands have indicated they will come to the Terweijde district in Culemborg to support their own group and to be ready for a possible pitched battle. Groups of other backgrounds, such as football hooligans, are also challenging each other on the Internet to a confrontation in the relatively small municipality, according to the newspaper.

While clashes have broken out now and again between the two ethnic groups in Culembourg for years, the flames appear to be hard to quench since five Moroccan youths drove into a 15 year old Moluccan girl, Shoela Coenmans, in a car at the turn of the year. She apparently reported to the police two days earlier seeing a Moroccan youth setting a car on fire.

A number of streets have been barricaded off with concrete enclosures. These are intended to prevent fresh ‘troops’ of both camps from entering from outside the village. « Stay out of Terweijde! » warned Mayor Roland van Schelvenmaandagavond in an emotional plea.

Within the district, a ban on assemblies of four or more persons is in force for the next two weeks. Van Schelven is not having any arrests made for now. But he is calling on parents to keep the rioting youngsters off the streets.

The police did make 14 arrests in Culemborg last week, including the five Moroccans that were in the car. Of these, only the driver is still in custody. Two men arrested for serious assault are also still locked up.

Home Affairs Minister Ter Horst hopes to solve the problems by appointing three social workers. She made a subsidy of 150,000 euros available yesterday for these ‘street coaches.’ The intention is for both ethnic communities to choose the street coaches themselves from their midst.

The Moluccan residents have no confidence in Ter Horst and the mayor. They are maintaining a 10-man neighbourhood watch in the district themselves. At the end of last year, a ‘flying brigade’ of sociologists had already been sent to the municipality.

Race Riots lead to Emergency Measures in Culemborg

www.nrc.nl

5 January 2010

Two nights of riots between youths of Moroccan and Moluccan background have led to a police lock-down in the Terweijde neighbourhood. It’s typical of ‘young male syndrome’ says a riot-expert with 25 years experience. New Year’s Eve is a time for feasting and fighting.

By our news staff

Race rioting has led to emergency measures in the Dutch city of Culemborg. The Terweijde district is on police lock-down after two episodes of violence between youths of Moroccan origin and others of Moluccan (Indonesian) background. Yesterday, Terweijde was cordoned off by police and strict security measures installed. A hundred officers are preventing outsiders from entering, gatherings of over three people are banned, and CCTV cameras are monitoring all movements. The measures will stay in place for at least two weeks, officials have announced.

The riots began on New Years Eve when a car drove into a group of Moluccans in the front garden of a house in Terweijde. Several of them were hurt. Two of the five men in the car, all between 18 and 21 years old, were attacked by bystanders. In the rioting that followed, windows were smashed and several people wounded. One girl, the daughter of a Moluccan mother and Dutch father, ended up in hospital with concussion when a stone entered their home.

Police say about a hundred youngsters, fifty of them Moroccan and fifty Moluccan, were involved. Five young men were arrested, four Moroccans and one Moluccan, including the driver of the car, who was charged with attempted manslaughter. On Saturday, a 43-year old man was also arrested on suspicion of involvement. According to a police spokesman, two of the suspects were from other parts of The Netherlands.

Mayor helpless to stop violence

On Sunday night, the violence flared up again. More police were despatched to Terweijde and a seventh arrest was made. Now, with just as many police officers in Terweijde as rioters, and riot police on hand, the district has calmed down. But the mayor of Culemborg said yesterday he feels ‘helpless’. These measures won’t address the deeper issues in Terweijde, which have plagued the city administration for a long time. The behaviour of some of the youths is so ‘intolerable’ there’s no point even talking to them.

‘It’s a cat and mouse game. Once the police withdraw, something new takes place,’ he said.

“Terweijde is governed by a street culture in which legal punishment is a status symbol,’ added police chief Henk van Zwam. So arrests don’t solve the problems there.

The mayor believes the problems have arisen from a policy to house both Moroccans and Moluccans in the same district. Moluccans, who were some of the earliest migrants to the Netherlands, were given their own neighbourhood in Terweijde in the early 1960s, But soon after, Moroccans were also allowed to settle in the neighbourhood. Now, about two thousand people of Moroccan background and one thousand of Moluccan origin are part of the 27,000 strong community of Culemborg.

Typical of young men?

But behavioural scientist Otto Adang sees the riots as simply a typical example of what is known in the field as ‘young male syndrome’ during New Year’s Eve celebrations. A lecturer in public order and control at the police academy in Apeldoorn, he points out there were 2,500 incidents reported to the police, and 940 people were arrested during this year’s New Year’s Eve festivities. It’s traditionally a time when people party with friends or fight with enemies.

“It’s all about prestige,” he said in an interview. “That’s why they play this cat-and-mouse game with the riot police. Wherever the riot police appears, groups of youngsters materialise till the fighting begins again. They keep looking at each other to see what the reaction is to their attacks. It isn’t blind aggression. They choose to get involved.”

“In general, few people choose to get involved in violence, a half to one percent of the population. That choice might seem irrational, but it isn’t senseless in its own context. Riots are a means of getting prestige and status in their circles. Once they throw a stone at a window they wait for the reaction from others. You can easily recognise young men who are seeking confrontation like that. If there is a party, they don’t party. They are looking for something else.”

He believes the police has taken the right action regarding the rioters. Sit on them and keep them apart. That doesn’t solve the problem but it’s necessary. In the longer term, it is necessary to examine whether there are real grievances among these groups of young people. Some kind of reconciliation between them has to be arranged, probably by the mayor. But he also thinks the police should be more effective in preventing riots on New Years Eve. They need to have intelligence units looking to see where riots are likely to break out.

“You have to prepare for the New Year hooligans,” he says, “using information on risk-locations and risk-groups, and working in cooperation with people in those neighbourhoods. At the moment, city governments invent the wheel every year at New Year’s Eve. They have to recognise that this is a risk-event. They have to be realistic about it, and banish the phrase ‘quiet New Year’s Eve’ from their thoughts. ”

The Netherlands shocked by ethnic unrest

www.rnw.nl

5 January 2010

The town of Culemborg in the middle of the Netherlands remains the scene of unrest between youths belonging to two ethnic minorities: Moroccans and Moluccans. The authorities have banned groups from hanging around on the streets for the next two weeks. Meanwhile, the conflict has spread as young Moroccans and Moluccans all over the Netherlands provoke each other on internet sites.

Tension between Dutch-Moroccan and Dutch-Moluccan youths in Culemborg has risen sharply in the last few months. There are street brawls and cars have been set on fire. A number of youths have been arrested, and street workers have been sent in, but up to now these measures haven’t helped much. On New Year’s Eve, police had to intervene once again to prevent the two groups from fighting.

Trivial row
A trivial row about a car that was damaged sparked the latest unrest. And that is always what happens, says sociologist Rudy Koopmans of the Free University in Amsterdam. In other countries, these kind of clashes escalate and become much more serious:

« It is all about competition for public space, but it could also be about competition on the labour market. It may be that a certain neighbourhood is dominated by shops owned by one ethnic group, like during the riots in Birmingham in Great Britain a few years ago. »

Police have been given special powers in the Terweijde district of Culemborg. There is a ban on gatherings of four people or more on the streets, and roads have been blocked to keep the rival groups apart.

Christian Moluccans
Around 65 Moluccan families live in the neighbourhood. Their community originally came from the Moluccan islands in what was once the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia). They came to the Netherlands in 1950, when Indonesia gained independence. The Christian Moluccans had fought alongside the Dutch against the Muslim Indonesian independence fighters. The Moluccan community has a strong ethnic identity as a group in the Netherlands.

Reverend Nah Sahuleka is a Moluccan living in Culemborg. He says the current conflict between the two groups started in September last year. It began when a car belonging to a Moluccan resident was damaged by Moroccan youths.

« I know what we Moluccans are like. We won’t be driven into a corner. Whatever it costs, we try to defend the area we live in. It is in our genes. We are like our forefathers, who fought alongside the Dutch in Indonesia. »

Internet sites
Meanwhile Dutch-Moroccan and Dutch-Moluccan youths throughout the Netherlands are provoking each other on various websites. Sometimes the reactions are based on religious divisions. A majority of Moluccans in the Netherlands are Christian; the Moroccan community is mainly Muslim. The conflict in Culemborg has got nothing to do with religion, says Reverend Nah Sahuleka:

« I have good relations with Moroccans. I think some parents have trouble keeping their children under control. I have the idea that this is more of a problem in Moroccan families. In Moluccan families, there is more respect for the authority of parents. The commandment ‘honour your father and your mother’ is still held high. »

According to Mr Sahuleka it is impossible to see either of the two groups as the wrongdoers or as the victims. The youths react to one another and then the violence escalates.

Although, there has been no serious violence, says sociologist Koopmans:

« We are not used to seeing this kind of thing in the Netherlands – which is good, and that is why we should take it seriously. But we shouldn’t make too much out of it and turn it into a national problem when it is really just about an age-old form of rivalry which has happened to culminate in violence between two groups with different ethnic backgrounds.

Rival gangs clash in Dutch town

www.rnw.nl

4 January 2010

The central Dutch town of Culemborg was the scene of renewed disturbances on Sunday evening, in the latest in a series of clashes between youths from the Moluccan and Moroccan communities.

Troublemakers in the Terwijde neighbourhood threw stones and bottles and broke windows. Order has now been restored, maintained by a strong police presence in the streets.

In September last year riot police broke up street fights involving hundreds of youths over the course of a week in the small city southeast of Utrecht. The fighting was part of an ongoing rivalry between Moluccan and Moroccan gangs.

In response the local council organised reconciliatory meetings between the two groups, and reported positive results. ‘Street coaches’ were also introduced to monitor the youth’s behaviour and promote contact between youths from the different communities.

On New Year’s Eve, however, like many places in the Netherlands, Culemborg again saw vandalism and disturbances. Fighting broke out between the rival gangs after a car was set alight. Another car was deliberately driven into a group of people and stones and fireworks were thrown at police. Six youths have been arrested in connection with the incidents.

The rival groups are the children or grandchildren of immigrants. Waves of immigrants from the Moluccan Islands came to the Netherlands in the 1950s to escape reprisals for supporting the Dutch during the conflict that led to Indonesian independence. Moroccans began coming to the Netherlands to work in industry as so-called ‘guest workers’ in the 1960s.

Dutch riot police – ANP

More unrest as youths clash in Culemborg

www.dutchnews.nl

Monday 04 January 2010

Police were again drafted in to restore order on a housing estate in Culemborg, southeast of Utrecht on Sunday night after fighting between rival groups of youths.

A number of windows were smashed as Moroccan and Moluccan youths clashed on the Terweijde estate, Nos tv reported. There was also fighting between the two groups on New Year’s Eve when six people were arrested.

According to the Telegraaf, there were no arrests on Sunday night but police have been given temporary powers to stop people who do not live in the area from entering.

Police and council officials will meet to discuss the problems later on Monday.

~ par Alain Bertho sur 5 janvier 2010.

Publié dans émeutes, riots