THE DUTCH government teetered on the brink of collapse last night after marathon talks failed to resolve the crisis over continuation of the country’s mission in Afghanistan.
The two biggest parties, the Christian Democrats (CDA) and Labour Party (PvdA), have seriously clashed on a range of fundamental issues since forming a coalition government with support from the small Orthodox Christian party ChristenUnie in 2007.
Nobody had predicted that keeping troops in Afghanistan would pose such a key issue.
Reluctant agreement in parliament to a cabinet proposal in 2007 to extend the Dutch mission in the southern Afghan province of Uruzgan only came after much debate and a condition that deployment would end at the latest by December 1st of this year.
This promise to an electorate unhappy with a war which was neither understood nor supported – especially in the wake of controversial Dutch government support for the invasion of Iraq – did not take account of a request to remain in Afghanistan from Nato, which was faxed to prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende on February 4th.
The Dutch were asked to maintain a smaller mission of 500 to 700 soldiers for an extra eight months, ostensibly in a “training” role. Foreign minister Maxime Verhagen, a Christian Democrat, had not wanted to rule out a longer presence in Uruzgan, and it emerged that “several options” had been reviewed for a continued involvement during talks and in a letter which the Labour Party partners claim they knew nothing of.
Deputy prime minister Wouter Bos, attacked by political commentators and in the more left-wing Dutch press in recent times for breaking promises to voters on a series of issues, showed his teeth at last earlier this week, sparking the current crisis.
Some said the fact that local elections are imminent, with predictions of significant losses for the Labour Party, finally moved him to take a firm stand.
Mr Bos and his party were vehemently opposed to an extension of the Afghan mission. The fact that he suddenly decided to force the crisis took some by surprise.
During the marathon cabinet session he was accused of frustrating an ultimate solution to Afghanistan’s security problems by blocking Nato’s request for a “modest” training force.
With local elections just two weeks away, maverick anti-immigration politician Geert Wilders and his Freedom party, and Independent candidates, are predicted to gain huge support from disillusioned voters.
Recent opinion polls in the Netherlands have shown many neither support nor understand the continued troop deployment in Afghanistan.
Socialist Party member of parliament Farshad Bashir, from a refugee family who fled Afghanistan for the Netherlands, maintained a vigil outside cabinet buildings in The Hague during the crisis meeting yesterday evening.
He told the Dutch TV Channel 1 news: “Nobody in their right mind believes that keeping Dutch soldiers in Afghanistan is achieving anything; while troops from Nato countries have been there the Taliban has grown stronger, opium production has gone up, the killing of innocent people continues, and civil rights have not improved one bit.”
Mr Balkenende, battling last evening to prevent the premature end of his fourth cabinet, had survived a motion of no confidence last Tuesday in the wake of a bitter debate over the findings of a special committee into Dutch support for the US-led invasion of Iraq.