In the night of June 29th to June 30th a group of squatters occupied the Embassy Of The Republic Of Iraq at the Johan de Wittlaan 16 in the The Hague, The Netherlands. After climbing over the fence, they found the door to the embassy-building could be opened in less than 15 seconds. Inside they found a working telephone, fax and telex as well as portraits of Saddam, contracts for baby-food, airplanes and agreements with Dutch electronics-company Philips.
The Embassy had been empty since the beginning of the Gulf War in 1990. The squatters had not expected to find the remains of the sudden departure of the Ambassador and his staff. Once they were inside, having found all these documents, the squatters decided not only to live here, but also to start an International Centre For Peace, based on solidarity with all oppressed people in the world. They made a press-statement telling so on paper with Embassy Of The Republic Of Iraq-headers, and sent this to the press.
All night long people kept climbing over the fence, going in and out of the embassy, but the police never noticed a thing. They showed up after the squatters called them in the morning to inform them they had found a new home. It took the police hours of conferring with the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs to realize the squatters had actually invaded Iraqi Territory, wich is in breach of international treaties.
The squatters said they were expecting the police to evict them, but they had never thought of causing some sort of international conflict. They said the action was to make a point to the City of The Hague. There's a large housing problem in The Hague (as in other Dutch cities) and a lot of empty (office)buildings. The instant success of this action and the confusion after occupying the embassy should have resulted in the squatters offering the empty embassy to Kurdish groups as an alternative Kurdish Embassy, some squatters said after the eviction.
At five o'clock in the afternoon the police showed up at the embassy again, this time to evict the squatters. Only a few of them were in the building. Most squatters had gone to the (free) rock festival Parkpop in another part of The Hague. The remaining squatters did not resist and left the embassy themselves. They still wonder who gave the eviction-order: The Dutch Government or Saddam.
Vrije Keyser Radio
keyser@xs4all.nl
http://www.xs4al.nl/~keyser
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