Ersatz Urban Commandos

As reported here a few days ago, Geert Wilders’ party is well on the way to victory in the city of Almere in the upcoming municipal election.

Now it seems that a classic disinformation operation has been mounted in Almere in an attempt to discredit the PVV and interrupt its momentum at the polls. The Dutch blog Contradicere smelled a rat, and exposed the funny business in a pair of articles that have been translated by our Flemish correspondent VH.

A translation of the first post:

Did PVVers threaten retailers in Almere?

Alleged PVV supporters threatened two shopkeepers in Almere who had a campaign poster for the local party NDP (National Democratic Party) in the shop window.

Cor Valies reported that a “fellow shopkeeper” in Almere-Buiten had four “white boys” visit him who demanded under threat that he take down the poster for the NDP or else the store would be demolished.

The young men who threatened him in his shop in Almere-Buiten, as well on the telephone to the shop in Almere-Stad, presented themselves as “the urban commandos of Wilders’.

For some reason Cor Valies does not mention in all this that the store in Almere-Buiten is also his property. It is not a “fellow shopkeeper” but Cor Valies himself! He also owns the shop in Almere-Stad that received telephone threats.

It seems just too coincidental that Cor Valies in both his shop in Almere-Buiten and in Almere-Stad has been threatened by “urban commandos of the PVV”. If you know the situation a bit, you know that there is quite some distance between Almere-Stad [City] and Almere-Buiten.

Although the mainstream press and media swallow the story whole, there are several possibilities. And they are much more likely.

Thus Cor Valies may regard this as a “nice” campaign stunt for both his party and his retail business. It would then be about an invented story. It may also be an action by the extreme leftist so-called “opponents of fascism” like the AFA and/or Indymedia types. It is possible that Cor Valies cooperated.

Because it is not entirely accidental that Indymedia/AFA organized a protest march [flower-march] today against the PVV’s proposed “urban commandos”. For the occasion the AFA extremists turned themselves into the AAA (Almere Autonomous Action).

We therefore suspect that the one incident is not independent of the other. For what is the case… The “uniforms” by fashion designer and leftist activist Guda Koster the AFA men and women wore also do very well in quite a few fashion stores.

We currently can not prove it here yet, but it would not be a surprise if there are “professional” and perhaps also ideological ties found between fashion designer Guda Koster and Mr. Cor Valies.

[…]

The second article from Contradicere:
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Police put statement by Cor Valies in doubt

The police have made a call to keep the peace. In that way they anticipate the ghost stories that would make the rounds about “the shopkeepers who were threatened by precursors of PVV city commandos “.

“Nobody has yet shown that this has in fact been done by PVVers. Complaints must first be filed with the police by the ‘threatened’ retailers. For the present there is only the one report in the media by only one shopkeeper,” police spokesman Leo Dortland said.

Dortland also announced that he does not as yet take the stories of Cor Valies to be serious. “Once the complaint is made, we will take the matter seriously. For threatening is in fact a serious crime,” according to Dortland.

Dortland’s words show that as of today (Tuesday, March 2, 2010) Cor Valies had still not reported any threat. This, while the threats were made last Friday, according to Cor Valies.

Cor Valies stated in the media on Monday that he would do that [file a complaint]. Apparently the police also believe that the lack of filing is suspicious. For the police do not just issue such a statement for nothing.

The retailer and municipal representative candidate Cor Valies claims to have been threatened by telephone on Friday. According to Cor Valies a fellow retailer in Almere-Stad has also been faced with threats [and that shop is coincidentally also owned by Cor Valies]. The boys supposedly identified themselves as “the forerunners of the urban commandos from Wilders”.

Cor Valies, and according to him a shopkeeper colleague, had to remove election posters for his party, the National Democratic Party, from the shop window, otherwise the windows would be smashed, Cor Valies asserts.

The matter smells funny. A few things that happened concerning the case appear suspicious, and the whole thing is held together by coincidences. You can read more about it in the article: “Did PVVers threaten retailers in Almere?”

We continue on the issue in the opinion article: “PVV is, and Islam is not a danger?” In the article we denounce the hypocrisy of many opponents of Wilders, the politics and politicians. They blow things out of proportion to the point where they permanently apologize for the shadow sides of Islam.

Furthermore, the National Democratic Party, which would look to maybe one, but at the most two seats in the municipal assembly, is in no way a threat to the PVV, which at the polls might receive around 30% of the votes in Almere.

There is absolutely no need for PVV supporters to “discourage” Cor Valies, his virtually nonexistent supporters, or his party, which represents no controversial views whatsoever.