Dries van Agt

Dries van Agt    (politician, Dutch Prime Minister)
Born	2 February 1931 Geldrop, Netherlands
Nationality	Dutch
Alma mater	Radboud University Nijmegen
A conservative Christian Dutch PM who vocally opposed Israel and appears to be removed as PM when neoliberals and socialists became increasingly supportive of Cold War SDS policies.  Netherlands/Minister of Justice and Security In office 1971 - 1977  Netherlands/Deputy Prime Minister  In office 1973 - 1977 Boss Joop Den Uyl  Prime Minister of the Netherlands In office 1977 - 1982 Deputy Joop Den Uyl

Andreas Antonius Maria "Dries" van Agt is a Dutch politician, former minister of justice and diplomat of the defunct Catholic People's Party (KVP) and later the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) party and jurist who served as Prime Minister of the Netherlands from 19 December 1977 until 4 November 1982. Van Agt remains the last Dutch PM to never have visited Bilderberg and the last to have been foreign affairs minister alongside being prime minister.

Background

Van Agt studied Law at the Radboud University Nijmegen obtaining a Master of Laws degree and worked as a criminal defense lawyer in Eindhoven from September 1955 until December 1957 and as a civil servant at the Ministries of Agriculture and Fisheries and Justice from December 1957 until January 1968. Van Agt worked as a professor of Criminal law and Criminal procedure at his alma mater from January 1968 until July 1971 and served as a judge at the district court of Arnhem from April 1970 until May 1971.

Politics

After the election of 1971 Van Agt was appointed as Minister of Justice in the Cabinet Biesheuvel I and taking office on 6 July 1971. Van Agt was elected as a Member of the House of Representatives after the election of 1972 serving from on 23 January 1973 until 22 April 1973. Following the cabinet formation of 1973 Van Agt continued as Minister of Justice in the Cabinet Den Uyl and also became Deputy Prime Minister taking office on 11 May 1973.

On 10 December 1976 Van Agt was selected as the first leader of the Christian Democratic Appeal and top candidate of the newly formed Christian Democratic Appeal for the election of 1977. After the election Van Agt returned as a Member of the House of Representatives and became the Parliamentary leader taking office on 8 June 1977 and subsequently resigned from the cabinet on 8 September 1977. Following a successful cabinet formation with |Liberal Leader]] Hans Wiegel Van Agt formed the Cabinet Van Agt I and became Prime Minister of the Netherlands taking office 19 December 1977.

Joop den Uyl, who started to become a vocal supporter to an "increased" call to terrorism around the globe, was reported to be unusually frustrated in parliament with van Agt and not himself becoming PM.

President

First Term

Van Agt's first term from 1977 to 1981 was a complex network of controlled chaos. Very surprisingly replacing previous PM Joop den Uyl, who was becoming an ally of Israel was "out conned" by van Agt's cunning and widely acknowledged negotiating skills, Van Agt was also met with criticism from the religious factions in his own party, that refused to vote along party lines as all Christian parties merged into the CDA party. The cabinet opted to introduce pravitation as - like in many countries - the oil crisis had caused massive growth in unemployment. With a rise of television, Dutch citizens began developing an increased interest in geopolitical deep politics subjects, with massive protests against NATO placing cruise missiles in western-Europe, Princess Beatrix Armgard marrying a nazi soldier, and the apartheid-regime of South Africa.

Van Agt placed soldiers in the 1982 Lebanon War as part of the UN force, against the request of the Israeli's, and quite a shift after den Uyl had his minister of defence Henk Vredeling smuggling weapons from the US to Israel (including giving Dutch arms as well) and helping them train for combat in the Suez canal.

Van Agt's cabinet also gave uranium to Brazil, sold submarines to the government of Taiwan (being criticized by China), supporting a non-answered boycott of Argentina, adding anti-discrimination laws to the constitution, setting fixed terms for senators and making it mandatory to vote on the chairpersons of both houses. Many of these ideas aimed at more transparency in politics failed.

Second Term

Van Agt's second cabinet was set-up with neo-liberals led by Hans Wiegel and the socialists led by Joop den Uyl, who called for increased arms to combat terrorism. Joop Den Uyl spoke at the 1979 Jerusalem Conference on International Terrorism, on "The Dutch Response" to "terrorism". Barely one month after taking office, the cabinet almost fell due to a dispute between the CDA ministers and the Joop den Uyl's PvdA cabinet members as Lubbers as party chairman pressured van Agt to make a decision for NATO but van Agt refused as his coalition partners were split 50/50. Van Agt's refusal to follow NATO's geopolitical strategy isolated him, as the Dutch had just re-allowed the big cities to become "de facto" European drug capitals, with crime syndicates overtaking all other crime power structures in the city, and many new jobless citizens being employed by them, with a lot of social unrest as a result.

Intervention

In October 1981, Juliana appointed deep politicians Victor Halberstadt and Cees de Galan to mediate the Dutch Cabinet crisis, this crisis is now remembered with the official narrative as a feud between the PM and progressive Dries van Agt and his CDA-fraction and the socialists in the coalition headed by deputy prime-minister left-wing Joop den Uyl and his PVDA party. Following the 1973 Oil crisis and the major inflation and loss of jobs, the two could not reach an agreement on social reforms. Other forgotten details include the participation of the NATO Double-Track Decision of 1979, PVDA members wanted to participate in a protest in 1981 with 400.000 civilians in Amsterdam as other protests regarding the Iran-Iraq war and the 1980s Afghan war were also becoming political hot topics. In a country suffering from pillarisation and the Dutch massive spikes in (at that time legal) drug trade, many overlook the lines connecting that the 1981 Dutch Cabinet crisis may have been a coup.

Legacy

Van Agt's is the sole PM critical of Israel.

In later life, Van Agt has become the sole and harshest critic among prime ministers of Israel, in particular their handling of the Palestine.

Dutch Minister of State

Dries van Agt and his opinion on the Cold War and Israel are also a reason Van Agt will also never be given the title of Dutch Minister of State, a network of former Dutch deep politicians.

Bilderberg

The notorious Ruud Lubbers - coming from the same party as Van Agt - acquired the telling title of being PM of the same party that headed the last coalition, something that had not happened since 1965 when Gladio-agents from the Dutch Deep state were implicated in having attempted to assassinate Prime-Minister Cals. All Dutch Prime Ministers since 1982 have visited the Bilderberg: (Ruud Lubbers (1982-1994), Wim Kok (1994-2002), Jan Peter Balkenende (2002-2010), Mark Rutte (2010-).

Wilders

Van Agt's was very critical on the party congress of the CDA Party in 2010 regarding voting whether to work with the party of Geert Wilders, probably because of Wilders steadfastly support of Israel and Israeli donors being Wilders his biggest financial backers, even quitting NGOs when they opted to cooperate with Wilders.

 

Related Quotation

Page	Quote	Author	Date
Joop Den Uyl	“Of course he belongs in jail, but you can't jail the husband of the head of state. So I have to think of something else.”	Joop Den Uyl	2005

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References

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