US embassy cable - 03THEHAGUE1959

UNCLAS THE HAGUE 001959 
 
SIPDIS 
 
State for EB/ESC/ESP, S/CT, EUR/ERA, EUR/WE, EUR/UBI, INR/EC 
 
Treasury for Aufhauser, Zarate, Fox 
 
Justie for OIA/Friedman 
 
Brussels also for Legatt 
 
E.O. 12958 N/A 
TAGS: ETTC, PTER, SP, NL, EUN 
SUBJECT: TERRORIST FINANCE: ETA YOUTH DEMONSTRATE IN 
AMSTERDAM DESPITE EU DESIGNATION 
 
1.  The Basque youth movement Segi held a small 
demonstration in the Netherlands this weekend despite its 
being designated by the EU as a terrorist organization 
"internal" to Europe and by the Dutch government under its 
national sanctions law as a group with whom financial 
transactions are prohibited and accounts blocked.  Segi held 
demonstrations and information evenings in Nijmegen and 
Amsterdam on Saturday, August 2.  On Sunday, it demonstrated 
at the prison in Alphen aan de Rijn, where alleged ETA 
activist Alexander Akarregi is awaiting extradition to 
Spain.  The demonstrations occurred without incidents. 
 
2.  The Amsterdam Public Prosecutors Office said that it 
could take no action to stop the demonstration under the 
Dutch sanctions law unless the group was receiving financial 
contributions.  The Dutch also investigated whether it could 
take action against individuals who may have accepted 
financial transactions from the group in return for goods 
and services.  Dutch authorities could make no case because 
the demonstrators traveled here by minibus from Spain and 
lodged in squatters' housing.  Thus, the only expenses the 
demonstrators incurred in the  Netherlands were for small 
purchases of food and gasoline - transactions that would be 
difficult to prosecute. 
 
3.  Some political leaders, Christian Democratic MP Camille 
Eurlings and Liberal Party floorleader in the Amsterdam city 
council Frits Huffnagel, criticized the "lenient" attitude 
of the Dutch prosecutor's office.   "The meeting in 
Amsterdam should have been discouraged by way of making 
clear that Segi is not welcome here," said Eurlings.  "I 
plan on asking the government how the prosecutor's office's 
position tallies with the government's intention to ban 
organizations listed on the EU list."  Huffnagel opined that 
the meeting should have been banned.  "If it had been a 
meeting of the youth organization of the Flemish Bloc, they 
certainly would have taken action.  Now that it is a leftist 
group, all kinds of legal obstacles are suddenly raised." 
 
Russel