Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : THE SLIGHTLY MODERATED BOXING RING -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tom Clarke who wrote (12297)	5/7/2002 9:20:25 AM
From: Tom Clarke	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 21057

Fortuyn's killer described as "extreme leftist." May 7, 2002 Dutch Election to Proceed After Politician's Murder By REUTERS Filed at 8:23 a.m. ET THE HAGUE (Reuters) - Dutch Prime Minister Wim Kok said Tuesday a general election would go ahead as planned on May 15, heeding a call by shocked supporters of slain rightist politician Pim Fortuyn. Fortuyn, 54, bidding to be his country's first gay prime minister, was shot dead Monday by a lone gunman after giving a radio interview in the town of Hilversum, near Amsterdam. ``(Our consultations) have brought us to the conclusion that it is sensible to go ahead with the original date (of the election),'' Kok told reporters after talks with other political leaders including those of Fortuyn's right-wing party. Fortuyn, standard bearer of anti-immigration standard bearer suffered at least five gunshot wounds to his forehead, back and neck, chief public prosecutor Theo Hofstee said. Photos were splashed across all national newspapers showing a lifeless Fortuyn lying on the ground at the Hilversum media center, a blood-soaked bandage around his trademark shaven head and with eyes shut and mouth wide open. ``It is painfully clear that this is an attack on the very soul of democracy. When free speech is buried in a hail of bullets, that's the end,'' daily Trouw wrote in an editorial. The suspected killer, a 32-year-old ``white Dutchman'' from Harderwijk, in the Netherlands' staunchly religious ``Bible belt,'' had environmentalist material and ammunition at his home, public prosecutors said. But he has made no statement and the motive for the killing remained unclear, they added. Some newspapers said he was known to intelligence services as an ``extreme leftist,'' but Hofstee said: ``We do not use that term.'' Fortuyn party supporters insisted the general election should go ahead as planned despite the killing. Storming into the political limelight just two months ago, polls showed Fortuyn's party could capture some 15 percent of the vote. ``Pim loved electoral democracy, so we too want the elections to go ahead on May 15,'' Fortuyn party spokesman Mat Herben said. ``Pim was a man who abhorred violence...We stress that you can only honor Pim by going to vote. He was a democrat and the only thing that matters in a democracy is the ballot box.'' ANGER AND GRIEF Fortuyn supporters clashed with police in The Hague soon after learning of his murder, screaming abuse against mainstream Dutch parties and the media for their criticism of their leader. The violence stirred fears of wider public disorder in the countdown to polling day but there were no reports of fresh trouble Tuesday. Mourners continued to lay wreaths at the spot where Fortuyn was shot and in the port city of Rotterdam, his home base, people queued to sign a condolences book. Flowers and teddy bears were laid at Fortuyn's grandiose villa in Rotterdam, where he shocked the establishment by winning the balance of power in March local elections. ``Our white hope in dark days,'' read the message on one wreath, underscoring Fortuyn's appeal to the xenophobic right. One supporter, 75-year-old pensioner Koos Bosch, told Reuters: ``He was the new messiah. They crucified the old one and shot the new one.'' FORTUYN PARTY TO MEET European politicians, still shaken by the strong showing of far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen in France's presidential election, condemned the shooting, saying violence should never replace the ballot box. Fortuyn denied kinship with Le Pen, but his rhetoric stoked tensions in a small, densely-populated land where immigrants of non-Western origin make up some 10 percent of the population. Small groups of men of African -- mostly Moroccan -- origin greeted Fortuyn's death with celebrations, police said. British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said the killing revealed ``a gulf of misunderstanding between Islam and the western communities in which there are very large Muslim populations.'' ``Pim Fortuyn was not another Le Pen...He was a much more balanced person than anyone who was supporting Le Pen,'' Straw told BBC radio. Fortuyn's party said it would meet in Rotterdam at 1300 GMT to choose a new leader. The party, campaigning on a populist, anti-bureaucracy, tough-on-crime platform, now stands to win some sympathy votes, but political analysts say its long-term prospects are unclear without the charismatic, media-savvy Fortuyn. In his last radio interview, recorded just before he was gunned down, Fortuyn was asked how old he would like to grow. ``When I was 14 or so, I thought: I'll live to be 86 or 87. And that feeling has never gone away,'' media quoted Fortuyn as telling the interviewer. nytimes.com