In August, Belgian police discovered two childen who had been abducted and imprisoned by a pedophile in a basement dungeon near Charleroi, the second-largest town in Belgium's French speaking region of Wallonia. The police also discovered the bodies of two girls, Julie and Melissa, who had been abducted by the same pedophile last year in Grace-Hollogne, a suburb of Liege, Wallonia's largest city. Last week, the police found the bodies of two more young women who had been abducted and murdered by the same man, Marc Dutroux, and his accomplices.
Belgium is in shock, not only because of the atrocity of Mr. Dutroux's crimes, but because it is generally believed that he might have been protected by the judicial and political authorities. The case is ripping an already fractured Belgian populace apart by exposing the corrupt political culture of Socialist-dominated Wallonia, where Mr. Dutroux received generous government benefits following his initial imprisonment, where investigations into prominent legal cases were blocked, and where politicians have generally exploited Belgium's bizarre federal system to pull ever-increasing amounts of tax money from more prosperous Flanders.
As is well-known, Mr. Dutroux served only three years of a 13-year sentence he received in 1989 for the abduction, rape and torture of five children. What has not been widely reported, however, is that after his release from jail, Mr. Dutroux and his girlfriend and accomplice, Michelle Martin, received about 80,000 francs ($2,700) a month from the generous Belgian social security system. They had granted Mr. Dutroux "invalid" status, because he allegedly suffered psychological damage during his three years in prison and was thus unable to work for a living.
With a monthly check from the welfare state and loads of free time that ordinary people spend working, Mr. Dutroux carried out his demonic plans. He bought houses all over Wallonia and started building dungeons to imprison children. While Belgian taxpayers (including the parents of the murdered children) subsidized such behavior, no one seemed to question how this unemployed "invalid" could afford to have nine houses. The civil servant responsible for social inspection in the region around Charleroi could not visit Mr. Dutroux because this (politically appointed) inspector refuses to drive a car.
In Flanders each citizen who buys a house is summoned by the fiscal authorities to account for every penny of the price he pays, but it is common knowledge that in some regions of Wallonia, especially in districts dominated by the Socialist Party, such as Charleroi and Liege, social and fiscal investigations almost never take place.
Apart from their pedophile activities and the production of videos showing children being raped, Mr. Dutroux and some of the people he hired to abduct his victims were also involved in car theft and fraud. It would appear that they were protected by high-placed people within the police and the judiciary. As a result of the Dutroux investigation, many people have been arrested or questioned, and more arrests are expected to follow.
The Dutroux case has not completely unfolded yet. Meanwhile, however, a second scandal has erupted. Over the past weekend, police arrested five people for the murder of Andre Cools, a leading Socialist politician, in Liege in June 1991. One of the people arrested was Alain Van der Biest. He is a former Socialist minister in the Belgian government and mayor of Grace-Hollogne, the home town of Dutroux victims Julie and Melissa.The Belgian press has alleged that murder of Mr. Cools was organized by Richard Taxquet, who used to be the private secretary of Mr. Van der Biest when he was still a minister. In the spring of 1991, Andre Cools was involved in an internal power struggle within the Socialist Party. Mr. Cools seems to have known of the involvement of certain political adversaries, including ministers, in various corruption cases. So it is alleged that they decided to get rid of him and hired professional killers in Sicily. In one of the corruption cases Mr. Cools knew about, stolen assets were brought to Liechtenstein in an official Belgian government car.
Another case was the Agusta affair, involving bribes paid to the Socialist Party to ensure that the Belgian army would buy Agusta helicopters. Willy Claes, the former Belgian Socialist Vice-Prime Minister, had to resign his post as Secretary-General of NATO last year because of charges, which he denied, that he was involved in the Agusta affair. A number of other prominent Socialists, including Frank Vandenbroucke, the minister of foreign affairs, also had to go.
Mr. Taxquet was arrested shortly after the murder of Mr. Cools in 1991, but was released soon after because the investigating judges from Neufchateau - affiliated with the Liberal Party - were taken off the case, which was then given to other judges in Liege. In Belgium, judges are appointed by, and therefore generally members of, political parties. The Liege judiciary is a Socialist stronghold.
When Mr. Taxquet was released, Mr. Van der Biest, as mayor of Grace-Hollogne, offered him a post in the local police force that he held until last week. Last June, however, some police units launched a new, parallel, investigation into the Cools affair, without informing the judges who were officially investigating the case in Liege. As a result of this secret investigation, Mr. Taxquet and others who had been primary suspects five years ago were arrested. People generally expect that if the investigators are not hampered this time, the arrests of other leading politicians within the Socialist Party will soon follow. Police have also started an investigation into whether the Liege judiciary deliberately obstructed the investigation.
Justice Minister Stefaan De Clerck, the first Flemish politician to hold that post in many years, has intervened personally these past weeks, both in the Dutroux and in the Cools investigations, to assure the policemen and the judges who are currently investigating the cases of his total support. He might be wise to follow the example of the investigators and not leave his home or office without bodyguards and a bullet proof jacket.
These scandals have put an incredible stress on the Belgian state, which has always been an awkward construction. It was constructed in 1830 after French agents had instigated a separatist revolt in Brussels against the Dutch authorities. At that time, Flanders and Wallonia were both part of the Netherlands, as they had been during the entire Middle Ages. When Belgium was formed, however, it was designed as a francophone state in which the Dutchspeaking majority in Flanders had little say.
After World War II and the inevitable emancipation of the Dutch-speaking majority the country was transformed into a so-called federalist state where democratic majority rule was abolished. Belgium became a country in which any major government decision requires approval in both Flanders and Wallonia. When the francophones, who had been ruling the country on their own for over 100 years, noticed that the political emancipation of the Flemish would, through the logic of democratic process, lead to a Belgium dominated by the Flemish majority, they had it firmly entrenched in the Constitution that changing the Belgian system could only be done with a majority in both parts of the country. This has doomed the country to inertia and it has inevitabely led to the corruption of Wallonia.
The Socialist Party, although only of minor importance in Flanders, became the most influential party in Belgian politics; as the largest party in Wallonia, it can obstruct any policy it objects to. Since no government in Belgium is formed without the approval of a majority in both Flanders and Wallonia, the Francophone Socialists have ensured themselves of an almost permanent reign. They proceed to buy voters by promising them a permanent flow of Flemish taxpayers' money to Wallonia.
In Flanders, which has a strong freemarket culture, there is a large political majority to change the present welfare system. The Flemish want to lower taxes and to reform social security to reduce abuse of the system. But Wallonia blocks all reforms and the Walloon Socialist party guarantees voters that as long as they support Socialists, money from Flemish taxpayers will keep flowing to the nearly 50% of Walloons who are either employed or subsidized by government, including "invalids" like Marc Dutroux . As a consequence, Belgium's government debt has skyrocketed to a record 130% of GDP, almost twice as high as the European average.
Last year, after the Agusta affair made it clear that the Walloon Socialist were corrupt, there was no decline in voter support. Many citizens in Grace-Hollogne even now say they will vote for Mr. Van der Biest again in the next elections.
In the national parliament, some Flemish politicians are fighting the present welfare system, trying to persuade Walloon colleagues to accept limits on the flow of subsidies financed by Flemish taxes. Meanwhile, Stefaan De Clerck is working to clean up the highest levels of Walloon political life. But unless the fundamental democratic principle of majority rule is restored in Belgium, enabling the country - including Wallonia - to be ruled without the state-corrupted majority in Wallonia, the fight to clean up the system will not get far.
I have been a regular reader of The Wall Street Journal Europe ever since its creation. I used to consider it a reliable source of information and news analysis.
I read with dismay and anger the Sept. 12 editorial-page feature, "Belgium's Scandal Exposes a Corrupt Political Culture," written by Paul Belien, "a journalist based in Antwerp, Belgium." Such a mixture of amalgams, half-truths and countertruths have I seldom read in a newspaper of your standing. All my Francophone friends were indignant and my Flemish friends were embarrassed. And we wondered whether the "quality" of your reporting and commentary on subjects with which we are less familiar is on the same level.
Note that I am not a Socialist nor a politician. I am a Belgian, a Walloon and I served my country, the whole of it, for many years. I know that my country does have many problems that need to be corrected. But I think that the non-Belgian readers of a newspaper of your standing should know that Mr. Belien does not hold a press card in Belgium and that he is a part of the most extreme fringe of Flemish nationalist-separatist opinion. Simply asking him to comment for your readers on the Belgian situation is equivalent to asking Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan to editorialize for non-Americans on race relations in the U.S.
Baron Godeaux, Former Governor National Bank of Belgium
Your Sept. 12 editorial-page feature about corruption in Belgium has enraged some prominent political leaders. But there are no arguments contradicting the facts: Marc Dutroux, the psychopath who imprisoned, raped and murdered children, received a monthly allowance of over 80,000 Belgian francs ($2,700) because Belgian social security had classified him as an "invalid." Between April 1993 and July 1996, Mr. Dutroux received government benefits of 1.2 million Belgian francs.
And the situation is even worse than depicted in your article. In Belgium, there are 558,852 "invalids" receiving benefits from a working population of about 3.5 million. One in seven Belgians of working age are "invalids" by social security standards, which is detremental to both the real invalids and the people at work. To declare someone an "invalid" and hence eligible for generous government payments, is a way to buy political clients.
In the whole of Wallonia (four million inhabitants), there are two inspectors who control these so-called "invalids." One of these inspectors refuses to drive a car. He is refunded for the use of his bicycle.
Despite all this, efforts to cut back the welfare state are vetoed and it is politically impossible to tackle the ever-expanding state. If one in seven Belgians is an "invalid," every political party that tries to reduce their benefits makes itself the enemy of over half a million voters, which in a country of 10 million inhabitants no political party dares to do.
J. Cauwenbergh, Brussels
Every public debate, regardless of how labored, holds the prospect of enlightenment. By that standard, Belgians have before them a tremendous opportunity.
The discovery in southern Belgium of a murderous pedophile, and the bodies of a number of young girls who were his victims, has brought the country anguish. Many Belgians have hung posters in their shops or car windows, displaying pictures of two of the murdered girls with the caption "plus jamais" - never again. Yet there is the unsettling feeling that the public authorities who failed to prevent these crimes (despite the fact that the perpetrator, Marc Dutroux, had already been jailed for raping young girls), and who may have even abetted them, are unable to guarantee better results in the future.
Thus there is rightly plenty of criticism not only for the authorities in question, but for the system that supported them. And the targets of this criticism - not simply the guardians of an unacceptable status quo, but many of those who've benefitted from it - are unhappy. Philippe Busquin, president of the Walloon Socialist Party (PS) brandished a copy of an editorial-page feature from The Wall Street Journal Europe at a recent press conference and declared dramatically that he was "scandalized." "I cannot accept being dragged through the mud by such people," Mr. Busquin declaimed, feeling no need to be more specific or refute the arguments he found so offensive. Much of his audience in the media didn't press him for further explanation. Reporting these statements, the Belgian daily Le Soir noted that the author of the offending article on our page is married to a member of the Belgian Parliament for the Vlaams Blok, a Flemish nationalist party with extreme views on some issues. Le Soir's commentary then charged that the article was full of "counter-truths and anti-Walloon" arguments that the paper said were indicative of "the neo-fascist and anti-Belgian prose of the 'Blok.'" A number of others in the Belgian press picked up on the "scandal."
As the editors who published the article, we admit to being a bit disappointed. Since part of our mission here is to further public debate, response to articles, positive or negative, is always welcome.
But where is the debate when those who disagree with an author offer no more than a swipe at the author's integrity? As we fear has often been the case when contentious issues have arisen in Belgium, criticism of the political system is labeled disloyalty and debate is seen as a threat to the nation's fragile consensus.
For those who missed it, Belgian journalist Paul Belien argued in his Sept. 12 feature that many of the political, social and economic problems affecting the country - including the failures surrounding the Dutroux scandal and other cases of corruption - stem from socialist institutions that undermine individual responsibility (See related article: "Belgium's Scandal Exposes a Corrupt Political Culture" - WSJE Sept. 12, 1996). Moreover, he made the admittedly controversial assertion that problems that this system has produced are more pronounced in the part of the country most dependent on it - Wallonia.
Ironically, most Belgians will be perfectly familiar with Mr. Belien's theses as numerous articles (in both the Belgian and foreign press) have made many of the same points. While the foreign press has tended to view the issue as a Belgium-wide problem, commentators from Belgium's disputatious regions, not surprisingly, have made finer distinctions. De Standaard, the most popular Flemish newspaper, noted in an article Sept. 10 that "almost all the 'scandals' of recent years" stem from regions where the Socialist Party has an iron grip on all public institutions.
"With the exception of Liege this region is economically dead. It also appears to be almost socially dead," the article said. An article in the current issue of Dag Allemaal, a popular Flemish weekly, notes in a similar vein that "it is obvious that both the PS and its adherents have clung for far too long to a statist economic model and to activities which have become outdated in a land like Belgium. The rusty installations of the coal and steel industries have not made way on time for a livelier, innovative and dynamic scene of small and medium-size enterprises."
It seems to us a strong argument that an elaborate, costly and unaccountable system of social welfare has undermined effective government in Socialist-dominated Wallonia and exacerbated divisions between the country's two dominant linguistic groups (the Flemish-speaking northerners and the Francophone Walloons). Contrary to the charges of racism hurled at those who make the distinction, there is nothing race-related about this point. As Mr. Belien himself wrote in a 1993 editorial-page article, "the root of Belgium's problem is not ethnic nationalism, but socialism." Or, as one astute Letter writer put it last week, Wallonia does not have a monopoly on corruption or bad government. Indeed, if abuses are somewhat less glaring in Flanders, it is only because the wealthier (and more populous) part of Belgium is less dependent on government patronage.
That view, however, is considered blasphemous by the power elites and even many lesser beings in Wallonia, where half the population is dependent on the state for the majority of its income. They both fear and resent discussion of "reform" - which inevitably would mean reductions in state spending. One can debate how much Flemish taxpayer money actually ends up supporting Walloons (the government does not, apparently, reveal such statistics), but there is no question that the economy in southern Belgium is in poor shape. A recent study conducted by a "think tank" allied with the Flemish and Walloon Christian Democratic parties estimated that the Walloon economy will need 25 years to catch up with the average growth rate in Europe. It is not a totally implausible charge that this reliance on the government as sugar daddy makes many Walloons one-issue voters, prepared to back the party that protects their benefits, regardless of the revelations of corruption in that party.
Moreover, the stifling of public debate on these and other issues has led to one consequence that Belgium's elites find intolerable: the rise in popularity of the Vlaams Blok. The Vlaams Blok has deserved much of its bad reputation. Despite recent attempts to gain respectability, its leaders have done far too little to change the Blok's most loathesome policies - such as a platform that includes deporting Muslim immigrants - or denounce past transgressions that opponents can easily dredge up to label the party as "fascist." Nominally anti-establishmentarian, the Vlaams Blok wastes more energy blaming the country's problems on immigrants or Walloons than on the establishment itself. Avowedly free market, the Blok has often been muddle-headed on economic policy.
Nevertheless, a party that gains a quarter of the vote in Belgium's second largest city cannot be ignored, try as Belgium's politicians may. And as with most political parties, there is plenty of disagreement within the Vlaams Blok about which policies should be pursued, and which dropped. It is too bad that more serious people have not prevailed in these debates, as in the country as a whole, but it can only be regarded as a commentary on the system that those who could be contributing responsibly to the public debate are forced to do so from outside a mainstream that refuses to hear them out. Indeed, we see support for the Vlaams Blok as less an indication of sympathy with extremist policies among Belgians than a reflection of the low esteem Flemish voters have for the country's main political parties.
Of course, Mr. Belien is no stranger to this phenomenon. In 1990, long before his wife's affiliation with the Vlaams Blok, he was sacked from his job at an Antwerp newspaper for a "politically irresponsible" article he wrote in The Wall Street Journal Europe. Mr. Belien had learned from his sources that King Baudouin had said that he would rather abdicate than sign an abortion law making its way through Parliament. Belgian papers had chosen not to print this, but six months later the king did refuse to sign the law, sparking a constitutional crisis that was defused only by the king abdicating for two days while the law was passed. This remarkable incident reflected badly on the Belgian press, much of which has strong political affiliations, and its sense of any responsibility for informing Belgians on matters of public importance.
Mr. Belien, we acknowledge, is an extremely forthright writer, but we see no reason why writers with serious, strongly held, but well-argued opinions should be denied access to a page that we like to think of as part of the Europe-wide forum for discussion of important issues. The biggest threat to Belgian unity is not dissent, and surely not debate. As the American jurist Learned Hand wrote: "That community is already in the process of dissolution... where faith in the eventual supremacy of reason has become so timid that we dare not enter our convictions in the open lists, to win or lose." Whatever one thinks of Mr. Belien's arguments, it is to his credit that he has not lost his faith in the supremacy of reason, as would appear to be the case with many of his detractors.
