Right-Wing Dutch Politician Fortuyn Shot Dead
By MARCEL VAN DE HOEF
.c The Associated Press
HILVERSUM, Netherlands (May 6) - In the first assassination in modern Dutch history, a lone gunman shot far-right leader Pim Fortuyn on Monday, nine days before elections expected to catapult his anti-immigration party into a position of national power.
Fortuyn, 54, a former academic and columnist who led an openly gay lifestyle, was shot six times in the head, neck and chest as he left a radio interview.
Police said they arrested a suspect whom they described as a ``white man of Dutch nationality,'' but had not established an identity or a motive. Prosecutor Theo Hofstee said the suspect refused to talk, and will be arraigned within days.
``After this assassination, Pim Fortuyn is no more,'' said outgoing Prime Minister Wim Kok in The Hague.
Police clashed with hundreds of Fortuyn supporters near Parliament while the Cabinet held talks on postponing May 15 elections. Protesters smashed shop windows and at least two cars were set on fire in a parking garage under government offices. Police in riot gear and with dogs dispersed crowds with water cannons, and detained several rioters.
Fortuyn had expressed fears for his safety after protesters threw two cream pies laced with urine in his face a few weeks ago. But minutes before his death, he responded to a question by the 3FM radio station in Hilversum, 12 miles southeast of Amsterdam, on how old he would live to be: ``I'm not going to die soon. I'm going to live to be 87.''
His body lay for hours near the entrance to the building after paramedics tried to revive him.
Fortuyn's death immediately caused a halt to campaigning. Opinion polls had predicted Fortuyn's new party, created earlier this year, would get more than one-sixth of the 150 seats in parliament, which could put his party in the ruling coalition.
Fortuyn (pronounced fore-TOWN) had dictated debate during the campaign with verbal attacks on the country's growing Muslim population and strident criticism of the national government. He called Islam a ``backward'' culture and said the Netherlands should reconsider its law guaranteeing freedom from discrimination.
Kok called his shooting ``indescribable.''
``Respect for each other means you fight with words, not bullets,'' Kok said in a televised interview, warning of a threat to Dutch democracy. ``For God's sake, let's remain calm.''
``These are things you thought were just not possible in the Netherlands,'' said Ad Melkert, new leader of the ruling Labor Party and its candidate for prime minister. ``It's a low-point for our democracy.''
It was believed to be the most prominent killing of a European politician since Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme was gunned down in Stockholm in 1986. In Dutch history, the first leader of the Dutch republic who led the war for independence against Spain, William the Silent, was shot to death in 1584 in the city of Delft.
Fortuyn was widely dismissed as a serious political threat until last March, when his newly formed party, ``Pim Fortuyn's List,'' swept 35 percent of the vote in local elections in Rotterdam, a port city with a large immigrant population.
``Pim was not an extremist. He wanted to do something for the working class to save us from taxes and do something for the normal people and not for the immigrants,'' said one protester outside parliament, Leslie Gonggeyp, a truck driver.