Dutch parliament facing vote on Afghan troops

[DaSangarTalib]

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THE HAGUE - Dutch lawmakers are set to vote late on Thursday to send more troops to Afghanistan in a move that would lift international pressure on the Netherlands and boost NATO, but they are worried about the mission details.

The NATO member and U.S. ally delayed its decision last year to send up to 1,400 troops to Afghanistan, threatening NATO's plans to expand its forces in the war-torn country.

With political and social unease disturbing the usually placid Netherlands, and a sluggish economy, the Dutch have been turning more inward recently and away from a long tradition of international participation.

NATO's secretary general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, a Dutchman, has urged his country to send troops as did U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, speaking in The Hague on Monday.

The main parties in the center-right government want more Dutch soldiers to join troops from Britain and Canada to help NATO expand into southern Afghanistan this year, allowing some U.S. forces fighting the Taliban to withdraw.

Hans van Baalen, of the free market liberal VVD, the third largest party said in parliament, said:

"It's time for us to show some guts, let's do that... Fighting terrorism is in the Netherlands' interest and in the interest of Afghanistan."

Some lawmakers said prisoners should be treated humanely.

"It can't be that prisoners end up in secret detention centers via a round-about route," Van Baalen said, referring to allegations of secret U.S. prisons.

MAJORITY EXPECTED

Parliament is expected to approve deployment in a vote due late on Thursday which could be delayed if debate is prolonged.

The liberal D66, the smallest party in the coalition that is seeking to boost its flagging profile ahead of a 2007 election, had threatened to pull out over the issue but rowed back.

"We are against the mission, but if the military are sent then I think they should have the backing of all politicians," D66 leader Boris Dittrich said ahead of the debate.

The country's second largest party, the opposition Labor Party, said it would probably back the decision. That would give a majority of more than 110 seats in the 150-seat assembly.

The Dutch have been reluctant to take on risky military engagements since the Srebrenica massacre in 1995.

Then, lightly armed Dutch U.N. soldiers, lacking air support, were forced to abandon the Srebrenica enclave to Bosnian Serb forces who then killed up to 8,000 Muslims who had sought protection from the Dutch troops.

Labor leader Wouter Bos called for more information on how the reconstruction mission to Uruzgan in south Afghanistan would be kept separate from the U.S. "Enduring Freedom" mission to chase fighters of the ousted Taliban and their Islamist allies.

Britain and Canada are the other two main contributors to the enlarged force, and alliance officials have acknowledged it would be hard to plug any gap left by the Dutch.


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