In the summer of 2022, waste will be dumped several times on the A7 between Groningen and Drachten, under the name of farmers’ protests. The demonstrations reached a dangerous low point. How did it come to this? A reconstruction.
On the night of July 28, 2022, it is pitch dark around half past four on the A7, near the provincial border between Groningen and Friesland. An Iraqi taxi driver drives a customer from Groningen to Drachten. Near Drachtstercompagnie he sees a large fire burning on the roadside and he slows down.
Out of nowhere he feels his car bounce and tip over, he just barely stops on his wheels. His co-driver, who had dozed off, wakes up with a start. The taxi driver gets his Tesla to stop on the hard shoulder. His front bumper is torn and is partly on the road surface.
When the men get out, it turns out that the highway is littered with black sand. Not visible in the darkness. They see a car approaching and try to warn it with light signals, but that doesn’t work. The Peugeot 2008 is launched through a lump of earth. But the driver remains unharmed. Not much later, the three men point out the danger to an oncoming truck, which hits the guardrail as it avoids the mess.
Farmers’ actions in summer 2022 are becoming increasingly extreme
When the highway dumpings take place, the North has already been under the spell of upturned Dutch flags, highway blockades and intimidation of politicians and municipal employees for more than a month. Farmer demonstrators are furious with Minister Christianne van der Wal’s (VVD) nitrogen map, which shows that northern farmers are in for major changes.
A mix of concerned farmers, young people from rural villages, anti-government protesters and professional protesters cluster together in different groups on WhatsApp. Actions are organized almost every day throughout the Netherlands. But the actions at Frieschepalen and later in Leek and Marum are the most extreme so far. They cause a change: public opinion is increasingly turning against the farmers.
It’s chaos. There are also mountains of waste on the entrance and exit ramps, parts of which are on fire. “It was life-threatening, not normal,” the taxi driver told the police that night. The damage to the two cars and the truck amounts to tens of thousands of euros. The clean-up by Rijkswaterstaat also gets into trouble if it turns out that there are asbestos plates on the road.
‘FULL AND RETURN EMPTY’
‘We want tough action’, appears on the afternoon of July 27 in the chat group ‘Striders ut de Walden’. The message comes from Annick (29), who still lives in Stroobos. She further writes: ‘Including tippers, wagons, tanks, manure spreaders. FULL AND EMPTY BACK’. A handful of activists say they are up for it. An action is being launched in both Groningen and Friesland.
Berend, a farmer (32) from De Wilp, had it that evening. The messages in the groups about the new government policy fuel his fire. He sees how his and his father’s dairy farm collapses. In his own words, he hates tractors.
But on July 27, he got behind the wheel and loaded a low-loader with cleared branches and drove it to the agreed location near the highway. He takes charge of organizing the action on the Groningen side and calls on supporters to come that night.
‘Question’, Jelle (33) from Kornhorn sends to a 52-year-old man from Opende. ‘Do you still have sand, gravel, soil or bulky waste that you need to get rid of? Still need something for next night’s action.’ The man replies that he has asbestos sheets lying around, from a collapsed shed. ‘Is that also possible?’ – ‘Certainly!’, Jelle responds.
‘Fighting for the future’
Jelle switches to Klaas (21) from Opende, a young contractor who wants to ‘fight for his future’. Jelle is a skipper and does not have a tractor. He asks Klaas to take the pallets with waste to the A7 near Frieschepalen.
Just before 1 a.m. they wait at Frieschepalen until the police have left, who then frequently post at entrances and exits. Berend also arrives there later when it turns out that hardly anyone shows up on the Groningen side. According to him, two demonstrators with gas burners are ready when he dumps his low-loader with branches on the road. Who they are is still a mystery. Jelle’s pile of waste also catches fire, but largely remains where it is.
Annick is impressed by all the dumping violence. She rides with a friend in a Mercedes and sees tractors and fires everywhere. “But I still said, no emergency lanes!” she shouts in a video. The action gets out of hand. A load of sand goes on the highway and people throw a freezer into the flames.
Project X
“This is not how I wanted it to go. I said: think about safety,” the woman later told the police. “It’s a bit like Project
That explanation doesn’t match the messages she sends that night, when someone tries to clean up the trash on the highway. She’s furious. ‘Stop him! Puncture his tires!’
Evidence against the dumpers soon emerges. Officers find the first piece of the puzzle in a bag of unburned household waste: mail to Jelle’s address in Kornhorn. He had forgotten that for a moment, according to chats the next morning. He sends Klaas a photo and circles a pile of rubbish: ‘Our bump’, he writes. ‘But that doesn’t include anything that’s ours. They must have more evidence.’ He also complains to Berend about the waste left behind: ‘I’ll just throw a can of petrol over it tonight.’
On August 4, Jelle was arrested at home. In his phone, the police not only found a lot of evidence for his involvement in Frieschepalen, but also of a highway dumping near Marum on August 1. Burning asbestos is also found here.
Where are all those tractors?
Two boys, just of age, are sent ahead on a scooter after midnight. One of them is Xander from Gorredijk, who came with his friend and does not know the others. He expects a major protest on the highway that night, but is surprised at what he finds on the A7. Where are all those tractors, he wonders.
When the coast is clear, he sees Jelle and Klaas throwing stuff on the road and setting it on fire. “We are now the first blockade of August,” Jelle boasts, later that night in a telephone conversation with Xander.
The police eventually identified 9 activists as suspects in the dumpings. But for example, no one is prosecuted for dumping the container with earth. Spread over three days, the woman and eight men will appear in court in Leeuwarden on Thursday, Friday and Monday. The website provides live reporting of the court cases.
This newspaper was given access to the criminal file against the farmer demonstrators. Police recovered the messages from the suspects’ phones after they were arrested. It has been decided to mention only the first names of the suspects for privacy reasons.
Blocking the road and dumping waste
The activists are suspected of blocking the highway, illegal dumping of waste and arson. The affected motorists reported, among other things, attempted murder or manslaughter. After all the police investigation, the Public Prosecution Service came to a different classification of the criminal offenses.
Tags: bag unburned waste puts police trail protest farmers dumping sites Stop Puncture tires
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