Amsterdam had it rough side too.... Squatters, Anti - Metro riots, tanks on the streets and snipers

Whilst Amsterdam has to be one of my absolute favourite cities in the world (and I have seen a lot of them), it wasn't all nice, friendly and enjoyable experiences as a city while we lived there.

When we arrived there first, a largish section of the city was experiencing serious riots from people who resented the destruction of whole sections of the city to build the metro.    Owing to the fact that Amsterdam is built on sand, they couldn't simply drill the tunnels under all the houses and streets, but instead had to demolish all the houses along the route of the metro tunnels, build the sections of tunnel on the thus cleared surface, then sink them to the depth they wanted them to be at.. Clever engineering, but................... 

Which a hell of a lot of people felt strongly was a lousy idea, and made their feelings very apparent by means of running battles with the Dutch riot police, a charming section of the police force known as the Mobile Units.  An alarming looking bunch all dressed in armour and all the other trappings we have come to know and love in all riots these days.

By and large we managed to avoid getting tangled up in those riots,as we were not really involved in any philosophical way.

But later riots did catch us out.  For example during the coronation of Queen Beatrix, which was a far from popular event, as a large number of Dutch people disliked her cordially, and made no bones about it.   So her coronation which was intended to be a fun and enjoyable day for every one turned into a series of extremely bloody and violent clashes between the riot cops and the rioters.  Sadly I found myself (along with a multitude of others) tangled up in these running fights, as they erupted all over the center of the city with no real warning.

I was relatively experienced in how to behave in a riot, as a result of my experiences in the riots in Italy as a roadie, but those riots took place in one area only, and were sort of almost choreographed, so everyone knew where, when and what the riot would be.  And could thus easily avoid getting caught in it.

Not so here.  All would be peaceful in a particular street, and then suddenly the Mobile Units would come roaring up in their trucks, leap out and start beating up everyone in sight as hard as they could.  It was revolting to watch, old men and women, kids, anyone they found, they simply attacked.  On that day they behaved as mad dogs... And seemed to be totally out of the control of their officers as far as I could see.

Horrible to be involved in...  By sheer luck I managed to avoid getting attacked by those policemen, but it was only by the skin of my teeth.... And I saw so much unprovoked violence - cops towards the people, not only the rioters...

Some years later, the squatters movement occupied a couple of buildings in the centre of Amsterdam, which got totally out of control as well.    We were tied up by the Ship Museum, and I saw the columns of Leopard  tanks and armoured cars trundling over the bridge nearby on their way to the centre of the town to clear those squatters out... Never thought to see such a sight in a city such as Amsterdam.. Capital of tolerance... Only to a point it would seem.  

That was another very violent set of confrontations.

And then, the one that really freaked us out was when the squatters occupied a luxury block of flats opposite Central Station.

The cops decided to attack and clear them out, not unreasonably perhaps, but this time they set things up carefully, including snipers in big rubbish skips lifted high up by cranes and similar precautions.   And the bit that got to us was that we happened to be chugging along the Ij towards Central Station in the Water Rat, when an armed police helicopter suddenly came zooming along low over us, stopped, turned around and at about the height of our bows came back and really checked us out.. Hovering just in front of us as we slowed right down to avoid running into them... And it was full of riot cops bristling with guns and such like... Seriously unnerving.. Happily they decided we had nothing to do with the events and sheered off and left us alone.

Funnily enough when the cops finally attacked that particular squat, when they got in they discovered that the squatters were long gone, and all they found waiting for them were a bunch of reporters.....

This was the other side of Amsterdam in those days... A much less freindly and enjoyable aspect of how the City Fathers went about controlling any real opposition to their rules.    

Real army tanks to take on squatters?  Talk about over kill!