2023-05-10 19:32:00
The Minister of the Interior, Annelies Verlinden (CD&V), and the governor of the province of Limburg, Jos Lantmeeters, explained themselves this Wednesday, May 10 before the Interior Committee of the Chamber about the measures put in place during the rave party which took place on the weekend of May 1 in Brustem, near Saint-Trond. Large numbers of revelers had gathered for an illegal party at a derelict military site, numbering as many as 15,000 at the height of the weekend. The local authorities and the province had then decided to privilege negotiations with the organizers to a muscular intervention. A strategic choice strongly criticized in the media, especially on the Dutch-speaking side. Governor Lantmeeters details this decision-making: “Given the number of participants, it was not necessary to trigger a manu militari intervention. The risk was too great to see things degenerate”. But, according to him, “the decision was good since no major accident is to be deplored.”
The authorities therefore wanted to avoid the scenes of chaos that we experienced during the “La Boum” event, organized in the Bois de la Cambre in the spring of 2021. For Annelies Verlinden, this is a whole other context:During the intervention in the Bois de la Cambre, the ratio was 600 police officers for 2000 demonstrators. In Brustem, the military domain occupies more than 400 hectares. We should have deployed too many police. When the revelers were 3000, it was already too late to act” Especially since at the same time, no Federal Reserve officer was available to deal with the influx of ravers. “The forces were dispersed to several large-scale events. In particular the strikes in the Delhaize brands and the final of the Belgian Cup played on Saturday evening at the King Baudouin stadium”, confirme la ministre Verlinden.
The illegal Rave party in Brustem is over, 9 arrests and 27 driving licenses withdrawn: “It will not go unpunished”
For the parliamentarians present in committee, it would have been necessary to flush out the organizers during the preparations. While the event had been planned for three months, the police did not notice anything. Discreet, the organizers from several countries (France, the Netherlands, Germany, etc.) all communicated via social networks. Annelies Verlinden recalls that as long as there is no criminal offence, the police cannot legally infiltrate private messaging services and underlines the important coordination put in place between the participants: “We found leaflets inviting partygoers to unite to defend the equipment in the event of a police intervention. I heard in the media that you just have to pull the plug. It was infeasible since each podium (they were distributed in eleven hangars, Editor’s note) had its own generator. He adds “By sending the ravers back in the middle of the night, we would have created a lot more damage on the road”.
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