Terrorism Spreads To Belgium

The cold-blooded gunning down of eight shoppers at a supermarket outside Brussels has finally dragged staid and middle-class Belgium into the sad league of violent societies. Three or four heavily armed men entered the supermarket shooting at point-blank range, demanded cash from the check-out clerk and left, killing again.

The raid last month came only six weeks after the killers had staged attacks on two separate supermarkets, both belonging to the same chain, in one evening. These attacks also ended in the deaths of eight weekend shoppers.

Terrorism and violent robbery have become a fact of life for Belgium. A spate of bomb attacks, originally on NATO targets, but recently on banks and offices, have been carried out by the mysterious Fighting Communist Cells (Cellules Communiste Combattantes, or CCC).

The supermarket raids, more notable for the loss of life than the loss of cash, and a recent attack when a post office van was blown up and two postal workers were killed, have as much puzzled as shocked the country. Speculation has it that the CCC bombings and the work of the Brabant killers are linked. The Brabant killers have conducted 20 supermarket attacks since 1982.

A spokesman for the Belgian public prosecutor's office said after the latest supermarket raid in the suburb of Alost: "Terrorists and bandits need cash. In their communique of last May, the CCC threatened to concentrate on what it called proletarian targets."

Not everyone shares this view of the supermarket killers as the fundraisers of the CCC. For one thing, the Brabant killers have not been conspicuously successful in their hauls. In the last raid they netted less than $3,000. In previous raids their loot was nothing more than the petty cash and a few jars of coffee.

Why should such a gang risk so much for such small gains? The organization and weapons involved in the attacks point to either military or police knowledge. It is not uncommon in Belgium for a corrupt policeman or renegade soldier to take to this kind of work. In fact, he does not risk his neck. Although the death sentence is still on the books in Belgium, it was last carried out in 1919. The life sentence, to which a death sentence is invariably commuted, can be as short as 10 years.

These latest killings, including school girls, have brought calls for the reinstatement of the death penalty. Justice Minister Jean Gol told callers on a television phone-in program that the death sentence must only be used in exceptional circumstances. He added that what was needed was a sentence that could not be shortened - "another form of capital punishment".

The unruffled way the police are searching for the bombers and killers has been strongly criticized. The Belgian government says it refuses to act as a police state. Gol has been calling for the creation of a 'superpolice' that would report to the Justice Ministry and focus on drug traffickers, armed robbers and terrorists.

Bron: London Observer Service | 5 December 1985 | Liz Barder | articles.chicagotribune.com