Het nieuws over de terreur in de herfst van 1985 bereikte ook de overkant van de Atlantische Oceaan. Eind november 1985 verscheen in The New York Times een artikel over de aanslagen van de CCC en de Bende van Nijvel:

Belgium is shaken by bombs and 'crazy killers'

A spate of banditry and terrorism has shaken this normally tranquil, relatively prosperous country of 10 million to its core.

On Wednesday Prime Minister Wilfried Martens, whose center-right Government was re-elected last month, placed six companies of the Belgian Army - about 1,000 soldiers - at the disposal of the police to help thwart terrorism and other crimes.

The Government also increased security at embassies, public buildings and big businesses for President Reagan's visit to brief Western allies on the Geneva summit meeting. Nonetheless, a terrorist group known as the Fighting Communist Cells exploded a bomb at Motorola's European headquarters in Brussels, causing heavy damage.

In the last 13 months the Fighting Communist Cells has taken responsibility for at least 24 bombings of banks, commercial offices and North Atlantic Treaty Organization centers.

But of far greater concern has been a series of holdups by a gang that since 1982 has slain 27 people, including women and children, most of them during robberies at supermarkets.

The most recent incident - and the most violent to date - was an attack on the evening of Nov. 9 at a Delhaize supermarket in Aalst, 16 miles west of Brussels. Six adults and two children were killed when three gunmen, wearing ski masks and carrying pump shotguns, blasted their way into the market, spraying shoppers with fire. The robbers made off with only $3,700.

'Not Their Primary Motive'

''It's obvious that theft is not their primary motive,'' asserted Lode Van Outrive, a leading criminologist at Louvain University. ''Undermining the police and destabilizing the country appear to be their major goals.''

The gunmen have been dubbed the ''crazy killers of Brabant,'' the province that includes Brussels.

Justice Minister Jean Gol said two weeks ago that the Government could not rule out a link between the Communist Cells and the supermarket gang.

But the existence of such a link is doubted by most experts. Jean Depretre, the prosecutor who heads the Government's investigation of the supermarket slayings, said in an interview that he believed the armed robbers, unlike the Communist Cells, were after money. He also said that unlike the supermarket gang, whose numbers he estimated at 4 to 10, the Communist Cells had tried to avoid killing people.

''The C.C.C. is a classic terrorist group,'' he said, using the initials by which the gang is known in French. ''The gang is Jesse James, or Bonnie and Clyde.''

Despite intensive efforts by Belgium's three police forces - 550 autonomous local police units, a gendarmerie and a judicial police force - as well as a small anti-terrorist force, the authorities conceded they have little idea who is carrying out the bombings and attacks or why.

An Effect on Business

The resulting fear is palpable. It is also affecting business.

At 4 P.M. on Tuesday, a Delhaize supermarket in Uccle, a middle-class suburb, was bustling with shoppers. By sunset, an hour later, it was deserted.

''We have zero shoppers at night,'' said Pierre Dumont, a spokesman for Delhaize Freres, a Belgian-based company that has been the target of most of the raids. ''All the supermarkets are deserted at night. People are simply too afraid to shop after dark.'' He said no one knew why Delhaize stores had been chosen as targets.

Mr. Depretre, the prosecutor, asserted that location made Delhaize stores tempting targets: the raids were carried out at stores on or near main highways, insuring a speedy getaway.

Division in Authority Cited

Mr. Van Outrive, the criminologist, asserted that Belgium's police forces suffered from poor financing and poor training, but most of all from divided police authority.

On Sept. 27, he noted, the gang stole $20,000 and killed eight people in 20 minutes in holdups at Delhaize stores about 10 miles apart in the towns of Braine-l'Alleud and Overijse. An alert issued after the first raid did not reach the neighboring police jurisdiction until the second holdup was over.

Bron: The New York Times | Judith Miller | 24 November 1985

Het artikel verscheen op pagina 24 van de nationale uitgave van The New York Times.