ZALTBOMMEL, 27/02/10 - Mayors are not expected to make spice political statements, but Albert van den Bosch broke with this doctrine Friday. The conservative (VVD) mayor characterised Moroccan criminals as the "internal enemy".

The VVD mayor urged special legislation to put a stop to intimidation by Moroccan youths. "The people are fed up. Do something about it as government!" he said in the civil servants' journal Binnenlands Bestuur.

"I am fed up with how Iraq and Afghanistan have been discussed for months, while nothing is done about a much bigger problem. (...) I do not understand that so many billions are being put into purchasing JSF fighter aircraft if you could also have very many extra police officers for this money. Who is our enemy? Do we need an expensive airforce for vague wars in far places, or is the enemy within, in the Netherlands?"

Van den Bosch is mayor of Zaltbommel. Some 1,000 Moroccans live in this municipality, of which 50 are regular offenders. "Twenty form the hard core and there are 30 copying them. There are no problems with the other thousand Moroccans."

But the mayor can do nothing against the trouble-makers, he says. "Intimidation, violence, serious trouble-making; much more is going on than just calling women 'whore'. We also have some lover-boys (pimps press-ganging girls into prostitution), nearly all of Moroccan origin. I hear rumours that these are also already surfacing in the primary schools."