This text is part of the quarterly research results 3 ’23
In June, Ronald van der Wal was arrested in Poland. He was about to purchase five firearms with ammunition. They would be intended for an attack in the Netherlands. Van der Wal is an old acquaintance within the extreme right of the Netherlands. He was active in the CP'86 and fantasized about politically motivated violence.
Op 13 June is Ronald (Ron) Wal (1969) caught red-handed by the Polish Border Guard and military intelligence service SKW with the purchase of five firearms, including ammunition. “It turned out that the man”, says a spokesman for the border guard, "wanted to smuggle weapons from Poland and use them on the territory of the Netherlands." It is still unclear what Van der Wal intends to do with those weapons, but in one press release of the Polish Border Guard is emphasized that he has “ties with extreme nationalist groups.” The Polish State Secretary of Internal Security states that with the arrest “a realistic scenario” prevented Van der Wal from using the weapons for “to attack” in Nederland.
Party politics
Van der Wal has been active for a long period within various right-wing extremist organizations in the Netherlands. His career starts in the early 90s with a membership in the neo-Nazi CP'86. This political party was in 1998 banned because of continued hate speech, commit violence and disrupt order. Although Ronald often participates in demonstrations of the CP'86, and is also arrested a number of times for this, he mainly contributes to the party out of the public eye. He turns out to be a national meeting tiger and end 1996, about three years after his registration with the CP'86, he will also become a board member of the Gelderland department. When the ban of the CP'86 approaches and a split occurs within the party, the "moderate’ branch of the CP'86 created something new, de Volksnationalisten Nederland. Van der Wal is there. Within this party, Van der Wal acted as an advisor to the executive board. But after the ban on CP'86 in 1998 there was a public discussion whether this organization should not be seen as a successor to this party. That would bring the People's Nationalists in the Netherlands into big trouble. Another party ban and prosecution of the board was not inconceivable. To avoid this risk, the rank and file founded a new party: de Nieuwe Nationale Partij (NNP). Van der Wal is also very active as an organizer for this party, but electoral success remains out for the NNP.
“With a bit of luck, a number of them will die”
The lack of political success does not bother Van der Wal. Ronald expects “nothing positive for the time being from “nationalist parties”.”, let him in 2004 in an article in a magazine Voorpost know. He writes there to pin his hopes “on the nationalist movement as a whole.” According to him, the existence of a network of “hundreds of right-wing friends” instead of working with official organizations has the advantage “that you are more or less elusive.” Van der Wal focuses his hopes on high school students, the police and the “always conservative armed forces”.
Van der Wal already has the Association of Dutch Nationalists at the time this article was posted (VNN) Founded. The VNN wants to be the neat face of right-wing extremism in the Netherlands and thus attract the interest of the LPF's supporters, among other things.. But the VNN must also be a binding factor within the divided far-right movement in the Netherlands. To achieve these goals, the VNN organizes all kinds of meetings and activities and Van der Wal is active on various internet forums. On these forums, however, he shows a less neat face. Van der Wal is very indignant about that Joop Glimmerveen was convicted together with another man for giving the Hitler salute at a military cemetery. On the VNN forum he shows his compassion for animals in what he says is a cynical mood, on which, according to Van der Wal, no more tests may be carried out. According to him, it would be better to use “unemployed guest workers and asylum seekers” for this purpose. “With a bit of luck, a number of them will die”, he concludes his contribution. And Van der Wal is not very satisfied with the influence of his VNN. The VNN forum is discussing the establishment of a Freikorps. Van der Wal states that "an official Freikorps with weapons and uniforms" is not possible. "But" he says, “we are free to organize a bunch of burly lads.”
New move in political career
It did not come from a Freikorps, animal experiments are still allowed and the VNN dies a quiet death. Van der Wal writes here and there on the internet some positive messages about Proud of the Netherlands, the PVV and Party Free Almelo, but otherwise he disappears from the extreme right political scene more than ten years ago.
Until the press statement of the Polish customs is published this summer. We see Van der Wal lying handcuffed on the ground next to his Mercedes. In his bag a hefty bundle of money. according to the Algemeen Dagblad Van der Wal would have a Russian girlfriend and he may have contacted pro-Russian groups. Whether that has anything to do with his gun purchase is up to this not clear at the moment. Just as it is unclear what ties to “extreme nationalist groups” he would have and where the unemployed Van der Wal got the money for these weapons. It is well known where Van der Wal celebrates his 54th birthday this summer: In Poland during his three-month pretrial detention.
