Senay Boztas

The manhunt dividing Belgium

Armed units search a forest in Flanders, Belgium (Photo by JAMES ARTHUR GEKIERE/BELGA MAG/AFP via Getty Images)

Belgium’s leading virologist is in hiding, holed up with his family in a government safe house. The reason? A right-wing Flemish soldier. Jürgen Conings disappeared from his home on 17 May, leaving behind a booby-trapped car and a series of letters laying out his grievances against ‘the regime’. In a goodbye letter to his partner, Conings wrote:

The so-called political elite, joined now by the virologists, are deciding how you and I should live… I don’t care whether I die or not, but I will live my last days the way I want.

The muscular 5ft 9in former corporal is now officially a grade-4 terror risk. But that hasn’t stopped the emergence of pro-Conings groups in Flanders, the richer, Dutch-speaking part of Belgium. A Facebook group called ‘I love Jürgen Conings’ grew to 50,000 members before being taken down.

The muscular 5ft 9in former corporal is now officially a grade-4 terror risk

As the hunt for Conings intensifies, several hundred protesters have held sympathetic demonstrations. Meanwhile, right-wing politicians have peppered their obligatory condemnations with words of sympathy. Tom van Grieken, president of the far-right Vlaams Belang party which is currently leading the polls in Flanders, told Politico:

The acts Conings wants to commit are reprehensible. But the sense of unease he describes is widespread… The opposition barely came into play in the media during the pandemic.

Last year, almost 16 months after the federal elections, Belgium finally formed a new government of seven political parties. Excluded were the conservative nationalists of the New Flemish Alliance, the largest single party with 24 of the 150 seats. The same was true for fellow right-wingers Vlaams Belang, with 18 seats — leading people like Van Grieken to claim that large groups of voters are effectively being disenfranchised.

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