RTV UtrechtMario van der Beek in front of his tent
In association with
RTV Utrecht
NOS Nieuws•donderdag, 19:23
Defense has acknowledged that a veteran from Utrecht should not have been sent in a combat role on a UN mission to Lebanon in the 1980s. Former soldier Mario van der Beek fought for ten years to gain this recognition. His lobby ended up in a power outage after he stayed in a tent in front of the Utrecht Kromhout barracks for more than two weeks as a protest.
Van der Beek said he had a difficult childhood. After the death of his mother, he ended up in boarding schools, where he had a hard time. Yet he was forced to serve at the age of eighteen, despite an examination showing that he had psychological problems.
After six months of training in the Netherlands and two months at the UN, his combat mission began in Lebanon. Shortly afterwards he had to bury his father in the Netherlands. “Within a month, four of me and I ended up in a firefight with PLO fighters. That lasted for hours.” He was left with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), tinnitus and deafness. “For forty years now, that beep has reminded me of that war.”
UNIFILE
During the Lebanese civil war in 1978, part of the country was occupied by Israel. The United Nations demands that Israel withdraw and stations UNIFIL, a peacekeeping force, on the border with Israel.
The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon initially had to mainly stop Palestinian fighters who wanted to carry out attacks in Israel from Lebanon. Later the assignment became somewhat broader: keeping Israel and the militant Shiite movement Hezbollah apart.
From 1979 to 1985, more than 9,000 Dutch soldiers went to Lebanon to assist the peace operation. Nine Dutch people died there.
After his deployment, he felt there was no aftercare. “I have been litigating for debt recognition for ten years. They always said: ‘We have made no mistakes,'” he tells RTV Utrecht. In 2014, the veteran did receive a military disability pension and a special disability increase due to the complaints suffered during the war. But that was not enough for Van der Beek.
Brief
At the beginning of this month he therefore set up a tent in front of the barracks, where he stayed five days a week. He received a lot of support, including from other veterans and soldier Marco Kroon. He was also invited to the Christmas dinner at FC Utrecht.
Defense quickly announced that it was working on the case. This afternoon, Lieutenant Colonel Richard Badoux came from The Hague to hand over a letter. Sender: the Commander of the Armed Forces. The letter states, among other things, that Van der Beek “with the current knowledge, should not have been placed in this position and subsequently deployed.”
The veteran is “very happy” and cleared his tent this afternoon. “I’m going to celebrate Christmas and New Year’s Eve at home with my family.” Still, he’s not done yet. There is still an ongoing procedure regarding personal injury. Van der Beek wants compensation from Defense.
