Funeral procession through Amsterdam streets, coffin, mourners, graveside.




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Background: The Dutch government today (Friday) alerted 3,500 troops and tanks all over Holland in case of a fresh outbreak of violence over the week-end. And, in Amsterdam, 1,000 building workers followed the hearse at the funeral of the building worker whose death provoked four days of bitter rioting.

Amsterdam was quiet for the first time for four days as the funeral party travelled through streets which had been the scene of rioting, vandalism and bitter fighting with the police.

Non-union building workers were demonstrating against a two percent cut from their summer bonus on Monday (13th June) when 51-year-old Jan Weggelaar died - the police said from a heart attack, the building workers claim from police action.

The result was that hundreds of people - many of them teenagers - smashed with, burned cars and looted shops.

One hundred people - 81 civilians and 28 police - have been injured in the rioting since then.

Teenagers in the riots were the "proves" - Amsterdam's tough local brand of Beatniks. It was the "provos" who threw home-made bombs at the wedding procession of Crown Princess Beatix and the West German diplomat, Herr Claus von Amsberg, earlier this year.

Amsterdam police have already been reinforced by some 1,500 state police and Royal Guards since Monday's incidents.