It took a long, long time. For more than seventy years, the Dutch government has denied that excessive force was used on a large scale by the armed forces when the colony of the Dutch East Indies wanted to declare its independence. Although there had been some ‘excesses’, was the formal position of the Dutch government since 1969, ‘the armed forces as a whole had behaved correctly in Indonesia’.
Rutte is the first prime minister to break with that government position. He goes deep into the dust for the bad role that the Netherlands played in the former colony. “We have to face the facts,” Rutte said on Thursday. ‘The Netherlands waged a colonial war in which extreme violence was used systematically and widely, up to torture, which in most cases went unpunished.’ Successive cabinets consistently ‘looked away’ for ‘this black page’ in history.
He offers ‘deep apologies to the Indonesian people’ for this. There are also apologies for ‘everyone in our country who has had to live with the consequences of the colonial war to this day’. With the latter, Rutte also explicitly refers to veterans, who were often sent ‘ill-prepared for an impossible mission’. ‘The responsibility does not lie with individual soldiers, but mainly with those in authority at the time: the cabinet, the armed forces as an institution and the judicial authorities.’
Untenable position
The Prime Minister’s response follows the new scientific research presented on Thursday Independence, decolonization, violence and war in Indonesia 1945-1950which shows that, with the knowledge of politicians in The Hague, Dutch soldiers have been ‘frequently and structurally’ guilty of war violence.
These include ‘extrajudicial executions, ill-treatment and torture, detention under inhumane conditions, arson of houses and villages, and often arbitrary mass arrests and internments’. The vast majority of responsible Dutch politicians, military leaders and judges knew about it, but were ‘willing to tolerate it, justify it, conceal it and leave it unpunished.’
These conclusions mean that the old government position on so-called incidental violence in Indonesia ‘is no longer tenable’, conclude the researchers, and now also Rutte. About 100,000 Indonesian soldiers and civilians were killed in the fighting. About five thousand soldiers died on the Dutch side and, as it turns out, nearly six thousand Dutch (Indonesian) civilians and allies also died.
apologies-light
Earlier there were already ‘apologies-light’ from King Willem-Alexander. In 2020, during a state visit to Indonesia, he expressed ‘regret and apologies’ for ‘violent derailments’. Although he expressed more regret than the Netherlands had ever done, his choice of words still concealed the fact that perhaps only a few incidents of violence had been involved.
Full acknowledgment of debt was a very sensitive issue for a long time. In 1995, then Queen Beatrix was still in the position that there was ‘too little political space’ to apologize during a state visit. Minister Ben Bot of Foreign Affairs tried to make up for that in 2005 with the words: ‘The Netherlands was on the wrong side of history’. Rutte took the last step towards full apologies on Thursday.
That’s not a relief for everyone. Dutch veterans would be portrayed too much as ‘war criminals’, says chairman Hans van Griensven of the Veterans Platform. ‘Of course things have gone wrong, but humanitarian aid has also been provided, infrastructure has been built up, for example.’ He believes that too little attention is paid to the violence used by Indonesian fighters.
On the other hand, there are those involved who think that Indonesians are portrayed too much as co-culprits. ‘As long as the Netherlands does not explicitly designate itself as the perpetrator of war crimes, it will remain an attempt to smooth out what happened in Indonesia,’ says Jeffry Pondaag of the Committee on Dutch Honorary Debts. Rutte did not want to use the word ‘war crimes’ on Thursday. ‘That is a legal interpretation.’
Compensation
What is certain is that the cabinet is willing to compensate relatives in Indonesia for the suffering caused. Besides apologies, it’s also about money. Will there be reparations? Rutte is quite explicit about this.
“Widows and children (of victims) can claim compensation,” said the prime minister. It concerns ‘existing settlement arrangements’, he says. ‘They were able to make use of that before and that will continue to be the case’.
Some widows from the village of Rawagede previously successfully sued the Dutch state for the execution of their husbands. After years of litigation, the Netherlands agreed in 2011 with 20 thousand euros per person in compensation. The current apologies are paving the way for tens or possibly even hundreds of thousands of claims for damages.
One thing was certain before the study was published: many people will be angry or sad about it for a variety of reasons. History editor Sander van Walsum wrote this story about it.