Leo Reawaruw, chairman of the Maluku4Maluku foundation, passed away yesterday morning in Harlingen. He championed the interests of the Moluccan community in the Netherlands.
Leo Reawaruw turned 62 years old.
Reawaruw fought with Maluku4Maluku for the recognition of the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army (KNIL) and for families of veterans. The KNIL soldiers came to the Netherlands after the independence of Indonesia, they had served the Dutch state. It would be a temporary stay in the Netherlands, after which they would return to their own Moluccan state. That never happened.
Many KNIL members felt discarded. Reawaruw wanted financial compensation and was a champion of granting veteran status to KNIL veterans.
In several municipalities in Drenthe, Reawaruw devoted himself to the graves of KNIL soldiers and their family members in Assen, Hoogeveen and Hooghalen. He wanted them to be given a special status, so that graves would not be cleared and there would be no need to pay for burial rights.
“It is a kind of recognition. An assignment of the special status would ease the pain,” he said last year in Hooghalen, where many Moluccans are buried because it is close to the former Kamp Schattenberg, where they were housed after arrival in the Netherlands.