During the decolonization war in Indonesia (1945-1950), the Dutch army was structurally guilty of using ‘extreme violence’. The blame for this mainly lies with the senior officers and politicians. They knew that – also according to the norms and values of the time – things happened that were unacceptable.
This is apparent from the conclusions of the research programme Independence, decolonization, violence and war in Indonesia of the Royal Institute for Linguistics, Land and Ethnology (KITLV), the Netherlands Institute for Military History (NIMH) and the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies that were released on Wednesday evening.
Journalists would not have access to the final report before the presentation Across the border and the dozen books that underlie it. Everything was supposed to be announced during a press conference on Thursday morning. After some of the content leaked out on Wednesday evening via RTL News, the research institutes shared the conclusions with the press. The full contents of the report will not be announced until Thursday.
This message is being completed.