Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte on Thursday offered a full apology to Indonesia after a historical review found that the Netherlands had used “excessive violence” in a vain attempt to regain control of their former colony after World War II.
Rutte was addressing the study’s findings, which said that the Dutch military had engaged in systematic, excessive and unethical violence during Indonesia’s 1945-1949 struggle for independence, highlighting that this had been condoned by the Dutch government and society at the time.
“We have to accept the shameful facts,” Rutte told a news conference after the findings were published. “I make my deep apologies to the people of Indonesia today on behalf of the Dutch government.”
Photo: Reuters / Dutch National Archives
The findings of the review, funded by the government in 2017 and conducted by academics and experts from both countries, were presented on Thursday in Amsterdam.
Violence by the military, including acts such as torture that would now be considered war crimes, was “frequent and widespread,” said Ben Schoenmaker, a historian at the Dutch Institute for Military History, one of more than two dozen academics who participated in the study.
“The politicians responsible turned a blind eye to this violence, just as the military, civil and legal authorities. They aided it, they concealed it and they punished it barely or not at all,” he said.
Photo: Reuters
About 100,000 Indonesians died as a direct result of the war, and although perceptions of the conflict have been changing in the Netherlands, the government had never fully examined or acknowledged the scope of its responsibility.
In 1969, Amsterdam concluded that its forces had, on the whole, behaved correctly during the conflict, but in 2005, the government conceded that it had been “on the wrong side of history.”
In March 2020, during a visit to Indonesia, Dutch King Willem-Alexander made a surprise apology for the violence.
The government subsequently offered 5,000 euros (US$5,686) compensation to children of Indonesians who had been executed during the conflict after a 2013 settlement with widows of one infamous massacre, at Ragawede village in 1947.
Rutte on Thursday reiterated that the offer to settle compensation claims remains open.
The study found that the government sent soldiers on an impossible mission they had not been properly trained for.
Some then engaged in acts of torture, extrajudicial killings and disproportionate use of weapons, the study said.
Rutte, as well as academics involved in the study, declined to address whether the Netherlands might be responsible for war crimes in the conflict.
“That’s a matter for public prosecutors,” Rutte said. “The report was indeed not written from a legal perspective but a historical one — but in any case, things happened there that we here today condemn to the utmost.”
The study said that the government and military had the support of an approving society and uncritical media, which was rooted in a “colonial mentality.”
“It is evident that at every level, the Dutch unquestioningly applied different standards to ... colonial ‘subjects,’” a summary of the findings said.
Although the study focused on Dutch actions, it noted that Indonesian forces also used “intense” violence and killed about 6,000 people in the opening phase of the conflict, targeting Eurasians, Moluccans and other minority groups.
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
The collapse of the Swiss Birch glacier serves as a chilling warning of the escalating dangers faced by communities worldwide living under the shadow of fragile ice, particularly in Asia, experts said. Footage of the collapse on Wednesday showed a huge cloud of ice and rubble hurtling down the mountainside into the hamlet of Blatten. Swiss Development Cooperation disaster risk reduction adviser Ali Neumann said that while the role of climate change in the case of Blatten “still needs to be investigated,” the wider impacts were clear on the cryosphere — the part of the world covered by frozen water. “Climate change and
Poland is set to hold a presidential runoff election today between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the country’s future. The winner would succeed Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is finishing his second and final term. The outcome would determine whether Poland embraces a nationalist populist trajectory or pivots more fully toward liberal, pro-European policies. An exit poll by Ipsos would be released when polls close today at 9pm local time, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Final results are expected tomorrow. Whoever wins can be expected to either help or hinder the
DENIAL: Musk said that the ‘New York Times was lying their ass off,’ after it reported he used so much drugs that he developed bladder problems Elon Musk on Saturday denied a report that he used ketamine and other drugs extensively last year on the US presidential campaign trail. The New York Times on Friday reported that the billionaire adviser to US President Donald Trump used so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that he developed bladder problems. The newspaper said the world’s richest person also took ecstasy and mushrooms, and traveled with a pill box last year, adding that it was not known whether Musk also took drugs while heading the so-called US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) after Trump took power in January. In a
RSS