Research: Dutch violence in Indonesia extreme and structural, cabinet wants an apology
The violence was structural, excessive and a result of secret by political, administrative and military officials, insiders say. At the end of the 1940s, those responsible dominated ‘old colonial thinking’. Thousands were sent to Indonesia with too few military resources and a planned Dutch preparation.
Violence result
The survey shows that those responsible in The Hague have received sufficient improvements regarding the use of excessive force. In some cases it became extremely violent. Reporting abuses were also ignored, researchers conclude.
In the excesses memorandum of 1969, the government stated that there was no question of ‘systematic cruelty’. The Dutch armed forces had only ‘committed a few excesses’. That’s no different. This time, the researchers concluded that the violence was structural and that the Dutch armed forces as an institution are responsible for it.
Various publications and scientific studies have already shown that the conclusion about ‘excesses’ was incorrect. The research that will be shown tomorrow is being conducted by the Royal Institute for Language, Land and Ethnology (KITLV), the Netherlands Institute for Military History (NIMH) and the NIOD, the Netherlands Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies.
The research is about the military violence that was used in the former Dutch colony between 1945 and 1950. An estimated 5,000 Dutch soldiers and 100,000 soldiers were killed in the war of independence.
Apologies again
“The cabinet has already apologized to Indonesia, the king did so in March last year,” says political reporter Fons Lambie. “But the cabinet is brooding on new apologies. Also to the veterans, to the Indonesian community in the Netherlands. Even though it was seventy years ago, the government could also express something of regret.”