Dutch ashamed of colonial past<\/p>\n
By Helmut Hetzel<\/p>\n
THE HAGUE (DPA): "Awareness of so-called 'police actions' in
\nthe Republic of Indonesia is only slowly getting through to us.
\nIt is a painful process and far from over."<\/p>\n
These are the opening sentences of a review in the Amsterdam
\nnewspaper Het Parool of a book published by Dutch author Louis
\nZweers, containing what are described as forbidden photographs of
\nbrutality by Dutch colonial police on the Indonesian island of
\nSumatra.<\/p>\n
The photographs have been published at a sensitive moment:
\nWorld War II ended in the Pacific on Aug. 15, 1945 with the
\ncapitulation of Japan. Indonesia, which had been under Japanese
\noccupation, was returned to its former colonial power, the
\nNetherlands.<\/p>\n
The Japanese had driven the Dutch out of Indonesia in 1942. On
\nAug. 17, 1945 Indonesians on the streets of Jakarta were shouting
\n"Merdeka, Merdeka" ("Freedom, Freedom"), proclaiming
\nindependence. It was a proclamation which the Netherlands chose
\nto ignore.<\/p>\n
The Netherlands, themselves just liberated by Allied forces
\nfrom German occupation, sent thousands of soldiers to Indonesia.
\nThere followed four years of colonial war and bloody repression.
\nThe "police actions", as this colonial war is still often
\neuphemistically described in Holland, had begun.<\/p>\n
Zweers' volume of photographs now reveals the brutality of the
\nDutch army in Java and Sumatra. He discovered the pictures by
\nchance in the imperial archives in Den Haag.<\/p>\n
"They have never been published before and were presumably
\nnever meant to be," said Zweers.<\/p>\n
Around 200,000 Indonesians lost their lives in "police
\nactions". Ten thousand Dutch were killed in the fighting, which
\ndid not end until Dec. 27, 1949, and then only under pressure
\nfrom the U.S. and the United Nations.<\/p>\n
For many elderly Dutch people, the loss of what they thought
\nof as their beautiful "tropical Holland" remains an open wound.
\nHolland's problems in coming to terms with its colonial past were
\ndemonstrated during Queen Beatrix's state visit to Indonesia in
\n1995, when she failed to apologize formally to her Indonesian
\nhosts for the war crimes committed by Dutch soldiers.<\/p>\n
Still now, Holland refuses to recognize the date of Indonesian
\nindependence as having been Aug. 17, 1945.<\/p>\n
Sixty-seven year old Frouke Huisman is certain that Zweers'
\nphotographs were taken by her brother Ben, who died five years
\nago.<\/p>\n
"He sent me a few prints from Indonesia secretly in 1946. At
\nthat time he was working as a photographer in the Royal
\nNetherlands Indonesian Army (KNIL). After he came back we never
\ntalked about his time in Indonesia again," she explained.<\/p>\n
Like the Huisman family, many other families still avoid
\ntalking about their Indonesian past, although hundreds of
\nthousands of Dutch people have roots there.<\/p>\n
Politicians, too, largely ignore the colonial past. While the
\nend of World War II in Europe and the liberation of the
\nNetherlands from Nazi occupation is celebrated each year on May 4
\nand 5, there is nothing to mark Aug. 15, nothing to mark the
\ndeaths of either the Indonesians or Dutch people who died.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/dutch-ashamed-of-colonial-past-1447893297",
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"sponsor": "Okusi Associates",
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