Colonial legacy dogs Maluku people

By Aboeprijadi Santoso

AMSTERDAM (JP): Arriving in cold and grim Holland on March 21, 1951, they never imagined they would have to remain so far from their homeland. Yet their future was a fait accompli, creating a minority abroad that is still dealing with the consequences three generations later.

The story of the South Maluku communities in the Netherlands is a painful one -- the result of colonial divide and rule strategies that turned thousands of former loyal soldiers and their families into a disillusioned and sometimes troublesome ethnic group. Thousands were left stranded in the land of their former masters, yearning for their homeland.

On March 21 these dispossessed people commemorated the 50th anniversary of the arrival in Rotterdam harbor of the first group aboard the Kota Inten. It was an emotional event, with festivities and discussions on the future of the new generation tinged with nostalgic sadness.

Essentially their fate had been decided when the Dutch finally recognized the Indonesian republic (then RIS, the United States of Indonesia) at the Round Table Conference on Dec. 27, 1949. As a result, the Dutch colonial army (KNIL) was dissolved in July 1950.

As the Indonesian troops blockaded Ambon and crushed the Dutch-supported Republic of South Maluku (RMS), the Dutch decided in February 1951 to transport their Maluku soldiers left in Java for a "temporary stay" in the Netherlands. It was clearly assumed that one day they would return home, to a "free Ambon" under RMS. Some 12,500 soldiers and their families went with 14 ships from Surabaya and Semarang.

Tragically, these soldiers and their families only learnt of the decision to dismiss them from the Dutch army -- made in February -- when they arrived in Rotterdam in March.

This was "a false start", as the Maluku historian Wim Manuhutu described it. In a single stroke their military pride was dashed, their lives changed dramatically and their political ideals frustrated. "We left Semarang with mixed feelings, and (once) in Holland I remember my father continued to feel deeply disappointed for years," said Chris Manuputy, then 17 years old.

It was this shock, disillusionment, humiliation and confusion that led to tensions in their early years abroad. Clashes in 1952 between Ambonese and groups of Southeast Maluku people from Kei and Tanimbar, and between Christians and Muslims, led to a few thousand Muslims being excluded from the majority. Many of those excluded later chose Indonesian citizenship and returned home.

As post-war Holland was unable to properly accommodate the former soldiers, they had to live in camps -- including one former Nazi concentration camp -- only moving to segregated housing areas a decade later. Even today about half of the Dutch- Malukus -- now totaling about 45,000 -- are still segregated, resulting in a strong emphasis on Maluku identity and pride. This has been the response of what one Ambonese writer aptly calls the "transplanted community".

As the relationship between the Netherlands and Indonesia improved steadily after the mid-1960s, the Dutch-Malukus saw their ideal of RMS slipping even further away. Yet "we should keep (it) alive for the sake of Maluku and the future generations", the late RMS President J. Manusama told this writer in 1989.

Indeed, the 1970s saw a growing radicalization of Maluku youth. The Dutch authorities were taken by surprise by violent actions including the occupation of the Indonesian consulate in Amsterdam, an attack on the residence of the Indonesian Ambassador in Wassenaar, the hijacking of a train, the occupation of a school, and a failed attempt to kidnap Queen Juliana.

These actions actually led to some sympathy and a better understanding of the Dutch-Malukus' plight among sections of Dutch society. Indonesian authorities also began to be interested, as the ex military intelligence (Bakin) chief Gen. Soetopo Juwono became RI Ambassador and reportedly attempted to infiltrate their communities.

For the Dutch government, too, the violence of 1970s was a wake-up call. It was not until this time that The Hague started "a coordinated policy of permanent integration", the Minister for Urban Affairs and Integration, Rogier van Boxtel, acknowledged last week. "The Dutch society should become a pluriform society or else, nothing," he insisted.

The Netherlands has been home for migrants, refugees and asylum seekers for centuries. Yet 50 years on, the integration of Dutch-Malukus -- one of the country's smallest but toughest minorities -- proved to be difficult.

"I'm a military man (Beta orang militer") was the standard reply of the former soldiers, who refused to be re-educated. The second generation, by contrast, has been successful in terms of education and local adaptation, but failed to sustain it to the next.

Now, as 85 percent of Maluku teenagers have gained access only at the lowest level of high school, the third generation, despite its very low unemployment level of 4 percent, does not seem to offer better prospects.

"The integration process has stagnated," sociologist Justus Veenman concludes.

In political terms, though, the Dutch-Malukus have become increasingly pluralistic. It is a myth to view them simply as an "RMS hotbed". With RMS and its ideal having long died down in the Malukus, the movement in the Netherlands has become a living dinosaur and its activities increasingly look like a political ritual.

Yet RMS has not died. Many still support the idea, but it is neither universally popular nor actively supported by most Maluku expatriates. No longer would RMS leaders claim to be the pioneers for the people in Maluku as they had maintained in the past. The gravity, some RMS leaders have privately said, has shifted from the Netherlands to Maluku.

In other words, they have finally come to realize, however lately, that whatever the future of Maluku, it is a matter for those Malukus living in Maluku.

The change ironically came as the civil war broke out in 1999 and worsened in Ambon and North Maluku. The priority is peace, not RMS, is the consensus in the Netherlands. But the anger was still great and it is widely feared that some Maluku radical youth would lose patience.

Public meetings, fundraising and an exchange between public figures and representatives of mosques, churches and NGOs in Indonesia have been intensified to help promote peace and reconciliation in the Malukus.

In an unprecedented gesture to show Dutch concern and sympathy, Queen Beatrice chose a background of Maluku music when she delivered her Christmas message last year.

Meanwhile, the Maluku communities remain distinct from war- crime victims. Unlike the Dutch-Jews and the Dutch-Indies (Indonesians of Dutch-Indonesian mixed blood), who have been successfully integrated, fully honored and have gained huge financial compensation for their loss, the Dutch-Malukus were neither integrated nor materially compensated.

As a token of respect, though, the Dutch government has promised to start an official historiography of its most loyal soldiers and their innocent children, whose painful experiences have not been fully grasped -- let alone appreciated.

The writer is a journalist based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.