Historical fact on East Indies

Historical fact on East Indies

In the face of the abundant evidence of his misdeeds there is
no doubt that by all standards Kapitein Raymond "De Turk"
Westerling must be considered a war criminal. And I do not know
why he was never charged with misconduct and court-martialed,
neither do I know why the Indonesian government has never
demanded his extradition. Let there be no doubt that Westerling
was sharply condemned by Dutch public opinion and that his
criminal actions were definitely strongly disapproved of.

Ms Nanny Djali's letter of Nov. 2, 1994 also brings me to
another subject. These days we hear a lot about "350 years of
colonial rule." The statement is only partially correct. Let me
explain.

The first Dutchmen landed on Java in 1596 and the Dutch East
Indies Company (VOC) started its activities in 1602 and ended its
existence in bankruptcy in 1799. This VOC was a private trading
company, not a national government, and as such was only
interested in its core activity: business. Therefore the VOC
opened trading posts in certain places selected for their
strategic situation and availability of tradable goods. Thus its
Administration was established in Batavia, Ambon and Ternate
(spices!) in the early 17th century. Additional trading posts
were set up in Padang (1667) and Menado (1679). However, outside
the aforementioned places enormous areas were not covered by the
VOC at all. Business was its interest, not territory. Example:
Ceram (a much bigger island than adjacent Ambon) was incorporated
into the Netherlands East Indies only in 1905.

It is only after the Kingdom of the Netherlands took over the
defunct VOC and after the British Interregnum in the early 19th
century that gradual incorporation of other towns and regions
took place. For example, if we look at Sumatra we see that
Palembang was incorporated in 1825, Bengkulu in 1824, Jambi in
1833, Bonjol in 1837, Lampung in 1855. It took 30 years of war to
subdue the Acehnese, so Aceh was placed under Dutch jurisdiction
only in 1904; on Borneo Pontianak in 1831, Banjarmasin in 1860.
Much of the colonization of the Netherlands East Indies took
place in the early 20th century (yes, in this century): Bali
1908, Lombok (a little earlier, 1894), Sumba, Sumbawa and West-
Timor 1907, Flores 1905. On Celebes: Tanah Toraja 1907, on
Borneo: Dayak country 1907, Nieuw Guinea (now Irian Jaya) in the
1920's!

In the 17th century the island of Java had no more than four
million inhabitants (mostly living in coastal areas) and was
covered with a dense tropical forest infested with tigers, black
panthers, snakes etc. Even at the time of Java War (1830) there
were only approximately 10 million people on Java (Holland had
three million). Large parts of the Indonesian Archipelago were
hardly populated at all, which is why the VOC (being a trading
company) had no particular interest in those parts. This
"emptiness" for a great deal explains the Dutch view of the East
Indies as "terra nova," not unlike the Americas, South Africa,
Australia and New Zealand (other products of European
colonialism). As late as 1890 the total population numbered only
30 million, now 190 million!

BERT DE KORT

Jakarta