Holland gears up for Gus Dur's visit

Holland gears up for Gus Dur's visit

By Aboeprijadi Santoso

AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands (JP): President Abdurrahman Wahid
will be the first Indonesian head of state to be warmly welcomed
by the Dutch Queen and members of the government when he visits
The Netherlands next week. He is expected to be greeted with
sympathy by a wide spectrum of the society.

The Dutch official source, the Rijksvoorlichtingsdienst, has
announced that Queen Beatrice will receive the President upon his
arrival on Feb. 2 with a welcome ceremony at the Noordeinde
Palace in The Hague. Talks with Prime Minister Wim Kok will be
held the next day, at the prestigious Treves Hall. The Queen and
Prince Claus will then invite the guests for a lunch with cabinet
members, business circles and academics.

The Indonesian First Lady, Sinta Nuriyah, is expected to hold
discussions on social issues and women's affairs with Dutch non-
governmental organizations (NGOs), hosted by the Indonesian NGO,
AKUI (Humanitarian Action for Indonesia). President Wahid will
meet the press and visit the parliament before leaving for
Germany in the late afternoon.

"It will definitely be a new start for Dutch-Indonesia
relationship," says a long time Indonesia observer, N. Schulte-
Nordholt. "The fact that Gus Dur and his wife will stay at Huis
Ten Bosch Palace (the residence of the Queen) is extraordinary.
It indicates that Queen Beatrice personally wishes to very warmly
welcome her guests," he explains.

Abdurrahman, or Gus Dur, is only the second Indonesian
president ever to visit the Netherlands; President Soeharto's
state visit in 1970 was the first. (The Soehartos also stayed at
Huis Ten Bosch Palace, but Queen Juliana's residence was
elsewhere -- indicating different consideration).

Dutch media have speculated that the late President Sukarno
actually harbored a deep wish to see Holland, but it never
materialized. Meanwhile, there is a new, sobering attitude to
view Sukarno, who was resented by many of the older Dutch
generation, in a different perspective.

For example, on the eve of Queen Beatrice's state visit to
Indonesia in 1995, Minister Jan Pronk had publicly expressed his
admiration for Sukarno and proposed his government officially
recognize Aug. 17, 1945 as Indonesia's Independence Day instead
of Dec. 27, 1949.

One historian, L. Giebels, will soon publish a two part
biography on Sukarno -- the first book on Sukarno ever written by
a Dutch writer.

More recently, young Dutch filmmakers have produced a film,
Sukarno's Blues, which portrays President Sukarno and Queen
Juliana, the present Queen Mother, as two amicable friends, who
stood on equal terms, respected, and admired each other, when
they secretly met in Amsterdam in 1949. The two watched a theater
performance, that told the story of Indonesia's struggle for
freedom. Although Sukarno has the prominent role, he is portrayed
on the same par with Mohammad Hatta and Syahrir, who used to be
more acceptable to the Dutch.

The Sukarno-Juliana rendezvous, of course, never happened, but
the film -- and the fiction -- illustrates the changing attitude
here.

Soeharto's image is a very different story. The security
arrangement at Gus Dur's coming visit will likely be normal for a
visiting head of state. This is in stark contrast to Gen.
Soeharto's state visit in Sept. 1970, which, this writer recalls,
turned parts of The Hague into war zones, and forced the
President to shorten his four day visit.

That was during the period that Europe was engulfed by
protests against the Vietnam war and military dictators.
Demonstrations were held to remind the public of the persecution
of the left in Indonesia in the mid-1960s.

Indeed, of the three former Indonesian presidents, Soeharto
left the worst image of Indonesia in Europe.

President B.J.Habibie's rule was too short to ever visit
Europe as a head of state. While Soeharto is associated with
massacres and the reopening of Indonesia for Dutch economic
interests, and Habibie is remembered as a funny President with a
strange appearance, Gus Dur's image and connection with Holland,
is very different.

Like Sukarno and Habibie, Gus Dur knows the geography and the
language, but unlike all his three predecessors, he has a first
hand knowledge of life at the grass roots level in Holland and
has extensive contacts there.

While Soeharto's New Order was being criticized in Europe in
the 1970s, Gus Dur, a student from Baghdad, often visited
Holland. He stayed illegally in The Hague and worked seasonally
at Rotterdam harbor and at tulip plants near Waalwijk.

With friends, he founded PPME (Muslim Youth Association in
Europe), which now has become the biggest Indonesian Muslim
organization in Europe. His contacts with Maluku people dated
from those days.

Since the 1980s, Gus Dur, as Nahdatul Ulama leader, expanded
his networks in Europe among international human rights
activists, politicians and scientists. His witty political
analyses on the situation at home and his easy going demeanor
made him a welcome guest among activists in Holland.

"I bet, and I hope, Gus Dur will be the next President," said
Martha Meijer, the former chairwoman of Amnesty International a
few months ago.

Gus Dur, in other words, built his Holland networks from the
bottom upward.

The Dutch government, while keeping its profile low during
Habibie's period, was ready to meet Gus Dur even before he was
elected President. Early September, he was respectfully received
by Vice Premier A. Jorritsma, but failed to meet with Foreign
Minister J. van Aartsen and Minister for Development Cooperation,
E. Herfkens.

Dutch media accused the department staff of not knowing what
to do with a visiting Muslim cleric. "Next time, I will come here
as President," Gus Dur whispered to his Dutch friends.

Ironically, it was E. Herfkens, having been provoked by media
criticism, who initiated a new relationship with Indonesia. Her
delighted response after meeting with President Wahid's new
government in November, signaled a revival of aid to Indonesia.
This program was halted abruptly in 1992 when President Soeharto
responded angrily to Jan Pronk's (Herfkens' predecessor) protest
against the Dili massacre.

Economic relations will be discussed more extensively when the
Dutch Minister for Economic Affairs A. Jorritsma visits Jakarta
next month.

In his enthusiasm, Foreign Minister van Aartsen has proposed
the European Union prepare a program to actively support
Indonesia's democracy. Opposition parties, however, have added
that they would like to see the arms embargo to Indonesia
revived.

Gus Dur, whose remark "Holland is my second home" has been
widely published here, will need to expand on his idea of
proposing his friend, former Dutch Prime Minister, R. Lubbers, to
help solve the Maluku conflict.

Sources say that the Dutch statesman is not expected to
reconcile the warring groups, but to advise on Indonesian affairs
and to help reconstruct Maluku in the long term.

Gus Dur's position toward the Dutch-Maluku people (including
some "RMS" i.e. South Maluku separatist leaders) helping their
homeland, is highly appreciated here. While it is only a matter
of humanitarian aid, it has helped them become more aware of the
difficult problems in their homeland. This appreciation has led
them to prefer autonomy rather than dreaming of independence.

Gus Dur's image as a liberal and tolerant Muslim leader of the
largest Muslim organization in the world, the Nahdlatul Ulama, is
of great importance here. The fact that the Dutch Queen and the
government are eager to welcome Indonesia's new democracy and its
first democratically elected President, makes Gus Dur's visit
symbolically significant.

President Wahid's state visit will, in any case, mark a new
chapter in the sometimes uneasy relationship between Indonesia
and its former colonial master.

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