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.