Indonesia-Netherlands relations revisited
Indonesia-Netherlands relations revisited
A debate is now raging in the Netherlands over Queen Beatrix's planned visit to Indonesia in August this year. Noted political scientist Dewi Fortuna Anwar argues that the debate is a wholly internal Dutch matter and that Indonesians attitude towards the colonial period, 50 years after independence, is one of letting bygones be bygones.
JAKARTA (JP): Relations between Indonesia and the Netherlands are again the subject of public discussion. In fact in the Netherlands the issue is a cause for heated debate. The controversy revolves around Dutch actions towards Indonesia some fifty years ago. As we know, the Netherlands refused to recognize Indonesia's declaration of independence on Aug. 17, 1945, and launched a police action to recover the colony which it had lost to the Japanese in 1942. The Dutch finally conceded defeat and transferred sovereignty to Indonesia only in December 1949, after encountering fierce and determined nationalist resistance and international pressure. Today there is a major controversy in the Netherlands over whether the Dutch government should now apologize to the Indonesian people for what the former did five decades ago.
Although the two countries have developed diplomatic ties as two sovereign states, relations between Jakarta and The Hague seem to be unable to entirely escape their shared past. The struggle to liberate West Irian continued to sour Indonesian- Dutch relations until 1963. Cordial and close relations only began to develop after the advent of the New Order in 1966, particularly after the founding of the Inter-Governmental Group on Indonesia (IGGI) in 1967, a consortium of aid donor countries and institutions which was headed by the Netherlands.
But Jakarta eventually came to view the IGGI, which brought Indonesia and the Netherlands closer together for 25 years, as detrimental to bilateral relations. The Indonesian government and the political public felt that Jan Pronk, the chairman of the IGGI, all too often used his position to intervene in Indonesian domestic politics. The issue came to a head after the Dili incident in November 1991 and in early 1992 President Soeharto unilaterally dissolved the IGGI. The IGGI was soon replaced by the Consultative Group on Indonesia (CGI) which does not include the Netherlands.
Problems
The IGGI incident shows very clearly the problems in Indonesian-Dutch relations. The Netherlands, or at least some of its officials, apparently continues to feel that it has some claims on and responsibility towards Indonesia. While the Dutch are undoubtedly very concerned about human rights generally, there was a perception here that Pronk's criticisms smacked more of paternalism and a desire to chastise the former Dutch colony. Indonesia, for its part, tends to be extremely sensitive about any criticisms coming from its former colonial master. The same criticisms leveled by the United States or Great Britain would not have aroused the same kind of anger in Jakarta. The fact that the Dutch contribution to the IGGI was relatively insignificant was of course another factor in Indonesia's decision to dissolve the organization and form the CGI without Dutch membership.
At the same time, the IGGI incident shows the growing maturity in Indonesian-Dutch relations, at least on the Indonesian side. After dissolving the IGGI the Indonesian government ensured that its overall bilateral ties with the Netherlands were not affected. Indonesia recognizes that the Netherlands can play a very important role in helping to promote Indonesia's interests in Europe. Indonesia seems to be keen on developing mutually beneficial ties with the Netherlands, based on rational and common interests, and unburdened by history.
Because of this increasing maturity, Indonesians' response to the brewing controversy in the Netherlands over whether the Dutch government should apologize to the Indonesian people, as argued by none other than Pronk, has been muted. Many Indonesians feel that the Netherlands should apologize for its war atrocities against Indonesia, as was reflected in a recent popular radio talk show. However, the general feeling is that we should let bygones be bygones. Indonesia, after all, won its independence 50 years ago, and the revolutionary period of 1945-1949 is looked upon with great pride by Indonesians as a time when great deeds and achievements were accomplished by the generally untrained and uneducated Indonesian people. The revolution gave Indonesia's emergent nationalism a baptism by fire, and led to the development of a strong sense of national unity and self- confidence.
The debate taking place in the Netherlands is a purely internal matter of the Dutch people. It is a way for the Dutch to come to terms with their own history. Such debates are probably necessary to cauterize the wound that many Dutch people clearly still feel when talking about Indonesia. It is to be hoped that these exercises will help the Netherlands to begin a new era of close cooperation with Indonesia.
The writer is head of the Regional and International Affairs Division of the Center for Political and Regional Studies at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences.