Netherlands troubled by own dark colonial past

Netherlands troubled by own dark colonial past

AMSTERDAM (Reuter): The Netherlands, often quick to find fault with other countries' conduct, is currently preoccupied with a dark episode from its own colonial past.

Chechnya and Bosnia have had to take a back seat as media commentators focus instead on the ruthless Dutch campaign to stamp out Indonesia's drive for independence 50 years ago.

The Dutch mobilized 150,000 soldiers to try to reimpose their rule over Indonesia after World War II when the sprawling Asian archipelago was occupied by Japan.

Villages were torched and nationalists were tortured and executed before the Dutch finally withdrew from the region in 1949, due in part to pressure from the United States.

The bloody colonial war claimed 100,000 Indonesian lives and 6,000 on the Dutch side.

Some of the worst atrocities were later acknowledged and condemned by parliament but there has never been a public expression of regret about the war as a whole.

Now, as the 50th anniversary of Indonesia's declaration of independence approaches, there are calls for a cathartic national debate to ease the country's troubled conscience.

In a press interview Development Aid Minister Jan Pronk said the time had come for the Netherlands to admit it had been wrong and had systematically violated human rights.

"We used violence against a state which had declared its independence. We did not have that right," he said.

But Prime Minister Wim Kok has said he sees no need for the present government to apologize for the events of 50 years ago.

"I don't feel compelled to say retrospectively that the government of 1945, of 50 years ago, acted wrongly," he said.

Kok said it was right to reflect on what had happened and to see what lessons could be learned. But he said it would be wrong to judge the past on the basis of present knowledge and insight.

Newspaper columnists argue similarly that the sad irony of the Netherlands trying to restore colonial rule over Indonesia so soon after its own liberation from German occupation would not have been as obvious to the Dutch people then as it is now.

Dutch veterans of the fighting, mostly young conscripts at the time, have felt anger, guilt and betrayal as public opinion shifted towards condemnation of the war.

Many of them were shocked when Pronk said that Dutch soldiers who deserted had been right to do so.

Emotions

Veterans' emotions were already running high after the government allowed a deserter who fought on the Indonesian side to visit relatives in the Netherlands at Christmas.

Hundreds of them turned out to protest in the northern city of Leuwaarden this month where a writer was standing trial for slander after saying that Dutch atrocities in Indonesia could be compared to those of Hitler's S.S. in occupied Europe.

"All wars are dirty. The Allies bombed Bremen but does that make the Americans and the English criminals? Of course not. They were our liberators," one veteran told reporters.

Across the street a much younger group of demonstrators chanted and waved banners bearing slogans such as "No respect for killers" and "Indonesia: Our Vietnam".

The recent wave of Dutch soul-searching has puzzled Indonesian diplomats in this country who are more accustomed to hearing Dutch criticism of Indonesia's human rights record.

Ambassador Johannes Soedarmanto said his government did not expect an apology from the Netherlands.

"Why should we rake up the past? Let's forgive and forget and begin with a clean sheet," he told Dutch television.

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