Ruslan calls Dutch book 'slanderous'

JAKARTA (JP): Former foreign minister Ruslan Abdulgani has denounced two Dutch historians as slanderous for accusing him in a book of passing on vital information to the Dutch government during the Indonesian diplomatic and military campaigns to win Irian Jaya from the Netherlands in the 1950s.

"This is character assassination. The book is trash... the story is an extraordinary lie," Ruslan told The Jakarta Post by phone on Saturday.

Ruslan said he had not read Villa Maarheeze. De Geschiedenis van de Inlichtingendienst Buitenland (Villa Maarheeze. The History of the Netherlands Foreign Intelligence Service) written by Dr. Bob de Graaff and Dr. Cees Wiebes, but was aware of the content when Dutch journalists called him last week to comment on the book, which was launched in Amsterdam on Friday.

"The authors never wrote to me or contacted me. I don't know them," said Ruslan, who was foreign minister in 1956-1957.

He said he had met with Dutch foreign minister Joseph Luns during the Suez Canal conference in London. "He refused to shake hands with me. He was very anti-Indonesian and anti-Sukarno."

He said the sinking of the Indonesian submarine in the Arafura sea was not caused by a leak of information but because the Indonesian vessel was smaller than those the Dutch had.

Ruslan said the only occasion when he was approached by the Netherlands was in 1948 when he was arrested in Yogyakarta by the Dutch colonial government. The officer became very upset "after I bluntly rejected his offer," he said.

Ruslan said he never visited the Netherlands while serving as foreign minister. "I frequently visited the country after West Irian fell into our hands, because I had a lot of friends there." (prb)