Unending accusations

Time and again Chichi Marti has written letters to The Jakarta Post with false accusations about the Dutch, Aboeprijadi Santoso and me. And time and again we have proven him wrong. But what is most striking is that most of these accusations are more like reflections of Chichi Marti's writings. He accuses the Post of misrepresenting the Indonesian side of colonial history but cannot objectively discuss the topic. He readily declares that all Dutch are evil Nazis in a similar way to which the latter campaigned against Jews and gypsies.

He accuses me of cowardly blaming others and being misleading, yet he blames the Dutch for many present problems in a misleading way. And in his last letter (April 14, 2000) he accuses Aboeprijadi Santoso of mixing up words like "occupation", "colonization" and "colonialism". The emptiness of Chichi Marti's last accusation becomes clear when, as with his earlier accusations, just a few lines earlier he makes the same mistake by stating that Dutch colonialism was almost identical to the Nazi occupation.

Chichi Marti not only readily accuses others of his own flaws; he also displays a notorious lack of historical knowledge of the Nazis! The Nazis considered their Aryan race superior over others and systematically attempted to kill non-Aryans, intellectuals and anybody who would denounce them. History has proven that this is not what the Dutch had in mind during their colonial days; we certainly didn't have a final solution for the Javanese problem. So obviously history is not as simple as Chichi Marti would like us to believe.

In case your hard evidence is too long for the Post, you can contact me at daskolbel@yahoo.com.

BART W. VAN ASSEN

Bogor, Indonesia

Note: With this letter we close the debate on Dutch colonization in the past.

-- Editor