Visa for Princen's return sparks uproar
Visa for Princen's return sparks uproar
THE HAGUE (Reuter): A plan to allow a Dutch army deserter to
return to the Netherlands from Indonesia for a family Christmas
sparked a political row on Wednesday and war veterans have
threatened to kill him.
Johannes ("Poncke") Princen, a conscript who deserted in 1948
to join Indonesian independence fighters against the Dutch army,
won his first official permission on Tuesday to enter the country
when the foreign ministry granted him a visa.
Princen, who is seriously ill, is due to arrive on Friday for
a three-week stay with his brother in Amsterdam. He was slated to
leave Jakarta last night.
Some veterans still angered by his betrayal nearly 50 years
ago have threatened to kill him if he sets foot on Dutch soil,
Foreign Minister Hans van Mierlo said.
In the war against Indonesia, Princen stole weapons from the
Dutch and his former Dutch comrades say he also fought against
them. He has since become an Indonesian citizen and prominent
human rights activist in the former Dutch colony.
"He says 'I'm the one who was right, you're the ones who were
wrong (in the war).' Let him stay where he is," Lt. Gen. Ted
Meines, president of the Veteran Platform of 150,000 Dutch war
veterans, told Dutch television.
Princen, now 69, partly paralyzed and suffering from skin
cancer, was given the visa on condition he would avoid opening
old wounds by making political or sensitive comments.
The Dutch sent 120,000 conscripts to Indonesia soon after
World War II. They fought a guerrilla war in Vietnam-like
conditions, torching villages, torturing and executing citizens.
The political row erupted after Princen was quoted as saying
the visa indicated "a kind of understanding" by the Dutch of his
motivation to desert. This prompted the right-leaning liberal
party to table a motion in parliament to withdraw the visa.
A scheduled parliamentary vote was derailed on Wednesday by a
bomb hoax. But when parliament resumed and a majority said they
would oppose the visa, Van Mierlo exercised a Dutch ministerial
right to overrule them.
Princen was last in the Netherlands in 1984 -- without
official Dutch permission. His three previous visa applications
have failed under pressure from the veterans' lobby.
He earlier said in Jakarta that he wanted to see his children
and grand children in the Netherlands and promised to keep a low
profile, including not talking to the press, while in the
Netherlands.