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.