DutchNews, August 17, 2015
Dutch
prime minister Mark Rutte said on Saturday he regrets the fact that Indonesian
victims of the Japanese invasion during World War II feel misunderstood, but
stopped short of apologising.
‘The Indonesian people still feel misunderstood
because of a lack of understanding by others for the horrors of the war in
Asia. I regret that,’ he said during the annual remembrance ceremony in The
Hague on Saturday.
‘Seventy years after the Japanese capitulation we are more
than ever conscious that this period of our history demands continuing
attention and an active remembrance,’ Rutte said.
‘Let us ensure that the lack
of understanding and the grief of the victims is slowly removed.’
Independence
Immediately after the capitulation in what was then Dutch India, the local
population called for independence which the Dutch were not prepared to grant.
The result was a war between Dutch soldiers and the Indonesians which lasted
from 1945 to 1950.
The organisers of Saturday’s ceremony told the NRC: ‘The
period following the end of World War II was a chaotic and violent time, during
which many people were unable to leave the Japanese prison camps and thousands
more were interned.’
On Friday Rutte told broadcaster Nos that ‘it has taken a
long time for the Dutch and Indonesians to recognise that what happened during
that period was horrific’.
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