DutchNews, December 2, 2016
The Dutch government has agreed to finance a major investigation into the
structural use of violence during the end of Dutch rule in its former colonies
in Indonesia.
Ministers agreed on Friday to fund the project after new research
indicated that extreme violence, including torture and executions, were normal
during the colonial wars, which ran from 1945 to 1949.
In a statement, the
cabinet said it realises that the research could ‘cause pain to soldiers who
served in Indonesia’.
However, it is important that the research takes into
account the ‘difficult circumstances most veterans operated in, the violence on
the Indonesia side…. and the responsibilities of the political, administrative
and military leadership.’
During the battle for independence, some 100,000
Indonesians and almost 5,000 Dutch nationals died. According to the Telegraaf,
the ruling VVD only agreed to back the research if violence by both the Dutch
and the Indonesians came under the spotlight.
Report
‘Dutch soldiers left a
trail of burning kampongs and piles of bodies throughout the Indonesian
archipelago,’ Swiss-Dutch historian Rémy Limpach said in his report, which was
published in September.
Until now, the official line had been that there were
only isolated incidents of excessive violence.
‘The Netherlands has always had
difficulty with this dark side of its own history,’ Socialist MP Harry van
Bommel told the Volkskrant on Friday. ‘But I think this research is the start
of a road towards recognition. It is primarily about political responsibility.’
Bloody struggle
The Dutch military interventions in Indonesia, or Dutch Indies
as it was known then, followed the proclamation of the independent Republic of
Indonesia in 1945 and lasted until the country formally gained independence in
1949 after a bloody struggle.
At the end of 2011, the Netherlands finally
formally apologised for the massacre of hundreds of men and boys in the
Javanese village of Rawagede in 1947.
The Netherlands has also been ordered in
court to pay compensation in connection with a bloodbath in southern Sulawesi.
The research will be carried out by three Dutch institutes who submitted a
specific research proposal in 2012, but failed to secure funding, the Telegraaf
said.
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