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War crime study: Cover-up or opening up the past?
After all, the Indonesian war of independence was also part of Dutch history.
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Shelves with scientific journals in them. (Shutterstock/-)
O
n Aug. 1 the alumni of the National Resilience Institute (Ikatan Keluarga Alumni Lemhannas) convened a seminar on the legitimacy of a Dutch research project on the Indonesian independence war of 1945-1950.
In a statement the conveners said they fear the Dutch government supports this research project to cover up Dutch war crimes during the Indonesian war of independence and that it seems that cooperation with Indonesian historians from Gadjah Mada University (UGM), Yogyakarta, is used to legitimize this effort.
This would be a serious misrepresentation of the research project and would also harm the integrity of our Indonesian colleagues in an unjustified manner.
In 2016, the Dutch government decided to finance an extensive and independent research on Dutch military violence during the Indonesian war of independence and asked three Dutch research institutions — KITLV Royal Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies, The NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies and The Netherlands Institute of Military History (NIMH) — to design a research proposal. The proposal submitted by the three institutes was subsequently honored. Before that decision was made Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte had consulted President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo who stated he had no objection to such a research.
