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Ruling puts Dutch in spotlight over past crimes
The Committee of Dutch Debts of Honor (KUKB) has lauded the ruling by an appeals court in The Hague that lifted the statute of limitations on alleged executions by Dutch forces during the Indonesian struggle for independence
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span>The Committee of Dutch Debts of Honor (KUKB) has lauded the ruling by an appeals court in The Hague that lifted the statute of limitations on alleged executions by Dutch forces during the Indonesian struggle for independence.
The ruling, which was handed down in a case brought by five Indonesians who hold the Netherlands responsible for the execution of their fathers by Dutch soldiers in South Sulawesi in 1947, came just days before Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte visits Indonesia next Monday.
The KUKB, a foundation that assists victims and survivors in filing lawsuits against the Netherlands for war crimes committed by its army in Indonesia, said it hoped to attract the attention of Rutte and have him admit that the Dutch were responsible for military aggression between 1945 and 1949.
"The Netherlands government needs to pay attention to such cases. There are many Indonesians demanding justice for Dutch crimes," KUKB chairman Jeffry Pondaag told The Jakarta Post earlier this week.
Dutch Ambassador to Indonesia Lambert Grijns said on Twitter that Rutte’s planned one-day visit to Indonesia, during which he is expected to meet President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, aims to “reaffirm the strong bilateral relations with Indonesia”.
The embassy, however, told the Post that it had no comment yet on the ruling and whether or not it would be discussed by Rutte in his visit.
Reuters reported the Dutch state claimed that acts in its former colony happened too long ago for it to be held responsible. But the appeals court rejected on Tuesday that argument, citing the exceptional level of violence and the extent to which the Dutch state was culpable.
The case will now return to the district court where the five Indonesians are suing the Netherlands for compensation.
Dutch courts have granted compensation to widows of victims in several such cases in the past, for instance, in cases related to the Rawagede massacre in West Java and the Westerling killings in South Sulawesi, where the Netherlands was held accountable for war crimes. The Dutch government has apologized for the two atrocities.
But it was harder for the children of victims to make a case because "the Netherlands has always held that there is a difference between widows and children of executed men and also between executions, torture and rape," said Amsterdam-based lawyer Liesbeth Zegveld, who is representing the five unnamed claimants.
"These distinctions have [now] been discarded by the [appeals] court," she said. "I hope that after this ruling a similar [compensation] arrangement will be made for children of the executed."
The ruling could set a precedent for other similar pending cases regarding allegations of atrocities by the Dutch military during the Indonesian independence war between 1945 and 1949.
"Between 10 and 20 cases are currently pending. One case is still pending on appeal, concerning a multiple rape," the lawyer said.
Tuesday’s ruling suggested that the plaintiffs might have a lower burden of proof given that Dutch authorities were largely to blame for allowing the alleged summary executions to go unrecorded, making it harder to prove.
"Interestingly, the appeals court states that the Dutch government has failed to register any details about its actions: dates, locations of executions and other crimes, names of the victims etc.," Zegveld said. "For that reason, the court finds that the state cannot blankly deny what has happened. It has to come up with a better defense."
"This will help other cases, a lower threshold of evidence will apply," she said.
Various media outlets reported that a spokesman for Dutch Defense Ministry said the ministry was studying the appellate ruling before deciding on its next steps. The government could appeal again to higher courts.
On Tuesday, the appeals court in The Hague ruled in another case involving an Indonesian man, named Yaseman, who was tortured by the Dutch during his 13 months in captivity in Malang, East Java, in 1947. It upheld an earlier verdict by a district court in July 2018 that Yaseman was entitled to 5,000 euro (US$5,481) in compensation.
Yaseman testified before a district court in The Hague through Skype in July 2017, saying that he was beaten with a stick and his head was singed with a cigarette while in detention and during questioning by the Dutch army when he was 18 years old over suspicions of being an Indonesian independence fighter. Yaseman did not get a chance to hear the district court ruling as he died shortly after giving his testimony. He was 89.
