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Dutch apology to Indonesia – Return to sender, with a thank you note
The study may have opened a Pandora's box that could unravel the entire Dutch colonial history, and not just that specific period in the 1940s.
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All smiles: President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo (right) meets with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte (left) on the sidelines of a G20 meeting in Hamburg, Germany on July 8, 2017. (Courtesy of the Foreign Ministry/File)
I
ndonesia should accept the Netherlands' apology, offered by Prime Minister Mark Rutte on Thursday, for the atrocities its forces committed against our people during the war for independence in the late 1940s, although in earnest, we never asked for one.
In fact, if anyone deserves an apology, it is the Dutch people, who have been lied to and deceived by their government and historians all this time. The official line, and the prevailing view until now, has been that the Dutch were the victims of the violence.
The apology came following the completion of a five-year study, commissioned by the Dutch government, for historians to look into the violence in Indonesia between 1945 and 1949 as the Dutch tried to regain control over its former colony after WWII.
The study found that Dutch forces used “excessive violence” against the people of Indonesia and that this had been condoned by the Dutch government and society at the time. This is a bold conclusion given the prevailing public view in the Netherlands.
"We have to accept the shameful facts … I make my deep apologies to the people of Indonesia today on behalf of the Dutch government," Rutte said in a press conference.
There was no qualifier “but” in his statement that we often hear from politicians when expressing remorse. Nothing in his statement refers to the violence committed by Indonesia against Dutch citizens and other minorities, a factor that the Dutch government had insisted the researchers look into in order to appease the domestic public.
This is a sincere apology, and Indonesia must gracefully accept it.
