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View all search resultsDutch PM recognizes 1945 as Indonesiaʼs independence
“We fully acknowledge the 17th of August without reservations. [...] We see the [1945] proclamation as a historical fact,” said Rutte, as quoted by several Dutch media.
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T
he Netherlands has finally recognized Aug. 17, 1945 as Indonesia’s official independence day, though still insisting that the legal transfer of sovereignty took place some four years later on Dec. 27, 1949, and that the recognition will not change any preexisting legal conditions.
In a parliamentary meeting on Wednesday in The Hague, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said that Amsterdam has “completely and unconditionally” acknowledged 1945 as the year marking Jakarta’s independence, the first admission of its kind after 78 years, adding that he would soon consult with President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo to mull on a shared understanding on the past event.
“We fully acknowledge the 17th of August without reservations. [...] We see the [1945] proclamation as a historical fact,” said Rutte, as quoted by several Dutch media.
Rutte’s recognition came as the latest development in the Netherlands’ continued attempt to grapple with its colonialist history, an endeavor that resulted in an independent investigation published early last year on the decolonization of Indonesia for the period of 1945 to 1950. Shortly after the investigation, Rutte offered Jakarta an apology for the “extreme violence” of mass detentions, torture and executions carried out by the Dutch military within the studied period.
On Wednesday, the Dutch parliament came together to debate the investigation’s results, with most of its members supporting it and some going as far as suggesting the return of the 4.5 billion guilders Indonesia paid to the Dutch government in the 1950s, which in today’s currency would amount to 25 billion guilders (US$13.9 billion).
At the 1949 Hague Agreement, the Netherlands sought from Indonesia 6.5 billion guilders in debt settlement for their losses during the four-year war, which was finally settled to 4.5 billion and paid in batches since the mid-1950s.
Yet, seemingly dismissing some of the parliamentarians’ more progressive suggestions, Rutte insisted that his statement would not "change any existing legal grounds." After his statement, one of his spokespersons told Dutch media that the Netherlands would still take 1949 as the year marking the official transfer of sovereignty “after a bloody war,” and that they could not “reverse that [fact].”
