Hindsight: 20/60
THE NETHERLANDS
The Netherlands formally apologized to Indonesia on Thursday for war crimes committed by the Dutch army against its former colony during the latter’s independence war, Agence France-Presse reported.
The apology followed a four-year study by Dutch and Indonesian researchers which found that Dutch forces burned villages and carried out mass detentions, torture and executions during the 1945-49 war, often with tacit aid from the Dutch government.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said he was sorry for the “systematic and extreme violence” by the country’s armed forces and for the “subsequent blind eye by various previous Dutch governments.”
The study shatters the long-held belief about the conduct of the Dutch army during the conflict: While officials have acknowledged isolated incidents of excessive violence, the mainstream view was that Dutch forces behaved themselves.
This is not the first time the Netherlands has apologized to Indonesia.
In 2020, Dutch King Willem-Alexander formally apologized during a visit to the country for “excessive violence” during the conflict.
The Netherlands had held Indonesia for more than 300 years: After the end of the Second World War, the Southeast Asian nation declared independence from the Netherlands. But the Dutch government wanted to retain power over the colony and sent troops to quell the independence uprising before withdrawing in 1949.
In 2015, a Dutch court ruled that the government must compensate the widows and children of Indonesian fighters killed by colonial troops.
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