- According to a comprehensive study, the Dutch army also used structural violence against the civilian population during Indonesia’s war of independence (1945-1949).
- War crimes in what was then the Dutch East Indies colony were tacitly tolerated by the political and military leadership.
- This is the result of the most comprehensive study to date on violence in the struggle for the large Southeast Asian country.
Prime Minister Mark Rutte spoke of “confrontational” results. “They are harsh but inevitable.” The government takes full responsibility for the “collective failure”. Rutte also apologized to Indonesia.
“Today, on behalf of the government, I sincerely apologize to the people of Indonesia for the systematic and widespread extreme violence on the part of the Netherlands in those years and for the consistent looking the other way by previous governments,” Rutte said in Brussels after a report by the Dutch TV station NOS.
An estimated 100,000 Indonesians killed
For decades, the government in The Hague claimed that there had only been isolated attacks and that the army had generally behaved correctly. The researchers are finding that this is no longer tenable. At all levels one was ready to ignore “the written and unwritten legal norms”.
In total, it is estimated that more than 100,000 Indonesians and around 5,000 Dutch soldiers were killed in the war. One of the leaders of the investigation, Gert Oostindie, spoke of a wide range of violence on Dutch radio that morning: “Torture, ill-treatment during interrogations, shooting of captured soldiers and civilians without trial, villages were set on fire”.
After almost 350 years of colonial rule, Indonesia declared its independence after the end of the Second World War. The Netherlands then sent troops to Southeast Asia. Reports of violence and massacres have been around for a long time. But it was not until 2017 that the government commissioned the scientific investigation.