No images? Click here Dutch says sorry to Indonesia for war crimes : what we can learn from this amid Ukraine's impending warAs people globally are on the edge of their seats to see whether we are going to have another world war with Russia's invasion to Ukraine, Indonesia has received an apology from the Dutch government for war crimes it committed during its occupancy in Indonesia in the mid-1940s. The apology is based on recent findings by a team of Indonesian and Dutch researchers funded by the Dutch government. However, our latest article discusses that there is nothing new about the findings, as atrocities committed have become public knowledge, at least among Dutch soldiers. This is not for the first time, the Dutch government apologised to Indonesia for all atrocities during wartime. No official response from Indonesia yet. The world's largest democracy seems to think that the apology is not a big thing. It seems the country doesn't want to be trapped in the past and prefer to move forward. In 2020, President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo only smiled and nodded when Dutch King Willem-Alexander apologised for Dutch solders' “excessive violence” during Indonesia's four-year revolution. The Indonesia-Dutch relationship post-war remind us how wars bring not only destruction and despair but also a legacy of conflict long after.
Dutch government apologises to Indonesia for war abuses, but knowledge of atrocities is nothing newDutch soldiers’ own records – especially amateur photographs, many thousands of which survive – have long contained evidence they knew of atrocities.
Bersiap: a shared history of mass violence that haunts Indonesia and the NetherlandsTo understand the politics of "Bersiap", we must refrain from the dichotomous framing of Netherlands/Indonesia as us/them that has plagued years of public debate on the two countries' colonial past. Ukraine stories from other editions |