Last Wednesday, the court in The Hague held the Dutch state liable for a massacre that Dutch soldiers inflicted in December 1947 in the Indonesian village of Rawagede. The period of decolonization is not a beautiful page in our history. What was going on in these years? Historian Joop de Jong comes to surprising conclusions after years of archival research.
On December 9, 1947, all hell broke loose in a farming village on the Indonesian island of Java. Several dozen Dutch soldiers under the command of Major Alphons Wijnen entered the village. They were looking for one of the leaders of the Tentara Nasional Indonesia , the Indonesian National Army that fought for the independence of the then Dutch colony. When, in the opinion of the soldiers, the local population did not cooperate enough, the soldiers forced the 431 men and boys of the village to line up, after which they were shot one by one.
Despite the United Nations denouncing the killing as "deliberate and ruthless", the commander responsible was never prosecuted. In September 2008, fifteen witnesses to this massacre still held the Dutch state liable and demanded an expression of regret and compensation.
It eventually took until September 14, 2011 for the court to issue a verdict. That judgment left nothing to be desired in terms of clarity:the Dutch state is liable. The argument that the case is now time-barred could not fully convince the court.
The incident in Rawagede took place during the First Police Action. These military operations can be seen as a Dutch display of power to quell Indonesian nationalism fueled during the Japanese occupation of the colony. On August 17, 1945, amid the power vacuum that arose after the Japanese capitulation in the Indies, Sukarno and Mohammed Hatta proclaimed the Republic of Indonesia.
Keeping control
For the first post-war Dutch governments it was of great importance to restore relations with the colonial empire. Initially, the importance of colonial trade for the reconstruction of the Dutch economy played an especially important role. “Indies lost, disaster born” was the slogan in the first years after the war.
The abrupt declaration of a de facto independent Republic was therefore unacceptable to the Dutch government. The role of Sukarno, who had collaborated with the Japanese occupier during the war, caused very bad blood in the Dutch cabinet.
However, the Dutch government soon realized that a complete restoration of the balance of power in the Dutch East Indies was unfeasible. That is why plans had already been made during the war for a new federal structure of the kingdom.
Indonesia should enter into a much more equal relationship with the Netherlands. Only in this way was it realistic to maintain some of the economic benefits of the old colonial empire for the Netherlands.
The Netherlands therefore strived for a new form of government with far-reaching sovereignty for Indonesia. The government would prefer that the coming years constitute a transitional period in which the transfer of sovereignty could take place step by step under Dutch management. But the Indonesians had tasted of independence. The revolutionary supporters of Soekarno and Hatta stirred.
Military Action
Many Indonesians wanted nothing to do with treaties with the Netherlands. Although Sukarno had signed the Treaty of Linggadjati, parts of the Indonesian people soon proved willing to take up arms to enforce immediate independence. The Netherlands threatened to lose control completely.
Under these circumstances, the first Beel cabinet decided in December 1946 to intervene militarily in Indonesia. The troops of the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army (KNIL) present in the Indies, supplemented by troops from the Royal Netherlands Army, started attacks on groups of Indonesian fighters.
Order had to be restored. Not because – as stated in the textbooks – the Netherlands did not want to relinquish its colonies, but because the country wanted to keep control of the transfer of sovereignty in its own hands. The cabinet called these "police actions", a carefully chosen term to suggest that the government was doing nothing but restoring legitimate authority.
Hopeless misery
Although the First Police Action was a militarily successful - economically important posts were recaptured - the action had done nothing to resolve the issue. The revolutionary Indonesian army proved to be a tenacious, guerilla-like adversary. Under pressure from the United Nations, a ceasefire was signed on August 5, 1947. The incident in Rawagede, almost six months later, shows that the hostilities did not stop in spite of this.
Rawagede has become a model for a Netherlands as an inveterate colonial power that was willing to do anything to maintain its empire.
Only after the Second Police Action in December 1948, after the intervention of the UN Security Council and the United States, the Netherlands would be forced to immediately transfer its sovereignty. Decolonization became a national trauma, an merciless international punishment. However, the question has now arisen as to whether this is indeed the case.
The book 'Avondschot' by historian Joop de Jong was recently published. De Jong has conducted extensive archival research into the history of decolonization and comes to remarkable conclusions in his book. During the years 1946-1948, important stakeholders, such as Lieutenant Governor General Hubertus van Mook, came to the conclusion that nationalism was deeply rooted among the Indonesians. According to Van Mook, it was impossible for the Netherlands to regain control through military action. Especially after the Second Police Action it became clear that the whole Indonesia story was a hopeless misery.
Take a break
According to De Jong, the Netherlands radically reversed its own policy in January 1949. Instead of aiming for an orderly transition period in which the Netherlands would be in charge, the government under Willem Drees opted to put the money in the line and immediately transfer sovereignty.
This brought the Netherlands into conflict with the United States and the UN Security Council, which wanted the Netherlands to adhere to gradual decolonization, as agreed in various agreements with the Republic of Indonesia. According to De Jong, however, the Netherlands itself came to the conclusion that it had to give up Indonesia as quickly as possible and there was no question of foreign pressure.
According to De Jong, there have been heated discussions within the Dutch government. In particular, the KVP and former Prime Minister Louis Beel did not want to hear about it. The Americans also personally interfered with the Dutch decolonization in the final years. Only when The Hague had US support for the new policy was it possible to transfer sovereignty and close the Indonesia chapter. That did not go without a fight. The Netherlands even had to threaten not to become a member of the NATO currently being formed.
On December 27, 1949, the definitive transfer of sovereignty was signed in Amsterdam and Indonesia was an independent state. Be that as it may, the Police Actions in general and the massacre in Rawagede in particular are not beautiful pages in Dutch history. That is precisely why it is so important to reconstruct as precisely as possible what happened in the final years of decolonization.