Kommunikasie

by Colson on Jun. 20, 2009, under indonesia, ramblings
Comments so far:10

Portugal-meivakantie-2009-095

Trouble is ahead.

The reverent at the Church wedding in Lampung had told us so: it is all about “kommunikasie”. He meant between husband and wife. But I know by now it goes for the relationship between granddaughters and granddads also.

Devica Esha is starting to speak.  Well, most of it is still incomprehensible to everybody except her mother.  Though last month I also recognized a score of separate one syllable words. At this moment I even believe to discern several more lengthy ones also. Most of them Dutch.  But a few others are Bahassa Indonesia.   Her vocabulary is still very small obviously, so  that she has no option but to use the limited number of words she has at her disposal without distinguishing between one language and the other. Which causes misunderstandings on my part. Like when she got angry at me the other day because  I didn’t do that what, as it turned out, she apparently was demanding: “Granddad, I wanna go feed the ducklings in the pond with you”.  Only with the help of her mother’s translation I found out:

She said bebek. While I say eendje. Read More

Patriotic Triviality

by Colson on Apr. 12, 2009, under ramblings
Comments so far:4

This is an exceptionally long week-end for us.  In The Netherlands we enjoy  four days of leisure at a row: Good Friday, Saturday, First Easter Day, Second Easter Day. That is a good reason to indulge in trivial patriotic self-satisfaction.

But there is more on this level. Like “the best job in the world“. Read More

The 10th of December 1948 – 2008

by Colson on Dec. 7, 2008, under politics
Comments so far:2

udhr60-drafting

Wednesday, the 10th of December, it will be sixty years ago that the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).

It’s the day also the Dutch Human Rights Defenders Tulip will be awarded to Justine Masika Bihamba, who is heading an organization in Eastern Congo that is fighting the waves of raping  by governmental and rebel soldiers and helping the girls and women who are the victims of these war crimes.

Also mentioned (by Agnes Kant, Socialist Party) in this connection was, according to “Wordt Vervolgd” the Dutch bi-monthly of Amnesty International, Johnson Panjaitan. He is active on behalf of the surviving relatives of the Indonesian victims of WWII and the Indonesian War of Independence as well as for Ambonese dissidents.

Dutch War Crimes

by Colson on Nov. 25, 2008, under indonesia
Comments so far:4

Just some quotes from the International Edition of NRC-Handelsblad 25.11.08:

In an incident during the five years of guerrilla warfare before Indonesia won its independence, Dutch soldiers executed a group of around 431 men and boys in the West Java village of Rawagede on December 9, 1947.

……

In a civil case started against the Dutch state in September, a survivor and nine widows of those killed in Rawagede demanded an official apology and damages but the Dutch attorney general has rejected the claim.

In a letter to their lawyers on Monday, the attorney general said the claim has been rejected because: “the state does not have information about the individual circumstances and the fate of widows and other family members of the clients”. Instead the state has offered to discuss the situation with the claimants.

Executions regretted

The Indonesians’ lawyer is “moderately positive” with this offer and will wait until talks have taken place before deciding whether to continue with legal action.

……

The attorney general told the survivor of the massacre and family members of those killed that the state “very much” regretted the executions.

Update:

Today, 26.11.08,  there was an editorial on the matter with which I sympathize. These are the concluding paragraphs:

“There is no statute of limitations on war crimes. The international community, including the Netherlands, have made a point of abolishing it over the last decades.

It does not matter that the military campaigns in Indonesia was not officially a war, in reality this is exactly what it was. And the fact that Indonesia itself, struggling to come to terms with its own violent post-colonial history, has chosen not to make a big issue out of Rawagede, is not an argument either.

Money can not undo past wrongs. But paying compensation would be a just settlement that would at least deliver moral justice to both victims and perpetrators on both sides of the war. There is no statute of limitations on history“.

The rights of Papuans

by Colson on Nov. 23, 2008, under indonesia, politics
Comments so far:8

papua-1

Prior to the latest edition of  “Inside Indonesia” my knowledge about West Papua was near zero. The facts I was aware of were scarce. I did know about the pretty dirty circumstances the Dutch colonial rule was ended in the early sixties of course, had read about some real nasty and even disastrous environmental developments and had heard some occasional alarming news about the oppression of Papuan attempts to achieve more autonomy. I even noticed the trouble  Indonesian based correspondents of European  newspapers had, to get into that territory. But essentially this part of the world escaped my, and I guess most people’s, attention most of the time.

The odd dozen essays in the October-December issue of the periodical however, show that this attitude is wrong. The present situation is really rather worrying.

Read More