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 clientsâ€. 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“.
It’s content is strikingly apt and beautiful: short biographies on 34 female artists, a general but quite complete review of the artists’ track records and a lot of well chosen photo’s by Oetomo and Devi. A beautiful tribute to Indonesian women artists – to be more precise: to 33 Indonesian woman and one Dutch woman. It had quite a lot of publicity in Indonesia but if you want to buy the book (Rp 600000, the equivalent of almost € 45.-) if you live in Europe, you have to put in some effort: Amazon does not provide it and the nearest bookshop that has it in stock happens to be in Singapore. But last week Lien (thank you Lien, you’re my heroine) returned from her stay in Jakarta with a copy and here it is.