reedak
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- May 1, 2014
- Messages
- 728
1. LAST THURSDAY, in a court in the northern Dutch city of Groningen, a trial took place of a sort that is only supposed to happen in despotic Third World countries. In the dock was writer Graa Boomsma, who penned what is believed to be the first fictional account of the Dutch experience in a brutal colonial war in Indonesia from 1945 to 1950. Also charged was a journalist whose interview with the author deeply angered Dutch war veterans.
Both were charged with tarnishing the honour and good name of Dutch troops by comparing their actions to those of the Nazi SS.
In the Netherlands there is a memory hole about this period, while volume after volume has been produced describing the horrors of life under the German occupation or the savagery of the Japanese forces in Dutch colonies in the Far East. The Dutch, quick to moralise about human rights abuses by other nations, have never properly examined or debated the unpleasant history of their own experience in the colonial war. Dutch society seems to suffer from collective amnesia when it comes to the murderous behaviour of the soldiers who tried unsuccessfully to suppress the Indonesian independence movement in the jungles of Java and other islands almost 50 years ago. Young conscript soldiers, acting under orders, put numerous hamlets to the torch and butchered men, women and children.
In the trial Mr Boomsma referred to the most notorious atrocities committed by the Dutch in Indonesia over Christmas 1946 in the south Celebes. A battalion under Captain Raymond Westerling killed at least 4,000 Indonesians over a two-month period. Charges were never brought against Westerling and his men, or the military and political leaders who ordered the action.
The war crimes against Indonesian villagers were committed with the direct knowledge of The Hague, at about the same time that Germany's Nazi leaders were being tried in Nuremberg. Today The Hague is the site of a major UN investigation into war crimes committed during the war in the former Yugoslavia.....
Official histories of the war of independence have reportedly been changed to produce a watered-down version of what really happened as the Netherlands struggled to hold on to the Dutch East Indies by keeping them divided and preventing the emergence of a single free nation. In all, around 6,000 Dutch soldiers died in the war and at least 150,000 Indonesians were killed....
Source: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...ies-explode-myth-dutch-tolerance-1439153.html
2. As rightly pointed out by author Leonard Doyle in the article, "The Dutch, quick to moralise about human rights abuses by other nations, have never properly examined or debated the unpleasant history of their own experience in the colonial war. Dutch society seems to suffer from collective amnesia when it comes to the murderous behaviour of the soldiers who tried unsuccessfully to suppress the Indonesian independence movement in the jungles of Java and other islands almost 50 years ago."
Why are the Dutch lying, obfuscating and hiding its war crimes to preserve a self-image as a nation with a high level of morality that doesn't fit? The myth of the Netherlands as 'an example to others in its commitment to the highest principles of democracy' is a laughing stock indeed. Having the International Criminal Court (ICC or ICCt) situated in The Hague, Netherlands, is the greatest laughing stock of all.
In September 2018, the US threatened to arrest and sanction judges and other officials of the International Criminal Court if it moved to charge any American who served in Afghanistan with war crimes. The former White House National Security Advisor John Bolton under the Trump administration called the Hague-based rights body "unaccountable" and "outright dangerous" to the US, Israel and other allies, and said any probe of US service members would be "an utterly unfounded, unjustifiable investigation."
It seems that the US has more authority and right than the International Criminal Court to be the judge and hangman for all war crimes. Hence it is more appropriate to move the International Criminal Court to Trump's Florida property, Mar-a-Lago and let him be the judge and hangman of the new ICC.
Reference: https://news.yahoo.com/us-threatens-arrest-icc-judges-probe-war-crimes-174349593.html
Both were charged with tarnishing the honour and good name of Dutch troops by comparing their actions to those of the Nazi SS.
In the Netherlands there is a memory hole about this period, while volume after volume has been produced describing the horrors of life under the German occupation or the savagery of the Japanese forces in Dutch colonies in the Far East. The Dutch, quick to moralise about human rights abuses by other nations, have never properly examined or debated the unpleasant history of their own experience in the colonial war. Dutch society seems to suffer from collective amnesia when it comes to the murderous behaviour of the soldiers who tried unsuccessfully to suppress the Indonesian independence movement in the jungles of Java and other islands almost 50 years ago. Young conscript soldiers, acting under orders, put numerous hamlets to the torch and butchered men, women and children.
In the trial Mr Boomsma referred to the most notorious atrocities committed by the Dutch in Indonesia over Christmas 1946 in the south Celebes. A battalion under Captain Raymond Westerling killed at least 4,000 Indonesians over a two-month period. Charges were never brought against Westerling and his men, or the military and political leaders who ordered the action.
The war crimes against Indonesian villagers were committed with the direct knowledge of The Hague, at about the same time that Germany's Nazi leaders were being tried in Nuremberg. Today The Hague is the site of a major UN investigation into war crimes committed during the war in the former Yugoslavia.....
Official histories of the war of independence have reportedly been changed to produce a watered-down version of what really happened as the Netherlands struggled to hold on to the Dutch East Indies by keeping them divided and preventing the emergence of a single free nation. In all, around 6,000 Dutch soldiers died in the war and at least 150,000 Indonesians were killed....
Source: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...ies-explode-myth-dutch-tolerance-1439153.html
2. As rightly pointed out by author Leonard Doyle in the article, "The Dutch, quick to moralise about human rights abuses by other nations, have never properly examined or debated the unpleasant history of their own experience in the colonial war. Dutch society seems to suffer from collective amnesia when it comes to the murderous behaviour of the soldiers who tried unsuccessfully to suppress the Indonesian independence movement in the jungles of Java and other islands almost 50 years ago."
Why are the Dutch lying, obfuscating and hiding its war crimes to preserve a self-image as a nation with a high level of morality that doesn't fit? The myth of the Netherlands as 'an example to others in its commitment to the highest principles of democracy' is a laughing stock indeed. Having the International Criminal Court (ICC or ICCt) situated in The Hague, Netherlands, is the greatest laughing stock of all.
In September 2018, the US threatened to arrest and sanction judges and other officials of the International Criminal Court if it moved to charge any American who served in Afghanistan with war crimes. The former White House National Security Advisor John Bolton under the Trump administration called the Hague-based rights body "unaccountable" and "outright dangerous" to the US, Israel and other allies, and said any probe of US service members would be "an utterly unfounded, unjustifiable investigation."
It seems that the US has more authority and right than the International Criminal Court to be the judge and hangman for all war crimes. Hence it is more appropriate to move the International Criminal Court to Trump's Florida property, Mar-a-Lago and let him be the judge and hangman of the new ICC.
Reference: https://news.yahoo.com/us-threatens-arrest-icc-judges-probe-war-crimes-174349593.html
