Netherlands apologises for 1947 Rawagede massacre in Indonesia

[alp227]

Source: The Guardian

The Netherlands has apologised after six decades for a notorious massacre of up to 430 men and boys during Indonesia's bitter struggle for independence.

Tjeerd de Zwaan, the Dutch ambassador to Indonesia, made the announcement in front hundreds of villagers in Rawagede, the scene of the killings on 9 December 1947 of hundreds of boys and young men by Dutch troops.

The military, which was clinging on to a retreating colonial empire, arrived in Rawagede before dawn and opened fire, sending residents scattering from their homes in panic.

The soldiers were looking for resistance leader Lukas Kustario, known for ambushing Dutch bases. When villagers said they didn't know where he was, nearly all the men were rounded up and taken to the fields. Squatting in rows, with both hands placed on the backs of their heads, they were shot one by one.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/09/netherlands-apologises-for-rawagede-massacre

[Journeyman]

1. Meanwhile, at that very moment, in Nuremburg, among the trials then underway. . .

the Einsatzgruppen defendants -- the mobile security and killing units of the SS -- sat in the dock, accused -- among many crimes -- of rounding up arbitrary people and killing them, execution style, when they wouldn't (or couldn't) give the information demanded of them.


http://timelines.com/1947/9/29/the-einsatzgruppen-trial-or-officially-the-united-states-of-america-vs-otto-ohlendorf-et-al

http://timelines.com/topics/nuremberg-trials

[leveymg]

2. +1. Excellent point. Same sort of thing happened in India under the British, and in El Salvador

and Guatemala during the Reagan-Bush Administrations.

It's only crimes against humanity when "they" do it.

[Nye Bevan]

4. Not killing them because they would not give information.

They murdered people for being Jewish.

[leveymg]

5. That's the difference between genocide and other crimes against humanity.

It's an important, but not a fundamental difference - both are crimes of mass murder.

[Journeyman]

6. Yes. . .

you really need to educate yourself about the totality of Nazi crimes. You might start with the tale of Lidice, a situation somewhat analogous to what happened in Rawagede. Below are two of the memorials in Lidice. A sculpture in remembrance of the children torn from home and hearth, and the marker for the mass grave.






http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/nazioccupation/lidice.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lidice

[The Straight Story]

3. Always better to ask forgiveness than permission I guess (nt)

[gratuitous]

7. I wonder if such apologies are in our future?

Unprovoked murder, blanket reprisals, indefinite detention, torture, all in the name of "national security" and "fighting terrorism." Perhaps one day the United States will no longer be in a position of undisputed military superiority, and we'll issue some belated apologies to the descendants of our victims?