New war study sparks call for self-reflection in Indonesia

A relief depicting the 1947 Rawagede massacre of Indonesians by Dutch soldiers is displayed in the town of Rawagede in West Java, on Sept. 15, 2011 - AFP

JAKARTA (The Jakarta Post/Asia News Network): While the government has not yet responded to a fresh apology from Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte for the “extreme violence” committed by Dutch forces during Indonesia’s national revolution, an Indonesian historian has said it is time for the country to confront its own violence during the period.

The prime minister made the apology shortly after the publication of an extensive study on the bloody revolutionary period on Thursday (Feb 17) in which a group of mostly Dutch historians argued that the Dutch had committed systemic and extreme violence against Indonesians as they sought to reassert control over their colony after World War II.