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VIVAnews – Hearing the verdict passed by the Court of Den Haag, the Netherlands, Rawagede victims were surprised and touched: they won, 64 years after the massacre, the Netherlands was found guilty by law.
The ruling did not only impact the victims of Rawagede massacre, for actually many others have become the casualties of the Dutch occupation in the country. The same legal action can be brought forth over the case of the Dutch army massacre led by Pierre Paul Raymond Westerling in South Sulawesi between 1946 and 1947.
The Indonesian government has the data. The number of victims is fantastic: 40,000 people. Based on the Dutch government’s investigation in 1969, the estimated figure was 3,000. Sadly enough, Westerling acknowledged the victims were 'only' 600 people.
With the pretext of searching for 'extremists', 'robbers', 'criminals', and ‘murderers', Westerling went deep into the villages. Whoever was considered dangerous, was killed.
The method was not only a barrage of shots. In a book written by Horst H. Geerken, Westerling did not only instruct firing on the neck - a quick and lethal method to kill, the Dutch special forces commander also instructed decapitation.
"Hundreds of sacks full of cut heads were drifted to sea to eliminate the identity," Horst’s book says as quoted by Indonesian Voices.
Historian of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), Asvi Marwan Adam, said the Netherlands sent Westerling and his troops to quell the rebels who perturbed it. Then, the massacre took place. "The killing done by Westerling did not only occur in one place, but rather repeatedly in various areas in South Sulawesi," he said when VIVAnews contacted him on Friday, September 16. The reason behind it was to seek militants who he called 'terrorists'.
That was quite the contrary to the Rawagede case, where the Dutch soldiers came with the reason of looking for a fighter named Lukas Kustaryo, who was considered troubling. "The massacre was carried out in one place, at one time, there were witnesses," said Asvi regarding Rawagede.
Moreover, related to Rawagede, there was correspondence between the Dutch Indies soldier General Spoor and Attorney General Felderhof for perpetrators not to be brought to justice.
Asvi suspected, the evidence of Rawagede case was easier than the case of Westerling, as the massacre was carried out in several places. However, he added, if the witnesses are still alive, this lawsuit can be brought to court.
Another factor that would supposedly be impeding is that currently the Dutch government is controlled by the right wing - anti-migrants. "I was also surprised, I thought the Rawagede lawsuit would be rejected, in fact the Dutch courts were quite independent," said Asvi. However, there was no order of apology and there were efforts of reducing the compensation to the families of the victims.
"To me, the implication for Indonesia is more important – the lesson that human rights violations know no expiration. All must be resolved. Even the Dutch can prosecute cases of violation in Indonesia long time back. Why not the cases of human rights violations in the country?"
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