Seumas Milne: The Real Lessons of The First World War

Seumas Milne in The Guardian,  The first world war: the real lessons of this savage imperial bloodbath

"The idea that the war was some kind of crusade for democracy when most of Britain's population – including many men – were still denied the vote, and democracy and dissent were savagely crushed among most of those Britain ruled, is laughable. And when the US president, Woodrow Wilson, championed the right to self-determination to win the peace, that would of course apply only to Europeans – not the colonial peoples their governments lorded it over.

"As the bloodbath exhausted itself, it unleashed mutinies, workers' revolts and revolutions, and the breakup of defeated empires, giving a powerful impetus to anti-colonial movements in the process. But the outcome also laid the ground for the rise of nazism and the even bloodier second world war, and led to a new imperial carve-up of the Middle East, whose consequences we are still living with today, including the Palestinian tragedy."

Finally, the Dutch government apologises for Rawagede massacre

 Radio Netherlands Worldwide

The Dutch ambassador to Indonesia has formally apologised on behalf of the Netherlands’ government for the 1947 massacre in a village on Java island, in an emotional ceremony on the anniversary of the executions.

"In this context and on behalf of the Dutch government, I apologise for the tragedy that took place in Rawagede on the 9 December 1947," the Netherlands' ambassador to Indonesia, Tjeerd de Zwaan, said

He then repeated the apology in the Indonesian language, to the applause of hundreds of people attending the ceremony, some of whom broke down in tears as they listened in front of a marble monument commemorating the dead

The number of victims has always a point of dispute between the Dutch and the Indonesians. Dutch officials claim some 150 people were killed, but a support group and the local community allege the death toll was 431.

Men and boys executed
During Indonesia’s fight for independence between 1945 and 1949 - in what became known as the Indonesian National Revolution - Dutch troops swooped into the village of Rawagede and executed its men and boys as their families and neighbours looked on.

In a landmark ruling last September, a civil court in The Hague found the Dutch state responsible for the executions and ruled in favour of eight widows and a survivor of the massacre who lodged the case. Two of the widows have since died, and so has the survivor, Saih Bin Sakam, who passed away in May at the age of 88

The Netherlands agreed to pay 850,000 euros to the community before the court's decision, and will now pay an additional 180,000 euros in compensation to the plaintiffs or their families.

Although the Dutch government in the past expressed "deep regret" over the conduct of some of its troops in pre-independence Indonesia, it had never formally apologised for any excesses, including the massacre at Rawagede.

The Hague court rejected the Dutch argument that no claim could be lodged because of a five-year expiry in the statute of limitations, saying it was "unacceptable".

“We will never forget that day”
Some 60 schoolgirls in white Islamic headscarves opened the ceremony with the Indonesian national anthem. They then presented a spoken word performance describing the pain the community has felt since the killings.

"We will never forget that day in Rawagede," the lead performer screamed. "We will remember forever in an independent Indonesia."

Indonesia's Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa praised the Dutch government for making the apology.

Dutch embassy officials presented the widows with a wooden plaque with a windmill carved on the left and a palm tree on the right, with the words "Finally justice for the people of Rawagede" and the date of the court ruling inscribed on the plague.

See my previous posts about Rawagede.

AFGHANISTAN FORUM IN THE HAGUE

Coverage from Radio Netherlands Worldwide

RNW Flickr photostream

"Optimism" reigned...



Sayed Rohullah Yasir is visiting all the conferences on Afghanistan for Deutsche Welle. As a result, he has come to The Hague. Four years ago, Mr Rohullah left his home country to live in Germany. Since then he has travelled the world. Something he could once only dream of. He was one of the first journalists to enter the special press room at The Hague... and RNW followed him...



Arrival of Clinton and Karzai.

IRAQ: 6 YEARS

Ten Percent

If you take a one second silence for every casualty of the Iraq invasion (on all sides) you will be silent for 15 days, 7 hours, 58 minutes & 7 seconds. You only get to the non-Iraq casualties in the sixth hour of the sixteenth day.

Last year as part of the blogswarm I wrote- Withdrawal, Reparations, Prosecutions. So what d’you reckon?

Withdrawal- Nope, unless you figure 50,000 troops are negligible and the various get out clauses won’t be exploited by the Pentagon or Obama.

Reparations- Sorry, the financial sector got all your cash for generations to come, Iraqis may be able to sell some of the bullets shot at them for (radioactive) scrap.

Prosecutions- Sorry folks but Nuremberg happened because of a victorious allied occupation, after all it excluded European colonialism and the American use of the atomic bomb. So unless the coalition countries are invaded and subjugated by some other power allied with Iraq, seems human society isn’t able to enact justice where the ruling classes are concerned, it’s all just fine words. Keep pushing of course, we may yet become civilised. Still, you can book some of the main criminals for several (hundred) thousands to give you a speech.

Muntazer al-Zaidi is now in jail for 3 years after being beaten and tortured, he threw his shoes at George Bush, Bush laughed it off, both the act and and I am sure the knowledge of al-Zaidi’s abuse and coming years in prison, he likes that kind of thing. Our media continues to shy away from calling torture torture and the few mea culpas over pimping the lies that led to war have not changed their behaviour significantly, one consequence of this is a likely attack on Iraq’s neighbour Iran and a spreading war in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The humanitarian disaster in Somalia goes almost unmentioned as does the particular involvement of the US. Also unmentioned mostly is the Neocon/Zionist axis, but perhaps it is coming into the open a little more.

Mostly I think we are in the invidious position of still many people do not regard this supreme crime as a crime- nationalism, militarism and tribalism remain unexamined, and as such many see no need to stop it, make recompense and punish the guilty. Until that changes we are in for much more bloodshed, empire is a recidivist and the pantry is bare.

TWO GOOD READS

TWO writer/bloggers I admire have written essays recently in well-known publications in their respective countries.

Richard Seymour (Lenin's Tomb and author of the Liberal Defence of Murder), is at last on the Guardian's CiF: Obama the imperialist

I'd read Michael Colby's on his blog last week; it was featured on Counterpunch the day after the inauguration: Ready. Aim. Organize.

NO COMPENSATION FOR INDONESIAN BLOOD BATH

"I never thought they would kill us because we were just ordinary people," says Saih. "I only realised [what they were going to do] when they began the countdown... Een, twee, drie." Three soldiers started shooting the men in the back.

DutchNews.nl in partnership with NRC International:

Dutch refuse compensation for Indonesian massacre

The Dutch state will not pay compensation to a survivor and nine family members of Indonesians in the village of Rawagede who were massacred by Dutch soldiers 60 years ago because the case is too old.
___________
The Indonesians’ attorney, Liesbeth Zegveld, told AP news service on Monday that she was surprised by the ruling. "I am surprised they dare to invoke this," she said referring to the statute in which a time limit is specified for compensation claims. "I find it unreasonable," she added.... more

The ruling sounds hypocritical to me. Sixty years is not too old. Victims of the 1939-45 war continue to be 'compensated.'

I wrote about the massacre in Java here and here.

SALAAM TO THE BARREL HALF-FULL

The nations not so blest as thee,
Shall in their turns to tyrants fall;
While thou shalt flourish great and free,
The dread and envy of them all. *

Today, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia began a two-day state visit to Britain.

Craig Murray comments.(Thanks for the Times cartoon.)

*The poem "Rule Britannia" by James Thomson (1700-48) was put to music by Thomas Augustine Arne (around 1740) and is sung as an unofficial national anthem.

Columbus & Blackwater

Broadsides: Columbus & Blackwater by Micheal Colby 8 October 2007 --

Sorry, but it’s Columbus Day and I can’t stop thinking about Blackwater. And I finally figured out why: They’re one in the same. Columbus was the original rogue mercenary and Blackwater is simply the modern perfection of what he started: bullies running roughshod on foreign soil in the pursuit of obscene profits and the complete subjugation of the native people. So, Happy Blackwater Day!

But, don’t worry, the Bush administration has got the whole Blackwater thing under control. With a straight face and all the confidence in the world that the American public remains in a deep slumber, the Bush team announced on Saturday that they would be sending members of the State Department to monitor the activities of the Blackwater thugs. And the mainstream media ran with the story – sans laugh track – as if it really was a solution.

Read all of Columbus & Blackwater...

Relatedly, go here and here.

Rowan Williams speaks out on Iraq

BBC

"The Iraq conflict has wreaked 'terrible damage' on the region - far more than has been acknowledged, the Archbishop of Canterbury has said.

Dr Rowan Williams said 'urgent attention' was needed to stabilise the country.

[...]Dr Williams also said he regards any further 'deliberate destabilisation' of the region - such as action against Syria and Iran - as 'criminal, ignorant...and potentially murderous folly'.

Referring to US political advisers, he added that 'we do hear talk from some quarters of action against Syria, or against Iran'.

'I can't understand what planet such persons are living on when you see the conditions that are already there. The region is still a tinderbox,' Dr Williams said.

Earlier, the archbishop said 'events of the last few years have done terrible damage in the whole of this region'.

He said many people 'do not see the cost in human terms of the war which was unleashed'.

Dr Williams concluded: 'Security that will enable these people to return to Iraq depends on a settlement for the whole of that country guaranteeing the liberty and dignity of every minority.'"

Today in 1935

Today - seventy-two years ago, Queen Astrid of the Belgians was killed in an auto accident in Switzerland. She was popular, even in Holland - my father collected Astrid memorial postage stamps, unfortunately destroyed when his house was bombed during the 1939-45 war.

To commemorate this event and her short life, the BRMB has posted some old photos.

Wow, I bet there is a story behind the photo above, on the right, of Astrid and Leopold during a 1933 trip to the Belgian Congo. Fascinating, when you consider how the Belgians raped Africa and you see this kind of paternalistic, colonial (1930s) view of Belgium over the Congolese. These kinds of souvenir photos of the rulers with the local indigenous people are typical. We know what happened to Astrid, Leopold, and the Congo. But what did the future hold for the six children in this photograph? What were their stories? They have names, but remain nameless.

Holland's Black Page in History: Dutch Police Action in Indonesia

"I didn't shoot them, but I tortured them and I beat them up. I put them in the sun till they fell down. I was never told to do it - you just grow into it. Isn't it terrible? They didn't tell me to torture people, that was my own doing. I wanted to do my job well."

RADIO NETHERLANDS, in a program first broadcast in 2005 - 60 years on: the Dutch 'police action' in Indonesia - tells the stories of four former soldiers who tortured and killed Indonesian prisoners in the war of decolonisation, after Indonesia declared its independence in 1947. All the years since, they remember how they had to live in silence and shame with the secrets. They call for the Dutch government to accept some measure of responsibility for what they say they were ordered to do. Click here to read the story - and listen!!. There are two links to listen - one at the top of the page (shorter program on Quicktime) and another mid-way down (longer -Real Audio).

COMMENT: My father traveled frequently by ship to the Dutch East Indies in the 1930s as a youthful merchant marine cadet. I always asked him what it was like living in Indonesia. He didn't talk much about his experiences there, except to say that the colonisation of the Indies was not a proud moment for his country. The 400 years of occupation were full of brutality, cruelty and stupidity, he told me. Although my father didn't return to the Indies after WW II, he told me that most of the vets from the 1947-49 police actions maintained that they were sent there to liberate their land from the Japanese and also from the republican army, and that they won it. To the world, World War II was the yardstick of Dutch bravery (small country fighting Nazism). When one thinks of war crimes, the German atrocities immediately come to mind, but the Dutch have never admitted what they did in the Indies was a war crime.

There had been a silence about the Dutch in Indonesia, until the vets began confessing publicly that the mission was wrong and acknowledging the victims of the police actions. Listening to these men, it is unclear to me that telling these stories heals. Does the truth set you free? American and British soldiers can learn lessons from these stories, howver. They are doing in Iraq exactly what the Dutch forces did in Indonesia. Will it take 60 years of soul searching for Americans to confess about the war crimes they have done in Iraq?