MASSACRE by DUTCH SOLDIERS

                                MASSACRE by DUTCH SOLDIERS

                                           Graveyards of massacre

Den Haag court, head by DA Schreuder punished the Government of The Netherlands to pay compensation to the widows of the victims of military  massacre  of 431 Rawagede civilians in Karawang district, West Java in December 9, 1947, 2 years after independence day. The value of Rp. 8 billion equivalent US.$ 1.000.000 are unfair and couldn't heal the soul  of the families left behind.
                                Rawagede Monumen

The military run after Lukas Kustario,  Indonesia independence fighter until Rawagede village (now Balongsari), 4 hours drive from Jakarta, the capital and they couldn't find any of them. Then Dutch military shoot every civilians at the village when the people couldn't reveal his hiding place. A Dutch veteran, Mr Joop Hueting as eye witness said :"We were ordered to shoot whatever move", in 1947 massacre.

These war crime might be forgiven by Indonesian citizen but not forgotten the cruelty of these European country that colonized Indonesia for hundreds of years.

The cases were not solely happened here in Rawagede but in 76 cases including well known Makassar massacre "Westerling" , named after the commandant of the military.

                                 Rawagede civilian

Actually when princess Beatrix visited Indonesia in 1995 she intended to asked forgiveness of military cruelness, but since the bad record of Soeharto regime in human right, she postponed it.

In the same year, a group of reporters recorded a documentary film. Fortunately they met a veteran, widows and life witnesses  in Rawagede village. After they return to The Netherlands, they run it in TV program.

When the court decided that The Government find guilty  and obliged to pay compensation to the widows of the victim, Mr. Jeffry Pondaag, lived in The Netherlands, born in Jakarta astonished and shed a tear.Since year 2.000 he start to open the ice box case again by set up an organization in The Netherland. He never stop to send petitions to Dutch embassy in Jakarta and The Netherland government.

Then fortunately Jeffry met a well known lawyer of Leiden, Prof Liesbeth Zegveld to defend the widows of the victim who fly to Den Haag as the  witneses in the court, some of the cost funded by Dutch citizen who paid a support to the widows. A lawyer  associate, Mr Gerrit Pulles, Indonesian by blood went to Rawagede village interviewed some witnesses and then send it away to The Netherland Government.

 Then in year 2007 Foreign minister, Ben Bot in his visit to Indonesia made a clear statement that Government "regret" of the massacre, but not an apology. Meanwhile the lawyer team approach Mr.Harry van Bommel from Socialist party who wrote Open letter asking that Mr.Ben Bot, Foreign minister's statement above should be follow up

Mr Harry van Bommel waken up the parliament members said :" that war crime in the past in Indonesia far bigger than what parliament knew so far".
Jeffry non stop struggle succeeded to bring some widows and one eye witness to Den Haag and got a big attention and sympathetic from the reporters and citizen in the last court hearing on June 20, 2011

Unfortunately, Jeffry under organization Comite Nederlandse Ereschulden never ever got open support from Indonesian Government. Indonesia Government never talking about Dutch army war crime in order to covered up internal crime in Indonesia.Sources  Indonesia daily KOMPAS, September 21-22, 2011