Dutch court rules state must compensate relatives of men executed by troops during Indonesia independence war News
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Dutch court rules state must compensate relatives of men executed by troops during Indonesia independence war

The Hague District Court ordered the Dutch state on Wednesday to pay compensation to the relatives of 11 men executed by Dutch soldiers in South Sulawesi in 1946 and 1947.

The Indonesian War of Independence took place between 1945 and 1949. As a result of Dutch soldiers’ misconduct during the war, 11 men were killed in different areas of South Sulawesi in the late 1940s. While most of these cases involved summary executions, there was also one case in which a man was randomly shot.

The court has awarded both intangible damages and material compensation to the relatives of the executed men. The largest damages award, in the form of intangible damages of €10,000, was awarded to a man who witnessed his father’s summary execution when he was a child. The relatives of other men were awarded material compensation for lost livelihood, varying from €123.48 to €3,634. The court explained that the amounts are low because many of the executed men were farmers who only earned about €100 a year.

This judgment follow a series of “Indonesia cases,” which started in 2011, in which The Hague District Court dealt with the misconduct of Dutch soldiers in South Sulawesi in 1946 and 1947.

The court also ordered that two men, who claimed that their fathers were executed after duels in 1947, could submit evidence that their fathers were the ones executed after those duels.

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