Indonesia by Van Mook (1944)

INDONESIA (1944)

H. J. VAN MOOK

Jendral Kruger 1944

THE Dutch in the last three years of the history of Indonesia have frequently been presented as the villain of the play, and I find myself more or less on the defensive when discuss the subject. Much of the adverse criticism as not always been impartial, and facts have often been garbled and obscured by inaccurate comparisons. On the Dutch side, we have made many mistakes; will not go into the question which of them were made by the politicians at home and which by the people in the field. We very often acted with a deplorable lack of artistry. do not think, however, that we deserve the role of the colonial aggressor in which we have sometimes been cast at Lake Success. On The contrary, would rather maintain the opinion that fundamentally the Dutch Policy has been justified and will be justified by events.

Some Features of the Indonesian problem should be recalled. Not with Standing all the troubles we have had, all the obstacles we had to overcome, and all the mistakes we have made, do not think that the civilian casualties in Indonesia mounted o more than one-tenth of the civilian casualties in Kashmir; and I know that the military casualties in Indonesia were under ten percent of the military casualties in Indo-China, With comparable military force

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