Is it about time the Netherlands apologised for past wrongs? The question comes around every few years. The Volkskrant concludes that the Netherlands has a lot to be sorry about but does not do much apologising.

The Dutch role in Srbrenica, the passive attitude of Dutch civil servants during the Holocaust, slavery in Suriname, the massacre in the Indonesian village of Rawagede…the Netherlands is deeply sorry but official apologies are a different matter, the paper writes. Apologies mean claims for compensation and consequently they can be a long time in coming.
Rawagede
On the 9th of December 1947 Dutch soldiers rounded up hundreds of men in the West Java village of Rawagede, refugees and prisoners among them, and executed them.
The international community condemned the action and the UN labelled it ‘deliberate and ruthless.’ The perpetrators were never prosecuted. In 1949 the Dutch state said it deeply regretted the event but until June last year it avoided an official apology which would have meant a financial settlement.
It wasn’t until a court ruled that the Dutch state could be still be held responsible for the massacre that the widows of Rawagede got their apologies and their compensation.
Srebrenica
An official apology for the Dutch role in the deaths of three Muslims who were denied the protection of the Dutch UN soldiers during the fall of the enclave of Srbrenica in 1995 is not forthcoming.
Although The Hague district court ruled that the state could be held responsible for the deaths of the three men, foreign affairs minister Yuri Rosenthal and defence minister Hans Hillen claim a final verdict has not yet been reached.
As far as apologies are concerned they refer to the words of Wim Kok, prime minister at the time, whose cabinet resigned over Srbrenica: ‘The Netherlands is emphatically not shouldering the blame for the horrific murder of thousands of Bosnian Muslims. In this way we acknowledge the political responsibility of the Netherlands for the situation in which these events could happen.’
The same, Hillen and Rosenthal say, goes for this cabinet.
Holocaust
Recently the cabinet unexpectedly found itself having to consider apologising for the deportation of Jews during World War II. PVV leader Geert Wilders was scathing about the passive attitude of queen Wilhelmina’s government in exile towards the plight of the Dutch Jews.
Over the years queen Beatrix and several prime minister have publicly deplored the Dutch attitude towards the Jewish community, always stopping short of an official apology.
Slavery
Nor has any government ever officially apologised for the Dutch slave trade past. In 2008 on the occasion of a visit to Suriname former prime minister Jan-Peter Balkenende referred to the words of the then integration minister Roger van Boxtel who expresses ‘deep remorse’ in 2001. It was a step further than the ‘regret’ agreed upon in a EU statement. But an official apology it was not.