The Netherlands on Monday recognized slavery as a «crime against humanity», apologized for its colonial and slave-owning past and announced a reparation process for both the victims and their descendants.
«We share not only the past, but also the future. So today we put a comma, not a period,» said Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte during a symbolic speech at the National Archives in The Hague.
The Dutch prime minister explained that, although «no one alive today is personally guilty of slavery,» the country «is responsible for the great suffering inflicted on enslaved people and their descendants.»
«Often (it was carried out) under the government authority of the West India Company (…) We read about floggings and torture to death, about people having their limbs cut off, about marks on their faces,» Rutte explained, putting the number of people who were trafficked by the above-mentioned authority in places like Asia at between 66,000 and more than a million.
Throughout his speech, Rutte mentioned the former colonies: Suriname, Curaçao, St. Maarten, Aruba and the Dutch Caribbean, formed by Bonaire, St. Eustatius and Saba, with special emphasis on the name of the slave Tula, who led the revolution against slavery in 1795.
«Today I honor with respect the names of Tula in Curaçao, Jolicoeur, Boni and Baron in Suriname, One-Tété-Lohkay in Sint Maarten and we remember all those anonymous women and men who heroically sought freedom over the centuries and who often found there punishments of the most horrible kind,» he explained.
In this way, he has assured that «very few Dutch governments after 1863 have seen and recognized that the past of slavery had and continues to have a negative impact.» «The apologies I have just made resonate today in seven other places in the world,» he said.
Rutte has announced that the government will launch a fund of 200 million euros for «awareness, involvement and impact» of the legacy of slavery and has also proposed the creation of an Independent Commemoration Committee, as well as a national museum dedicated to this topic.
The official commemoration date for the abolition of slavery — a 160-year anniversary — will be July 1, 2023. The event will be attended by King William Alexander, as announced by the Prime Minister himself, who has made it clear that the objective is not to «change the past», but «only to confront it».
Rutte’s apology comes after a report earlier this month detailing institutional racism in the Foreign Ministry. Added to this is the dissatisfaction generated in some sectors of society by the folkloric character of Zwarte Piet (‘Black Peter’), very typical at this Christmas time, and which perpetuates racial stereotypes.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
