A'dam mayor skips Indies Remembrance event on 15 August over controversial speaker

Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema will not deliver her speech on the Dam in Amsterdam on August 15 for the National Indies Remembrance as was initially planned. In a statement released on Instagram on Tuesday, she expressed her disagreement with the decision to invite the daughter of Dutch military officer Raymond Westerling as a guest speaker, leading to her withdrawal.

The National Indies Remembrance commemorates each year on August 15 the end of the Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies and the official end of the Second World War in the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Japanese forces capitulated on August 15, 1945, after the United States dropped atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ending the war for the former Dutch East Indies.

The Indisch Platform 2.0 Foundation is organizing the commemoration on the Dam in Amsterdam and has invited Raymond Westerling's daughter as one of the other guest speakers. Raymond Westerling is a controversial figure in the history of Indonesia's struggle for independence.

During the Indonesian National Revolution after the Second World War, during which the Dutch tried to reclaim their colonial territories in what was previously the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), Westerland led brutal counter-insurgency actions against the local population on the island of Sulawesi as a Dutch officer and military commander between 1945 and 1949. His methods involved summary executions and were notorious for their brutality. These actions were denounced as war crimes by the Indonesian authorities.

Westerling never refuted his ruthless actions but disputed any accusations of war crimes. He passed away in 1987. In 2013, the Dutch ambassador to Indonesia apologized for the atrocities committed in Sulawesi. Several surviving widows received compensation.

His daughter Palmyra Westerling made headlines in 2021 after publishing an open letter urging a boycott of the film 'Oost.' This Dutch war film, released in June 2021, is set during the Indonesian War of Independance and notably portrays the brutal actions of her father. According to Palmyra, the film's creators are "falsifying history" and portraying the KNIL soldiers as "Nazi war criminals."

A spokesman for Halsema called "inappropriate the choice to invite Palmyra Westerling to give a speech during the National Indies Remembrance, NOS reported on Tuesday. On Instagram, Halsema explained her decision to withdraw. She stated, "In the commemoration program on Dam Square, there was a choice to include speakers advocating for 'honor and recognition' for Raymond Westerling, a former KNIL combatant who notably led mass executions of Indonesians. It's a deeply inappropriate and painful choice on a day meant to commemorate all victims, not just those from the Dutch side."

The Amsterdam mayor also said she informed the Indisch Platform 2.0 Foundation on Tuesday that she would no longer deliver a speech and would also not lay a wreath. Instead, she will attend the Dekoloniale Indonesië Nederland Herdenking (Decolonial Indonesia Netherlands Remembrance) at the Monument Indië-Nederland on the Olympiaplein in Amsterdam on August 16. "An inclusive Indonesia-Netherlands commemoration where different groups don't stand opposed to each other, but where the shared colonial and wartime history is at the forefront,” Halsema wrote.

In a response, the president of the Indisch Platform 2.0 Foundation Peggy Stein said that the National Indies Remembrance is meant to commemorate all victims, "including the military who have now come to be seen in a bad light due to changing views on the decolonization war,” NOS reported. “With her withdrawal, Halsema is politicizing the commemoration,” she stated.