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View all search results‘Bittersweet’ response as Netherlands apologizes for Moluccan past
The Dutch government's apology to the Moluccan community for their decades-long mistreatment has drawn mixed reactions from Moluccans in the Netherlands and Indonesian historians and lawmakers.
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Netherlands' Prime Minister Rob Jetten gives a statement upon arriving to attend the European Union Summit at the EU headquarters in Brussels, on June 19, 2026. (AFP/ Nicolas Tucat)
R
io Lekatompessy, 36, a third-generation Moluccan in the Netherlands, is among the first in her family to receive full education and the right to vote as a Dutch citizen. Her grandfather, a Royal Netherlands East Indies Army (KNIL) soldier stationed in Java, was brought to the Netherlands with his wife in 1951 as conflicts from the post-independence war erupted in Maluku, on a promise he would return home within three months.
Three months became six, then years of waiting stretched on. Living in former Nazi camps and later Moluccan suburbs in the Netherlands without clear citizenship, opportunities were limited as uncertainty became a constant, Rio said, recalling the account of her grandparents. By the time Rio’s parents were born, the second generation of Moluccans, an acceptance had set in: they were never going home.
“The separation from their families was very hard for my grandparents. They tried to get back in contact, but their letters were intercepted,” Rio told The Jakarta Post on Monday.
“The first time they were able to contact their parents was almost 15 years later. That left a very deep scar,” she said.
Some 75 years ago, about 12,500 KNIL soldiers were brought to the Netherlands on a promise of temporary stay and support for a South Maluku Republic (RMS) independent from Indonesia after Indonesia gained independence from the Dutch in 1945, according to Indonesian historiography.
Instead of a temporary evacuation, the soldiers were involuntarily discharged six months after arriving as the Dutch government abandoned plans for federal client states in Indonesia, leaving them barred from work and voting while housed in inadequate accommodation.
Read also: Dutch Prime Minister makes formal apology to Moluccans
