The decolonization war in Indonesia, 1945–1949

War crimes in Dutch veterans’ egodocuments

Bibliographic Data

ID12309381
AuthorsGert Oostindie (0000-0002-4499-9878, Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies, corresponding author), Ireen Hoogenboom (Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies), Jonathan Verwey (Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies)
Year2018
Volume25
Issue2
Pages254-276
Publication date2018-04-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueWar in History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0968-3445 • E-ISSN: 1477-0385
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/0968344517696525
OpenAlexW2811378180
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited1

Between August 1945 and December 1949, the Netherlands deployed some 220,000 military in the Indonesian decolonization war. Both during and long after this war, the Dutch government has denied that its armed forces engaged in war crimes, apart from a limited number of identified transgressions characterized as ‘exceptional’. This position has increasingly been criticized by scholars and in public debates, but it remains a daunting task to present conclusive evidence. This paper, based on an exhaustive analysis of all published egodocuments of Dutch soldiers and veterans, is a first attempt at quantification and confirms earlier suggestions that war crimes formed a structural ingredient of Dutch warfare. This extensive and unique corpus also discloses valuable information about the context in which such crimes were perpetrated

Context (archaeology · Criminology · Decolonization · Government (linguistics · Indonesian · International law · Linguistics · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Spanish Civil War · War crime · Asian Studies and History · Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics · History · Law · Military History and Strategy

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Open DOISci-HubOpen Access