Dutch's Ruthless Revenge

WHILE on patrol up in the mountains in Central Java, Dutch soldiers from unit 4-6 of the Infantry Regiment encountered five men dressed in black. The commander, a major, asked Harrie Krol, a Bren soldier, for a weapon. A series of shots was then heard, and the five Indonesians fell to the ground to their death without resistance.

Not far from there, the group met two other men in black. The major came forward and slashed their heads with a klewang. It was still clear in Harrie Krol's mind how the heads rolled on the ground and blood spurted.

"What happened was revenge. The major was furious because he found two of his men dead without genitals," said Harrie Krol in Serdadu Belanda di Indonesia 1945–1950 by Gert Oostindie.

Another confession came from Barend van Houwelingen, a soldier of unit 3-10 of the Infantry Regiment who was assigned in West Java. He said, "If one of us fell into enemy hands, then we wouldn't just experience an ordinary death. Eyes being gouged out and genitals cut off and stuffed in the mouth were normal here. So was the horrific torture that precedes the death."

The atrocity had changed the perception of the Dutch soldiers about the Indonesians’ hospitality. "Genitals were cut off and put in the mouths of their victims. They added torture to the people who were already dead. That's one of the cruel sides of the Indonesians, a brutality that happened so suddenly and knew no bounds. Such things don't exist in other societies at all," said Giovanni Hakkenberg, intelligence member of the Security Service of the Marine Brigade (Veiligheidsdienst Marinierbrigade).

The heinous act of genital mutilation to the Dutch soldiers is hard to find in history books or the memoirs of Indonesian fighters, as revealing it is considered as undermining the struggle for independence. However, historian Rushdy Hoesein once got the confession of a fighter who recounted the out-of-bounds violence.

"Genital mutilation committed by the Indonesians took place in the ommelanden (suburbs of Jakarta)," said Rushdy to Historia.

"These mutilations," Rushdy continued, "were intended to cause horror among the Dutch soldiers as well as humiliation. The mutilations were not as many as the Dutch claimed. However, for the Dutch military, it was used as an excuse to retaliate and label the Indonesian side as more cruel."

Getting Revenge

The Geneva Convention protects civilians and wounded or captured soldiers. However, during the war of independence (1945–1950), the laws of war were not followed. 

"War indeed always changes a person," said Gert Oostindie. In his book, Oostindie includes the confessions of Dutch soldiers who were changed by the war atrocities. For example, Adriaan de Winter, a Stoottroepen (Raider Regiment) soldier who was stationed in Central Sumatra, said, "In times of war where "struggle for life" applies, people are just animals."

In an effort to defend their lives, Oostindie said, Dutch soldiers adhered to the motto “better safe than sorry”; killing so as not to be killed. This phrase was most often used to justify their acts of violence in urgent situations. For example, they shot civilians they thought were armed.

According to Oostindie, those acts of excessive or out-of-bounds violence are clearly about revenge. If the enemy crosses the line, it must be reciprocated. The justification may still be found in military terms: "We must make it clear that they cannot mess with us; if we strike back hard, the enemy will think twice before they strike us again." However, oftentimes the reason was far simpler and more emotional: because of what happened to their comrades.

Of course, I sometimes had doubts about the rightness of the things we did and also about our presence in Indonesia.

"When one of our comrades on patrol was trapped, wounded and had his vital organs amputated alive by robbers before he died, many of our soldiers went out of control. It was an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth," said Jan van den Bersselaar, a soldier from unit 4-7 of the Infantry Regiment who served in South Sumatra and Central Java.

Cees de Boer, soldier of unit 4-1 of the Infantry Regiment, detailed their retaliation: "We beheaded them. If we didn't do it, then they would do it to us. If we fell into their hands, we would also be chopped. 'Chop' or cincang in Indonesian even became a new word in the Dutch dictionary: getjintjangd  to indicate the number of Dutch people being chopped up.

Koos Claus, platoon commander of the Marine Brigade in East Java, whose member Wiebe Bruinsma died with serious injuries, found it difficult to imagine the atrocities of the Indonesian fighters he called terrorists. "The enemy's terror aggravated us to retaliate. That was the starting point of our crackdown," Claus said.

The Arson Attack

The Dutch army's revenge was not only directed at the fighters as they also took it out on civilians. "If a colleague of ours was shot dead in a village, we had to take action in that village," said Marinus Bolscher, soldier of the 43 AAT (Aan- en Afvoertroepen or Supply and Transport Troops) who served in West Java.

They immediately grabbed jerry cans to set fire to the houses, putting people's lives in danger. "Arson was a very common method of violence used by the Dutch army. In the ego document there are 50 confessions related to arson," wrote Oostindie. Ego documents are subjective documents such as diaries, letters, testimonies, and memoirs of Dutch soldiers researched by Oostindie.

Revenge may have been avenged, but there were also among Dutch soldiers who saw the war as a big mistake.

"After having experienced the loss of comrades, resentment sets in and retaliation follows," says Corporal Maarten Schaafsma of unit 4 of the Garde Regiment Grenadiers (Infantry Guard Regiment). "Of course, I sometimes had doubts about the rightness of the things we did and also about our presence in Indonesia. But at that time I was in the middle of such a war situation; would anyone really be willing to be killed just like that? That was the beginning of a big mistake."