Prime Minister Mark Rutte apologized on behalf of the Dutch State for its historical role in slavery and its ongoing ramifications.
In a televised speech at the Dutch National Archives, Rutte apologized.
“The Dutch state and its officials have enabled and encouraged slavery for generations,” he said.
“Today, nobody bears personal culpability for slavery…
The Dutch state is responsible for the enslaved and their descendants’ suffering.
The apology comes amid a wider reconsideration of the country’s colonial past, including efforts to recover plundered art, and racism.
Groups opposed a December apology in The Hague, saying it should have come from King Willem-Alexander in former colony Suriname on the 160th anniversary of Dutch abolition.
Roy Kaikusi Groenberg of the Honor and Recovery Foundation, a Dutch Afro-Surinamese organization, said, “It takes two to tango – apologies must be heard.”
He said it was terrible that descendants of slaves had worked for years to shift the national conversation but hadn’t been consulted enough.
“The government’s approach is neo-colonial,” he remarked.
Rutte recognized that the announcement’s lead-up was clumsy and stated the Dutch government will send delegates to Suriname and the Caribbean islands that remain part of the Netherlands with varied degrees of autonomy: Curacao, Sint Maarten, Aruba, Bonaire, Saba, and Sint Eustatius.
Evelyn Wever-Croes, Aruba’s prime minister, called the apology a “historic turning point”
Rutte was responding to a national advisory panel formed after George Floyd’s killing in 2020.
The panel determined Dutch slavery amounted to crimes against humanity and recommended an apology and compensation in 2021. Rutte said Monday that his administration agrees slavery was a crime against humanity.
The Dutch government is setting up a 200 million euro educational fund, but he ruled out reparations last week.
Armand Zunder, chairman of Suriname’s National Reparations Commission, said it was a “step forward” but lacked responsibility and accountability.
“If you recognize crimes against humanity, you say I’m accountable, we’re culpable…. I mean compensation.”
A Dutch government delegate declared in Curacao that Tula, a slave insurrection leader who was hanged in 1795, will have his reputation restored. The speech reportedly received long, loud applause.
Historians estimate Dutch traders brought more than 500,000 enslaved Africans to Brazil and the Caribbean. East Indies, current Indonesia, enslaved countless Asians.
The Dutch are proud of their naval history and trading success. Children learn little about the involvement of the Dutch West India Company and the Dutch East India Company in the slave trade.
Racism is a concern despite the Dutch reputation for tolerance.
Antillean, Turkish, and Moroccan citizens encounter prejudice in the labor and housing market, according to studies.
