Netherlands commemorates 70th anniversary of surrender of Japan

Dutch King Willem-Alexander and Prime Minister Mark Rutte attended a memorial on Saturday in The Hague to commemorate the surrender of Japan 70 years ago.

The remembrance ceremony is organized each year on August 15 at the Indisch Monument (the Indies Monument) in The Hague to commemorate the Dutch citizens and soldiers killed during the Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia, in World War II.

For the first time King Willem-Alexander was present as the head of state at the memorial. It is customary for the head of state to visit the memorial once every five years, because the anniversary of the Japanese surrender is not an official national memorial in the Netherlands.

The King laid the first wreath, followed by, among others, Premier Rutte.

The Dutch survivors of the Japanese occupation later claimed to have received insufficient recognition for the suffering they had experienced.

"Much has been said and done in 70 years, but there also a long time not much has been said and done," Rutte said during his speech in The Hague.

"The story about dealing with the Indian war suffering is a difficult and painful story," Rutte added. "In our Indo-Dutch community a common feeling persisted of our failure to realize the horrors of the war in Asia. I regret that."

With this last note Rutte expressed a goodwill gesture to the Indo-Dutch citizens, Dutch people with roots in the Dutch Indies. The Dutch government had already announced that Rutte would not issue a formal apology on behalf of the Dutch government to the people who arrived from the Dutch East Indies after World War II.

Two days after the surrender of Japan, late President Achmed Sukarno proclaimed the independence of Indonesia. The Dutch government objected, and another bloody war of independence followed until the end of 1949. Endit