Slavery: The Netherlands issues a formal apology

We were looking forward to the speech about the involvement of the Netherlands in the 250th anniversary of human trafficking. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte presented in a speech in The Hague on Monday the government’s official apology for the Dutch state’s role in slavery, which he called “a crime against humanity.”

“Today I apologize on behalf of the Dutch government for the actions of the Dutch state in the past: posthumously to all the slaves around the world who suffered from this act. To their daughters and sons and all their descendants,” the head of government said. “We can only recognize and condemn slavery as a crime against humanity in the clearest possible way,” he said.

Ministers present in seven former colonies

At the same time, several of his ministers were present in the seven former colonies, in Suriname and in the Caribbean, to discuss the matter with the inhabitants. “People have become a commodity. Human dignity has been trampled on in a terrible way,” Mark Rutte added, before saying “I beg your pardon” in English, Sranan (Suranamese Creole) and Papiamento (Dutch Antillean Creole).

The Prime Minister of Aruba, a small island in the Netherlands Antilles off the coast of Venezuela, hailed this “turning point in the history of the kingdom” of the Netherlands. “Sincere apologies are always welcome,” said Evelyn Wever-Kroes, quoted by the Dutch news agency ANP. But the government’s readiness to apologize on Monday, which was leaked to the Dutch press in November, sparked fierce controversy in the Netherlands and abroad for weeks.

Organizations dedicated to slavery wanted an apology to be issued on July 1, 2023, the 150th anniversary of the end of slavery, in an annual celebration called “Keti Koti” (Break the Chains) in Surinamese. Sint Maarten’s Prime Minister Silveria Jacobs told Dutch media on Saturday that the island would not accept a Dutch apology if presented on Monday.

“There is no one right time for everyone, one right word for everyone, and one right place for everyone,” the prime minister said on Monday.

About 600,000 Africans are sent to South America and the Caribbean.

Slavery helped finance the Dutch Golden Age, a period of prosperity thanks to maritime trade in the 16th and 17th centuries. About 600,000 Africans were trafficked into the country, mostly to South America and the Caribbean.

At the height of their colonial empire, the United Provinces, known today as the Netherlands, had colonies such as Suriname, the Caribbean island of Curaçao, South Africa, and Indonesia, where the Dutch East India Company was based in the 17th century.

Slavery was officially abolished in Suriname and other Dutch-controlled territories on July 1, 1863, but did not actually end until 1873 after a 10-year “transition” period. Ministers of the Netherlands were on Monday in the Caribbean islands: Bonaire, Sint Maarten, Aruba, Curaçao, Saba and Saint Eustache, as well as in Suriname.

Major cities have already apologized

In recent years, the Netherlands has begun to come to terms with its role in slavery. The cities of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht and The Hague issued official apologies. Mark Rutte has long objected to a formal apology, saying in the past that the era of slavery is obsolete and that the apology would spark tension in a country where the far right remains strong.

“I thought: slavery is history that is far behind us. I was wrong,” he explained on Monday, “because centuries of oppression and exploitation affect the present in the form of racist stereotypes, discrimination and social inequality.”

“And to break that, we must face the past openly and honestly,” added the Dutch prime minister, where, according to a recent poll, only 38% of adults were in favor of a formal apology.