Almost seventy years ago, the
Dutch military executed, without trial, thousands of men in the southern part
of Sulawesi Island. At that time, the island was part of the Dutch Indies, now
Indonesia. Three children of the
murdered have now put in a claim against the Dutch government for
compensation. One of them witnessed, as
a child, the murder of his father by Dutch troops. The three come from the villages of Suppa and
Bulukumba, where hundreds of men were executed without trial, and houses were
burnt down to the ground. This was done
by the Dutch special troops under the command of Captain Raymond Westerling. In
2011, a Dutch judge condemned the government and ordered it to pay compensation
to the widows of the victims of a similar Dutch mass murder in the village of
Rawagede, on the Island of Java.
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