Netherlands apologises for Dutch government’s role in slavery

PM Mark Rutte says the Dutch state has enabled, stimulated and profited from slavery for hundreds of years.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte offers a speech on the Nationwide Archives in The Hague [Robin van Lonkhuijsen/EPA]

Prime Minister Mark Rutte has formally apologised on behalf of the Dutch state for its historic function in slavery, and for penalties that he acknowledged proceed into the current day.

“Right this moment I apologise,” Rutte stated on Monday, talking at a nationally televised speech on the Dutch Nationwide Archives.

“For hundreds of years, the Dutch state and its representatives have enabled and stimulated slavery and have profited from it.

“It's true that no person alive right this moment bears any private guilt for slavery … [however] the Dutch state bears accountability for the immense struggling that has been completed to people who had been enslaved and their descendants.”

Colonial previous

The apology comes amid a wider reconsideration of the nation’s colonial previous, together with efforts to return looted artwork, and its present struggles with racism.

The prospect of an apology on a December afternoon in The Hague had been met with resistance from teams who say it ought to come from King Willem-Alexander within the former colony of Suriname, on July 1, 2023 – the a hundred and sixtieth anniversary of Dutch abolition.

“It takes two to tango – apologies need to be acquired,” stated Roy Kaikusi Groenberg of the Honor and Restoration Basis, a Dutch Afro-Surinamese organisation.

He stated it felt mistaken that activists who're descendants of slaves have struggled for years to alter the nationwide dialogue however had not been sufficiently consulted.

“The best way the federal government is dealing with this, it’s coming throughout as a neocolonial belch,” he stated.

Rutte acknowledged a careless dealing with of the run-up to the announcement and stated the Dutch authorities is sending representatives to Suriname, in addition to to Caribbean islands that stay part of the dominion of the Netherlands with various levels of autonomy: Curacao, Sint Maarten, Aruba, Bonaire, Saba and Sint Eustatius.