By David Comissiong Ambassador to Caricom
On the 19th of December 2022, Prime Minister Mark Rutte of the Netherlands, speaking on behalf of the entire Dutch Government, issued a formal Apology for the role that the Government of the Netherlands played in the enslavement of African people and in the so-called slave trade that supported that system of human oppression.
Now, properly understood and interpreted, Prime Minister Rutte’s Statement constituted not only an apology, but also an “Admission of Liability” for the damage that the centuries of Dutch governmental criminality caused to enslaved Africans and to their present-day descendants.
Here then are some of the most critical admissions made by Prime Minister Rutte in his said Statement:-
• “We who live in today’s world must acknowledge the evils of slavery in the clearest possible terms, and condemn it as a crime against humanity – as a criminal system which caused untold numbers of people untold suffering – suffering that continues in the lives of people today”
• “By 1814, more than 600,000 enslaved African women, men, and children had been shipped to the American continent in deplorable conditions, by Dutch slave traders. Most were taken to Suriname, but others were sent to Curacao, St Eustatius and other locations. They were wrenched from their families and stripped of their humanity. They were transported and treated like cattle – often under the governmental authority of the Dutch West India Company”
• “The Dutch State, in all its manifestations through history, bears responsibility for the terrible suffering inflicted on enslaved people and their descendants. So we cannot ignore the effects of the past on the present”
• “Today, on behalf of the Dutch government, I apologize for the past actions of the Dutch State : to enslaved people in the past, everywhere in the world, who suffered as a consequence of those actions, as well as to their daughters and sons, and to all descendants, up to the present day”
• “During the year of commemoration, all facets of the history of slavery and its effects up to the present day will be brought to light……..We will also set up a fund for social initiatives throughout the Kingdom and in Suriname, so that the impact of the history of slavery is given the visibility, attention and action that is needed. The healing process must start now, and we will write the programme for that process together”
• “We cannot change the past, but we can face up to it. What the government fervently hopes, and what I personally fervently hope, is that this moment, this day, will help us – throughout the Kingdom and together with Suriname and other countries – to fill the empty pages that lie ahead with dialogue, acknowledgement and healing”
Prime Minister Rutte should be commended for making this historic Apology /Admission of Liability. Indeed, both he and the government that he leads have come a long way from the position that they adopted back in December of 2016, when, in response to CARICOM’s letter of 25th January 2016 informing Mr Rutte that CARICOM considered that the Netherlands had a Reparations case to answer for the genocide of the native people and for the enslavement of our African ancestors, Prime Minister Rutte was only able to manage an expression of profound regret for the suffering of innocent people caused by the horrors of slavery .
And so, we in CARICOM should congratulate Mr Rutte and his Administration for the admirable progressive development in their thinking on this issue over the past six years.
CARICOM should also carefully explain to Prime Minister Rutte that when he commits himself and his Government to a process of “healing” the injury that the past criminal actions of the Dutch Government caused to the sons and daughters of Africa and to their present-day descendants, that this can only mean a process of “repair” or of “Reparations”, along the lines of the demands contained in CARICOM’s Ten Point Plan for Reparatory Justice.
Indeed, there can be no process of meaningful healing that is not based on the Dutch Government – in consultation with the affected populations and their Governments or political leaders – instituting and financing concrete developmental initiatives and programmes that are designed to rectify educational, health, technological, human welfare, economic and cultural deficits, and that also support a substantive “repatriation” programme for relevant African descendants who wish to return to the African mother continent that Dutch slave traders brutally removed their ancestors from. All of this needs to be made very clear to Prime Minister Rutte.
And yet another thing that needs to be made clear to the Prime Minister is that Dutch involvement in and responsibility for the evil consequences of enslavement and slave trading is not restricted to countries or territories that were directly colonized by Holland!
Rather, Dutch merchants, bankers, slave traders, sugar technologists, industrialists and government officials played critical roles in establishing, financing and otherwise supporting slavery and slavery-based production in many non-Dutch territories, particularly in the Caribbean.
Let us take the case of my homeland of Barbados – a British colonial possession from 1625 to 1966. The historian, Matthew Parker, writing in his insightful text titled “The Sugar Barons” gives this account of the critical role played by the Dutch in the establishment of Barbados as a slavery-based, sugar producing British colonial territory in the first half of the 17th century :-
“The earliest accounts of Barbados…..are partial and contradictory. All agree, however, that Dutch influence was crucial in the establishment of the sugar industry on this island in the early 1640s.
The actual technology was Portuguese……But it was the Dutch…..who were the engine of its transfer, as well as offering to provide labour, tools, easy credit, and the ships to carry away the finished sugar……”
Indeed, Matthew Parker actually quotes from an historical document of the 1660s, which testified to the critical role of the Dutch in Barbados as follows:-
“The Hollanders that are great encouragers of our Plantacions, did at the first attempt of making sugar, give great Credit to the most sober Inhabitants…….They also furnished the island with Negroes, Coppers, Stills and all other things appertaining to the …..making of sugar.”
But, of course, it was not only Barbados. Similar Dutch involvement, influence and support was to be found all over our Caribbean region. Here then is the more expansive and general testimony of the outstanding Caribbean historian, Dr Eric Williams (first Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago) contained in his magisterial “From Columbus To Castro” :-
“Seventeenth century Caribbean history saw a perpetual war ….between Holland, England and France for Caribbean commerce. The Dutch, turning their attention to trade rather than plantations, early took the lead……
“So successful were the Dutch in their chosen field that, by the middle of the century, of a total of 25,000 ships engaged in the maritime trade of Europe, the Dutch owned 15,000…..
“The Caribbean Sea became virtually a Dutch canal.
The new European annexations in the Caribbean, English, French and Danish de jure, were de facto Dutch……..It was the Dutch who, when tobacco prices fell on the world market, taught the planters the secrets of cane cultivation and sugar manufacture. It was the Dutch who provided the necessary supply of slaves…..”
So there can be no doubt that Holland or the Netherlands was critical to establishing and operating a multiplicity of slavery-based sugar plantations in Barbados and in several other non-Dutch Caribbean territories, and that Holland profited immensely from its involvement in and support for these essentially criminal enterprises.
It is now up to the CARICOM Reparations Commission to inform Prime Minister Rutte that the time has come for a conversation about the role that his Government must now play in healing the injuries that still exist not only in the Dutch-speaking CARICOM member state of Suriname, but also in Guyana (a former Dutch colonial possession), and in Barbados and all other relevant CARICOM nations.
