PARAMARIBO, Suriname (AP) — Dutch colonizers kidnapped men, women and children and enslaved them on plants producing sugar, coffee and other goods that created wealth at the cost of misery.
On Monday, the Netherlands is expected to become one of the few countries to apologize for its role in slavery. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte plans to speak in the Netherlands as members of his cabinet deliver speeches in seven former colonies in the Caribbean, including Suriname.
The symbolism around crimes against humanity is controversial everywhere, and debates over Monday’s ceremonies are raging in Suriname and other Caribbean countries.
In Suriname, activists and officials say they were not asked to comment on the apology and it reflects a Dutch colonial attitude. What is really needed, they say, is compensation.
In 2013, the Caribbean trading bloc known as Caricom made a list of demands, including that European governments officially apologize and create a repatriation program for those wishing to return to their home countries, which does not occur.
“We are still feeling the effects of this period, so financial support would be welcome,” said Orlando Daniel, a 46-year-old security guard and descendant of slaves.
Suriname is an ethnically diverse country where around 60% of its 630,000 people live below the poverty line and 22% identify as maroons – ancestors of slaves who escaped and established their own communities.
The Dutch first became involved in the transatlantic slave trade in the late 1500s, but did not become a major trader until the mid-1600s when they seized Portuguese strongholds along the coast West Africa and plantations in northeast Brazil. Eventually, the Dutch West India Company became the largest transatlantic slave trader, said Karwan Fatah-Black, an expert in Dutch colonial history and assistant professor at Leiden University in the Netherlands.
Hundreds of thousands of people have been stigmatized and forced to work on plantations in Suriname and other settlements.
Portugal became the first European country to purchase slaves in West Africa with the help of the Catholic Church in the 1400s, followed by Spain. Some experts say large-scale sugar production in what is now Brazil later gave rise to the Atlantic slave trade which saw an estimated 12 million Africans transported to the Caribbean and the Americas on about 400 years, with at least 1 million deaths along the way.
Britain was among the first countries to outlaw the slave trade, in 1807. Dutch slavery continued until 1863.
If, as expected, the government issues a formal apology on Monday, it will put the Netherlands, which has a long history of progressive thinking and liberal laws, at the forefront of nations and global institutions seeking to atone for their role. in historical horrors.
In 2018, Denmark apologized to Ghana, which it colonized from the mid-17th century to the mid-19th century. In June, King Philippe of Belgium expressed his “deepest regrets” for the abuses in Congo. In 1992, Pope John Paul II apologized for the Church’s role in slavery. Americans had emotional battles to tear down statues of slave owners in the South.
A Dutch government-appointed board released a report last year saying that “today’s institutional racism cannot be separated from centuries of slavery and colonialism”.
Politicians and civil society organizations in Suriname say July 1, 2023 would be a more appropriate date for the apology ceremony as it marks 160 years since the abolition of slavery in the country.
“Why this rush? asked Barryl Biekman, chair of the Dutch National Platform for the Slavery Past.
Johan Roozer, chairman of Suriname’s National Committee on Past Slavery, said Legal Protection Minister Franc Weerwind, who has slave ancestry and is visiting Suriname on Monday, should also receive reparations.
Romeo Bronne, a 58-year-old businessman in Suriname, said an apology was needed but he wants to hear it from the Dutch king or his prime minister.
“Slavery was a terrible time and degrading acts were committed,” he said, calling for financial reparations to be spent on education, health and other public benefits. “We stayed poor.
Irma Hoever, a 73-year-old retired civil servant who lives in the capital, Paramaribo, said the Dutch “do not understand what they have done to us”.
They still appreciate what their ancestors have done to this day. We still suffer. Repairs are needed,” she said.
Activists from the Dutch Caribbean Territory of St. Maarten rejected the anticipated apology and also demanded reparations.
We have been waiting hundreds of years for true restorative justice. We think we can wait a little longer,” said Rhoda Arrindell, a former government minister and member of a local nonprofit, at a recent government meeting.
Like many countries, the Netherlands is grappling with its colonial past, with the history of Dutch slavery first added to the local school curriculum in 2006.
“There is a sector of society that really clings to colonial pride and struggles to recognize that their beloved historical figures played a role in this history,” Fatah-Black said, referring to sailors and merchants long revered as heroes of the 17th century. century of the Dutch Golden Age, when the country was a major world power.
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Coto reported from San Juan, Puerto Rico.
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