A formal apology has been extended by Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte on behalf of the Dutch state for the historical role that the Netherlands played in the slave trade. Rutte said that slavery must be acknowledged in "the clearest terms" as a crime against humanity.On Monday, the Prime Minister of the Netherlands gave a speech at the National Archives in The Hague, where he admitted that the past "cannot be erased, only faced up to."he said, for centuries the Dutch state had “enabled, encouraged and profited from slavery”.
“People were commodified, exploited and traded in the name of the Dutch state”, he said, adding: “It is true nobody alive today bears any personal guilt for slavery. But the Dutch state bears responsibility for the immense suffering of those who were enslaved, and their descendants. Today, on behalf of the Dutch government, I apologise for the past actions of the Dutch state.”
However, its official apology has generated a great deal of controversy, with descendants' organisations and several of the affected nations criticising it as hurried and stating that the Netherlands' lack of engagement demonstrated the persistence of colonial values. On July 1, 2020, the 150th anniversary of the abolition of slavery there, campaigners argue that the Dutch monarch, Willem-Alexander, should apologise in the former province of Suriname. There is "not one correct time for everyone," according to Rutte, who described picking the proper time as a "complex subject." Slavery was legally abolished in all Dutch overseas possessions on July 1, 1863, making the Netherlands one of the last nations to do so. However, Suriname's abolishment of slavery took longer than the Netherlands' since Suriname had to go through a 10-year transitional phase. Silveria Jacobs, the prime minister of Sint Maarten, a Dutch enclave in the Caribbean, said over the weekend that the island would not accept any government apologies "until our advisory committee has reviewed it and we as a nation addressed it." We've been waiting for real reparatory justice for a couple hundred years, according to campaigner Rhoda Arrindell from Sint Maarten. We think we can hold out a bit longer.
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