Dutch prime minister apologizes for Netherlands' role in slave trade
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Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte officially apologized for Netherlands' role in slavery on Monday. Photo: Robin van Lonkhuijsen/ANP/AFP via Getty Images
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte formally apologized on Monday for the Netherlands' role in the slave trade, but many activists said the speech did not go far enough.
The big picture: The Netherlands played a key role in the transatlantic slave trade during the 17th to 19th centuries, with Dutch slave traders shipping an estimated 600,000 African men, women and children mostly to former colonies.
What they're saying: “For centuries, in the name of the Dutch state, human beings were made into commodities, exploited and abused," Rutte said in a nationally televised speech at the Dutch National Archive.
- "Today I apologize on behalf of the Dutch government for the Dutch state in the past," Rutte said, adding that the Netherlands has facilitated slavery and profited from it for centuries.
- The prime minister said he was making the apology "posthumously to all enslaved people worldwide who have suffered from those actions, to their daughters and sons, and to all their descendants into the here and now," per AP.
Driving the news: Monday's apology was in response to a report published last year by a government-appointed advisory panel, which recommended an official apology and the recognition that the slave trade under Dutch authority constituted "crimes against humanity."
Yes, but: While many welcomed the apology, activists also expressed disappointment in the fact the Dutch government has not committed to reparations, which was also recommended by the panel.
- "Reparation wasn’t even mentioned," Mitchell Esajas, director of the Black Archives, told AP.
- "So, beautiful words, but it’s not clear what the next concrete steps will be," Esajas added.
- Rutte told reporters on Monday that the government is not offering compensation to descendants of enslaved people, but it will establish a 200 million euro ($212 million) educational fund for programs that address the legacy of slavery in the Netherlands and its former colonies, AP reported.
- Prior to Rutte's speech on Monday, some campaigners had also called on the prime minister to wait to apologize until next year's anniversary of the abolition of slavery in the Netherlands' former colonies, per AP. Some also wanted the apology to come from King Willem-Alexander.
Context: According to a study by Leiden University, between 1612 and 1872, the Dutch operated from "some 10 fortresses" along the Gold Coast (now Ghana), where slaves were shipped across the Atlantic.
- The Dutch officially abolished slavery in its overseas territories in 1863, but it did not end for another decade in the former colony of Suriname because of a mandatory transition period there, per The Guardian.
