Van Heutsz’s report on Atjeh (June 1908) — the report of governor-general Van Heutsz to the Tweede Kamer following his inspection tour of December 1907 — is the document that confirmed the fall of Van Daalen and installed the new course of the pacificatie: administration through the indigenous hoofden (chiefs), bound to Dutch authority by “tactvolle omgang” — tactful intercourse. The report is, in the Vermeulen narrative, the official text that closes the Atjeh-oorlog ([[1873-1904)|Atjeh-oorlog]]‘s post-conquest crisis and opens the pacificatie proper.
The verdict on Van Daalen
The report’s verdict on Van Daalen was harsh:
“Hij heeft het beginsel van de pacificatie miskend. Hij heeft een verkeerde politiek gevoerd tegenover de hoofden, aan wie een onheuse bejegening ten deel viel. Hij heeft het goedgezinde deel der bevolking tussen twee vuren geplaatst”.
— He had misunderstood the principle of the pacification; he had pursued a wrong policy towards the chiefs, who had been given shabby treatment; he had placed the well-disposed part of the population between two fires.
Van Daalen — the report continued — had possessed the character-traits needed for breaking the resistance but had lacked the very different qualities required for the administrative task that followed. The maxim he had applied to the chiefs was: “Gij kunt die kerels niet vertrouwen, gij moet ze ook niet vertrouwen, gij moet ze slaan en drukken en dan zullen ze u gehoorzamen” — you cannot trust those fellows, you must not trust them, you must beat them and press them and then they will obey you. Idenburg — minister of Colonies — conceded that this view “nog zo gek niet was” — was not so foolish — but held that it belonged to a time of conquest rather than to a period of pacificatie. The report did, however, acknowledge that Van Daalen had acted vigorously against the specific atrocities for which he had been arraigned in De Avondpost.
The new principle
Van Heutsz’s report laid down, as the beginsel der pacificatie — principle of pacification — the “vanouds beproefd gebleken stelsel van bestuur door middel van de hoofden, die men door tactvolle omgang aan het Nederlandse gezag moest binden” — the long-tried system of administration through the chiefs, who were to be bound to Dutch authority by tactful intercourse. Where Van Daalen had humiliated the chiefs, Van Heutsz now restored them.
Van Deventer’s dissent
Van Deventer (v.d.) declined to accept that the mishandling of the chiefs was the principal cause of the continuing unrest in Atjeh. What kept the Atjehnese in revolt was that the cost of the subjugation was being charged to the Atjehnese themselves: heavy taxes and fines were being imposed, and spionnen- and gidsendiensten (spy- and guide-services) were being demanded as herendiensten (corvée). Van Deventer reminded the Tweede Kamer that Van Heutsz himself had written in 1893 in his De onderwerping van Atjeh: “wij zitten niet in Atjeh om vliegen te vangen en maar steeds onze millioenen weg te werpen; Atjeh moet onderworpen worden, dat is de zaak, en om dit resultaat na al ons morsen en knoeien nog te erlangen moet Atjeh zelf betalen wat daarvoor voortaan nog aan dit land wordt ten koste gelegd”. Van Deventer suspected that governor-general Van Heutsz had permitted Van Daalen to act in accordance with this 1893 view, and had only abandoned him when the December 1907 inspection tour had made the unworkability of “this harsh and grasping policy” plain.
IJzerman’s defence
IJzerman (u.l.) thought it unfair to pursue Van Heutsz with a brochure fifteen years old. “Hebben dan alleen de grote mannen in Nederland het recht om er oude plunje op na te houden?” — Have then only the great men in the Netherlands the right to keep old clothes in the closet? Why not rejoice that Van Heutsz had outgrown Van Daalen?
Ministerial endorsement
Idenburg — minister of Colonies — pronounced it Van Heutsz’s greatest merit that he had put an end to the Dutch feeling of impotence with respect to the Buitenbezettingen: “Hij heeft ons doen zien, dat wij, wanneer wij maar willen en onze middelen systematisch gebruiken, inderdaad ook kunnen bereiken wat wij ons tot taak hadden gesteld. Dat herwonnen zelfvertrouwen leidde er ons vanzelf toe om het ernstig te nemen met de plicht, welke ons als westerse mogendheid tegenover de Buitenbezittingen is opgelegd, het brengen van recht en orde”.
Significance
The June 1908 report is the official document that closes the post-conquest crisis of Atjehnese administration and opens the pacificatie proper. The principle it lays down — administration through the hoofden, bound by “tactvolle omgang” — is the governing principle of the Dutch administration of Atjeh for the next decade.
See Also
- J. B. van Heutsz
- G. C. E. van Daalen
- A. W. F. Idenburg
- C. Th. van Deventer
- IJzerman (vrij-liberaal MP)
- Van Heutsz’s inspection tour of Atjeh (December 1907)
- Van Daalen’s resignation (December 1907)
- Avondpost “Wekeer” articles (October 1907)
- De onderwerping van Atjeh (Van Heutsz, 1893)
- Pacificatie van Atjeh
- Herendienst (in Atjeh)
- Buitenbezittingen
- De Avondpost
- 1907
- 1908
Source
Schets eener parlementaire geschiedenis van Nederland van 1849 tot 1901, by Mr W. J. van Welderen baron Rengers, 4th rev. ed., Vol. IV: Oost-Indië 1891-1918 by Dr W. H. Vermeulen (‘s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1955), pp. 273-275.