H. C. Thomson — a Dutch liberal member of the Tweede Kamer and a former captain who had served in Atjeh for several years — is the principal first-hand parliamentary witness of the daily reality of the Dutch occupation of Atjeh cited by Vermeulen. His account of his own participation in the burning of kampongs, the felling of fruit trees and the killing of abandoned cattle is the most candid self-incrimination in the Indies parliamentary record of the Atjeh-oorlog ([[1873-1904)|Atjeh-oorlog]] period.
Thomson’s testimony
Thomson’s experience as a captain in Atjeh gave his parliamentary speeches an authority no other chambermember could match. His testimony, cited at length by Vermeulen, is the most explicit admission in the parliamentary record of the routine character of Dutch atrocities:
“Ik heb het zelf ondervonden in mijn kort verblijf op Atjeh; ik heb zonder enige wroeging meegedaan met het verbranden van gehele kampongs, het omhakken van vruchtbomen, doden van achtergelaten vee. Wat het volk zou voelen, als het daar een puinhoop vond op de plaats van de woning, daaraan dachten we niet. Als een fuselier een lijk omschopte om in de zakken te komen op zoek naar enig geld, trof mij dat niet. Een prent als ik hier bij me heb van maréchaussées die zich in een ingenomen benting laten fotograferen, de voet op Atjehse kinderlijken, vervulde ons niet met afgrijzen”.
— I have myself experienced it in my short stay in Atjeh; I have, without any scruple, taken part in the burning of entire kampongs, the felling of fruit-trees, the killing of abandoned cattle. What the people would feel when they found a heap of rubble where their dwelling had been — of that we did not think. When a fusilier kicked a corpse to rummage its pockets for some money, that did not strike me. A picture such as I have here with me of maréchaussées having themselves photographed in a captured benting, with their feet on Atjehnese children’s corpses, did not fill us with horror.
The garrison-strength debate
Thomson’s purpose in citing this evidence was not, however, primarily condemnatory. He used it to support the thesis that “de onmacht der Nederlandse troepen tot wreedheid leidde” — the impotence of the Dutch troops led to cruelty. The proper remedy was therefore reinforcement, not moral rearmament. He accordingly recommended that the maréchaussée (gendarmerie) in Atjeh be strengthened, and warned the Tweede Kamer against skimping the cost. To patrol the whole of Gajoland with seventy men was, in his view, “verregaand onvoldoende” — grossly insufficient. The same under-manning that had driven the atrocities he confessed also drove the “Wekeer” exposures three years later.
Significance
Thomson’s evidence is significant for the encyclopedia of Acheh history on two counts. First, it is the only place in the Rengers-Vermeulen record in which a parliamentary witness describes from first-hand participation the routine character of the punitive practices of the Dutch forces in Atjeh. Second, his analysis — atrocity as the consequence of under-manning — supplied the principal liberal-reformist argument of the post-1904 period: that the pacificatie required investment, not moralising.
See Also
- Atjeh-oorlog (1873-1904)
- Pacificatie van Atjeh
- Avondpost “Wekeer” articles (October 1907)
- G. C. E. van Daalen
- J. B. van Heutsz
- D. Fock
- Gajoland
- Maréchaussée (in Atjeh)
- 1904
- 1905
- 1907
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. 272-273.