Van Vlijmen was the member of the Tweede Kamer who in the Atjeh debate of 16 November 1897 gave his unqualified adhesion to everything that had been done and was being done in Atjeh, and who pressed for a substantial increase in the number of recherchevaartuigen on the Acehnese coast.
On the justice of the war
Van Vlijmen conceded to Van Kol that every war was a national disaster and an evil, but held that such disasters were not always to be averted, and declined to go back into the past. What the causes of the war were had been sufficiently shown, he said, by Bahlmann. For himself he did not regard the war as unjust, “daar waar wij inderdaad moesten optreden tot verdediging van lijf en goed van de Nederlanders, wier schepen door de Atjehers werden geroofd.” — there where we indeed had to act in defence of the life and property of the Netherlanders whose ships were robbed by the Acehnese.
On the state of the Atjeh valley
Considering the matter without prejudice, he believed one might say that in the past year a better condition had been reached in Atjeh. The whole Atjeh-vallei was at rest and the population had returned to its rice fields. Here and there exceptions might exist, but on the whole he thought the condition in the valley could be called satisfactory, and that in consequence of the establishment of the three bivouacs of Tjot Mautjang, Indrapoeri and Loknga. By those three kampementen the Dutch commanded the whole valley and at the same time held in awe the still hostile chiefs who had withdrawn into the mountainous terrain, because those posts lay in their immediate neighbourhood.
The princes on the coast, he thought, would now also begin to understand that the Dutch were in earnest with the maintenance of their authority. In the previous year he had indicated that it would be useful to set some of the so-called friends to rights; Segli had indeed now had a lesson, and he hoped other friends might soon receive an admonition, so that the friendship might be confirmed.
His withdrawn motion of 1896
Van Vlijmen recalled that the motion he had proposed the previous year, and withdrawn on the advice of Cremer — then a private member — had in his view had some effect. More than before, attention had been directed to the coast, to the scheepvaartregeling, to the import of war contraband, and to the taking over of the taxes.
In the Koloniaal Verslag he found it recorded that the governor of Atjeh did not consider the time come to take over the rights or the taxes of the coastal princes. So be it, he said, but the communication was at least a proof that the matter had not fallen into the book of forgetfulness; and the appointment of a clerk of the scheepvaartregeling at Selok Semawé to be a brother of the Nederlandschen Leeuw also served him as proof that the Dutch officials on the coast were awake and that the scheepvaartregeling was at that moment no fiction.
The recherchevaartuigen
He looked with confidence above all to Minister Cremer at work, who in the previous year had told him from the members’ bench that he was a supporter of the taking over of the taxes of the coastal princes; and he rejoiced also at the request for three recherchevaartuigen. He would rather have seen ten requested, considering what the Voorloopig Verslag reported: that precisely the rivers and creeks frequently gave opportunity to small prauwen to bring in contraband, and that Dutch warships could not adequately watch against it. He instanced the case cited in the Koloniaal Verslag of the bringing in of war contraband at Simpang Anas. One could not therefore, he thought, be quick enough in building search vessels; only when those vessels were in action would the enemy begin to feel Dutch power through the obstruction of the import of war material.
Van Vlijmen voted against Van Kol’s motion.
See Also
- Atjeh debate in the Tweede Kamer (16-17 November 1897)
- Recherchevaartuigen
- Scheepvaartregeling
- Tjot Mautjang
- Indrapoeri
- Lhoknga
- Segli
- Simpang Anas
- J. T. Cremer
- Bahlmann
- 1897
Source
Atjeh in de Tweede Kamer: Debatten bij de behandeling der begrooting van Nederlandsch-Indië voor 1898, uitgave van de Sociaaldemokratische Arbeiderspartij in Nederland (Amsterdam: J. A. Fortuijn, 1897). Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen, Br P95-178, pp. 32–34, 60.
Acknowledgement of sources. The material in this article derives from Atjeh in de Tweede Kamer: Debatten bij de behandeling der begrooting van Nederlandsch-Indië voor 1898 (Amsterdam: J. A. Fortuijn, 1897). Dutch passages are quoted in the original with an English rendering.