Dutch Indonesia Reconquest Wars
1945-49 police actions and mass violence
After Japan's surrender, the Netherlands tried to reconquer Indonesia through "police actions," scorched villages, and summary executions. Dutch courts and historians later confirmed systematic excesses long denied in official language.
Damage
Dutch postwar reconquest campaigns killed large numbers of Indonesian combatants and civilians.
Lives lost
Tens to over a hundred thousand Indonesian dead across the conflict (order-of-magnitude; contested)
Record Points
- Operation Product and Operation Crow sought to smash the Republic by force.
- Rawagede and other massacre sites became emblems of Dutch war crimes.
- Dutch veterans' testimony and later government inquiries acknowledged extreme violence.
- Recognition of Indonesian independence was delayed and backdated in political theater.
- This file is the reconquest war.
Perpetrator(s)
Victims
Indonesia