The Netherlands has decided to return valuable artifacts taken from Indonesia and Sri Lanka during the colonial period, writes the BBC.
Among the items that will be returned to their countries of origin are a bejeweled bronze cannon and a cache of stolen gems. The planned restitution is related to the commitment of the Netherlands to fix what was done in the colonial past.
Other European countries have also started to return the stolen treasures. One example is the decision of the British and German museums to return to Nigeria a collection of cultural history objects, the so-called Benin bronzes.
The Dutch Culture Minister said that items are being returned that should not be in the Netherlands at first place.
“But we are not only returning items. We are also starting much more intensive cooperation with Indonesia and Sri Lanka,”
the Minister said.
Among the collections that will be returned to Indonesia are the so-called Lombok treasures – a collection of jewelry, precious stones, gold, and silver that was stolen from the royal palace on the island of Lombok in 1894 by the Dutch colonial army.
Sri Lanka will receive back a lavishly decorated 18th-century bronze cannon currently on display in a museum in Amsterdam. It was a gift from a Sri Lankan aristocrat to the King of Kandy in the 1740s and came to the Netherlands after 1765.
The Minister of Culture stated that the government was guided by the 2020 report, which focused on works of art imported to the Netherlands during the colonial period. At the time, the committee that produced the report recommended that the government voluntarily return any cultural property exported from former Dutch colonies if the country of origin requests it. The report says
the Netherlands must take responsibility for its colonial past
by acknowledging and addressing injustice.
The Netherlands has paid special attention to sorting out its colonial past in recent years. On the 1st of July, King Willem Alexander officially apologized for the country’s role in the slave trade.
The Netherlands became a powerful colonial power in the 17th century, acquiring vast overseas territories.