After Sukarno and Hatta proclaimed Indonesian independence on 17 August 1945, the Netherlands sought to restore its authority by force, deploying up to about 150,000 troops, including some 95,000-100,000 conscripts, in a war it officially termed 'police actions' and Indonesians call Agresi Militer Belanda. Two large offensives, Operation Product in July-August 1947 and Operation Kraai in December 1948, seized Republican territory, but guerrilla resistance, international pressure and the collapse of Dutch control led to the transfer of sovereignty in December 1949. A government-funded research programme by KITLV, NIMH and NIOD concluded in February 2022 that the Dutch government and military leadership deliberately condoned the systematic and widespread use of extreme violence, including torture, executions without trial, rape, the burning of kampongs, mass detention and heavy use of artillery, which caused the majority of Indonesian casualties. The best-known cases are the South Sulawesi campaign of Captain Raymond Westerling's Depot Speciale Troepen and other KNIL units, in which at least 3,500 unarmed Indonesians were executed without trial between mid-December 1946 and 22 February 1947, and the massacre at Rawagede on 9 December 1947. Prime Minister Mark Rutte endorsed the conclusions and apologised to the people of Indonesia on 17 February 2022. The violence of the bersiap period of 1945-46, much of it by Indonesian groups against Europeans, Indo-Europeans, Chinese and others, is a separate episode not counted here.
Dutch armed forces (KL, KNIL and special forces) fought to reimpose Dutch authority over territory held by the Republic of Indonesia, using extreme violence against Indonesian civilians and prisoners
The 2022 KITLV/NIMH/NIOD synthesis gives about 100,000 Indonesian soldiers and civilians killed as a result of Dutch violence, a long-standing estimate it says cannot be substantiated with accuracy but which Dutch scholars regard as probably the lower limit; Dutch sources alone record at least 46,000 Indonesian casualties during and in the seven months after Operation Kraai. No upper bound is given because the study found no basis for one: it notes that demographic calculations suggest excess mortality in the millions in 1940-1950 without any way to apportion it to military violence. The documented South Sulawesi executions (at least 3,500 per the study; 40,000 in Indonesian commemoration) fall within this total. Dutch-side deaths, about 5,300 of which half were from accidents or disease, are not included.
The KITLV/NIMH/NIOD research programme (Beyond the Pale, 2022) documented executions without trial, the South Sulawesi and Rawagede massacres, torture, rape, the burning of kampongs and mass internment, and Dutch courts in 2011 and 2020 found the state liable for the Rawagede killings and South Sulawesi executions.
Indonesia