5.1 Pangs of Conscience (interview)

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Description

After a tough period of forced labour in Japan, in 1945 the Indisch KNIL soldier Mr Belvroy had to face Indonesian revolutionaries. Not long afterwards, he was transferred to the Special Troops Depot (Depot Speciale Troepen, DST) commando unit. He ended up on South Sulawesi under the charge of Captain Raymond Westerling, where he had to apply the notorious ‘Westerling method’. This method involved using harsh tactics to obtain intelligence from the local people, which was then used to draw up a list of alleged ‘terrorists’. The DST troops would encircle a kampong and the people on the list would be executed, in public without trial. While exact estimates vary, thousands of people were killed in this way on South Sulawesi between December 1946 and March 1947; this was a war crime that had approval from on high. Belvroy talks about how carrying out these ‘purges’ brought him pangs of conscience in later life.

Interview with Mr F.C. Belvroy. SMGI 1024.1 (11). Hengelo, 1997.

Transcription

B: “Then you ask yourself if you really went through that. Then you feel guilty. You took part in something that you didn’t want. That’s sometimes difficult to explain. It’s very difficult to be able to endorse it. The fact that you still went through it, without knowing or wanting it. Because that’s what it’s about in the end.”

I: “You’re referring to your military deployment against the Indonesians? How did you feel about that, the fact that you were deployed against your own people if I can put it like that?”

B: “Yes.

I: “How did you feel about that?”

B: “You point your gun barrel at people you would actually like to keep alive. And that’s the difficult thing: processing what happened. Even now. Because basically you’re a soldier but you’re also a murderer. Because that’s what it’s about: you need to be able to justify it, and that’s not possible.”

I: “Couldn’t you go to your superiors and say, ‘Sorry, I can’t do this?’”

B: “That wasn’t accepted. You were a soldier and you had to do your duty. That was what you were told.”